NCJ Number
208940
Journal
International Journal of Evidence & Proof Volume: 7 Issue: 4 Dated: 2003 Pages: 237-263
Date Published
2003
Length
27 pages
Annotation
This analysis considers the likely impact on police of the document entitled Eyewitness Identification: A Guide for Law Enforcement Officers (1999).
Abstract
Eyewitness Identification: A Guide for Law Enforcement Officers (Guide) is a document that provides information, advice, and instruction regarding how police officers can ensure the accuracy of eyewitness identification. The document was prepared in the wake of serious concern about miscarriages of justice in the United States made on the basis of incorrect eyewitness testimony. Before considering the efficacy of this document and its probable influence on police operations, the author reviews the background and rationale for the Code of Practice in England and Wales which has governed police identification evidence gathering in the United Kingdom since 1984. The author is critical of the fact that the Guide fails to acknowledge more than 40 years of case law and legislation in the United Kingdom on eyewitness identification, despite the appraisals of other reviewers who praise the Guide for its reliance on psychological research. Also considered is the extent to which police officers in the United States are likely to embrace the guidelines offered in the Guide in the absence of formal polices and sanctions. The guidelines offered in the Guide are compared with the mandatory requirements of English law as the author argues that problems associated with the external imposition of controls on policing in the United States are unlikely to be successful without the adoption of internal police policies and sanctions. In the end, the Guide is critiqued as both unscholarly and unwise given the absence of both legal research and administrative controls to inform and reinforce the Guide. Footnotes, references