"Nearly
300 American men and women wrongly convicted of crimes have been exonerated by DNA
testing. And in the bulk of those cases — almost 75% — the convictions were
based in part on faulty eyewitness identifications.
Witnesses
are often asked to identify suspects from photo lineups, which are typically
conducted by the officers investigating a crime. But numerous scientific
studies on memory and identification have demonstrated that witnesses can be
influenced, intentionally or not, by the person conducting a lineup. An officer
who believes one of the people in a photo lineup is the likely perpetrator can
influence — sometimes without even meaning to — the proceeding."Los Angeles Times
