How do jurors assess eyewitness testimony? Jurors' assessments of eyewitness testimony following exposure to inappropriate identification procedures

Eyewitness testimony lies at the heart of many criminal convictions. Historically there has been little more damning to a defendant than the testimony of an eyewitness that says, “it was him, I saw him commit the crime.” However, eyewitness can be mistaken and these mistaken identifications have led to many wrongful convictions as the results of recent DNA testing have shown. At this point 261 wrongfully convicted individuals have been released.;Research has demonstrated that one way to reduce the number of false identifications it to use appropriate procedures when conducting an eyewitness identification through lineup or photo array. Proper procedures include gathering the witnesses’ certainty in their identification before telling the witness that they have identified the suspect and providing appropriate instructions that state that the individual who committed the crime may or not be in the lineup. When the procedures used to collect an eyewitness identification are flawed the subsequent identification is less likely to be accurate and as such should be viewed with more skepticism than if correct procedure had been followed.;The studies herein test three types of education about proper procedure that may be provided to jurors; education on Department of Justice Guidelines provided to jurors through cross examination of the officer who conducted the lineup, expert testimony, and judicial instruction. When proper procedure was violated because the officer provided confirmatory feedback (“Good job, you identified the suspect”) jurors were more skeptical of the case; they found the case to be weaker, the credibility of the eyewitness to be reduced, and the lineup to be more improper. However, even with these findings and a feeling that that officer had influenced the witness and placed the case in jeopardy no effect was seen on verdicts. When an officer failed to provide proper instructions significant effects were found only for perceptions of lineup propriety and again no difference was seen in verdicts. The level of general knowledge that mock jurors held was the only factor that affected verdicts and for this reason education may be the only hope for correcting for improperly gathered eyewitness identifications at trial.