The California Commission on the Fair Administration of Justice, a blue-rib­bon pan­el estab­lished by the state leg­is­la­ture to study and review the death penal­ty and relat­ed mat­ters in California, has pro­posed sig­nif­i­cant changes in the use of eye­wit­ness iden­ti­fi­ca­tion in California courts. The com­mis­sion called on leg­is­la­tors to pass a bill requir­ing the attor­ney gen­er­al’s office to con­vene a task force to devel­op guide­lines for new pro­ce­dures and train­ings in eye­wit­ness iden­ti­fi­ca­tion. It also urged a dozen spe­cif­ic pro­ce­dur­al reforms aimed at improv­ing the accu­ra­cy of the cur­rent sys­tem, includ­ing adopt­ing dou­ble-blind and sequen­tial iden­ti­fi­ca­tion pro­ce­dures and chang­ing wit­ness iden­ti­fi­ca­tion meth­ods using line­ups or pho­to arrays so that indi­vid­u­als are pre­sent­ed sequen­tial­ly rather than simul­ta­ne­ous­ly.

Citing seri­ous prob­lems with cross-racial iden­ti­fi­ca­tions that have led to wrong­ful con­vic­tions, the com­mis­sion not­ed, ​“Research has con­sis­tent­ly con­firmed that cross-racial iden­ti­fi­ca­tions are not as reli­able as with­in-race inden­ti­fi­ca­tions.” Members of the com­mis­sion based their most recent rec­om­men­da­tions on a series of stud­ies exam­in­ing the caus­es of wrong­ful con­vic­tions. According to the Innocence Project at the Cardozo School of Law in New York, mis­tak­en iden­ti­fi­ca­tions have been involved in near­ly three times as many wrong­ful con­vic­tion cas­es as the next most com­mon fac­tor. A University of Michigan Law School study pub­lished in 2005 not­ed that ​“the risk of error is greater in cross-racial iden­ti­fi­ca­tions” and found that mis­tak­en eye­wit­ness iden­ti­fi­ca­tion was involved in 88% if wrong­ful rape and sex­u­al assault convictions. 

The announce­ment was the first set of rec­om­men­da­tions from the com­mis­sion, which is made up of pros­e­cu­tors, defense attor­neys, law pro­fes­sors, and oth­er experts. In addi­tion to eye­wit­ness iden­ti­fi­ca­tion, the com­mis­sion is also set to inves­ti­gate issues such as false con­fes­sions, per­jured tes­ti­mo­ny, mis­han­dling of foren­sic evi­dence, with­hold­ing of excul­pa­to­ry evi­dence and incom­pe­tent defense lawyers. The group has until December 2007 to issue its final report and rec­om­men­da­tions. (Los Angeles Times, April 14, 2006). See the Commission’s Web site. See also, Innocence.

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