As Georgia law­mak­ers con­vene to review eye­wit­ness iden­ti­fi­ca­tion pro­ce­dures in the state, a new study by the Georgia Innocence Project has revealed that 83% of Georgia police agen­cies have no writ­ten rules on han­dling eye­wit­ness iden­ti­fi­ca­tions. Six men have been exon­er­at­ed in Georgia after DNA evi­dence proved their inno­cence and ​“every sin­gle one of those orig­i­nal con­vic­tions was based on faulty iden­ti­fi­ca­tions,” notes Representative Stephanie Stuckey Benfield, who chairs the study com­mit­tee and has intro­duced leg­is­la­tion to tight­en eye­wit­ness guide­lines in the state.

The study com­mit­tee meet­ings will include tes­ti­mo­ny from law enforce­ment offi­cials, legal experts, DNA exonerees, and oth­ers com­ment­ing on the state’s exist­ing eye­wit­ness iden­ti­fi­ca­tion stan­dards. According to the Georgia Innocence Project, which will present its recent find­ings dur­ing the meet­ings, only 9% of police depart­ments that respond­ed to their recent sur­vey used Peace Officer Standards and Training guide­lines for eye­wit­ness mat­ters. Eleven per­cent of depart­ments don’t con­duct line­ups at all, rely­ing instead on the Georgia Bureau of Investigations or local sher­if­f’s offi­cials to per­form these duties.

Supporters of eye­wit­ness iden­ti­fi­ca­tion reform point to tech­niques being tried in oth­er cities or rec­om­mend­ed in research stud­ies. Among the pos­si­ble reforms is the imple­men­ta­tion of a dou­ble-blind pro­ce­dure in which nei­ther the wit­ness nor the offi­cer con­duct­ing a line­up knows who the sus­pect is so that the offi­cer does not unin­ten­tion­al­ly give out hints to the wit­ness. Another pos­si­ble reform requires ​“con­fi­dence state­ments” from wit­ness­es after they sin­gle out line­up sus­pects so they can record how cer­tain they are before their mem­o­ries gel over time. Of the more than 200 con­vic­tions nation­wide that have been over­turned through DNA evi­dence, includ­ing some death penal­ty cas­es, incor­rect eye­wit­ness iden­ti­fi­ca­tion was a fac­tor in more than 75% of the cas­es.

Benfield con­clud­ed, ​“We real­ly hope at the end of these hear­ings, we have an active con­ver­sa­tion going that includes the Legislature, law enforce­ment and pros­e­cu­tors and can reach a con­sen­sus on the need for eye­wit­ness iden­ti­fi­ca­tion reform.”
(Atlanta Journal-Constitution, September 17, 2007 and Savannah Morning News, September 17, 2007). See Innocence and Recent Legislative Developments.

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