By Lauren PondThe Daily Northwestern
Criminal defense lawyers filed a lawsuit against Evanston’s police department and other Illinois police agencies Thursday, seeking data used in a 2006 report criticizing an experimental suspect lineup procedure, representatives of the lawyers’ group said.
The lawsuit came from proponents of the system, in which witnesses see suspects one at a time instead of in a group. In the suit, the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers asks to see the data behind the police’s critical report, according to a media release from the group. The suit was filed in conjunction with Northwestern School of Law’s MacArthur Justice Center.
As part of a yearlong pilot program, officers in Chicago, Evanston and Joliet tested a sequential, double-blind method of identifying suspects. Using this method, a witness sees suspects one at a time. Neither the administrator nor the witness knows the identity of the subject.
Police criticized the new method in a March 2006 report, concluding that a group lineup was more effective in identifying suspects.
Other research suggests the sequential method is more reliable, said Jack King, NACDL director of public affairs and communications. Police haven’t to share the data and methods used for the report, he said.
“We question their conclusion, and we don’t have any more information,” King said.
The Illinois State Police and the Chicago, Evanston and Joliet police departments are all involved in the suit, King said. As of Thursday afternoon, Illinois State Police said they had not yet heard of the lawsuit. Evanston and Chicago police did not return phone calls Thursday.
Evanston police gave The Daily statistics for the study in May 2006. Sixty percent of witnesses who saw the group lineup correctly identified the suspect, but only 45 percent of witnesses correctly identified the suspect in a sequential lineup. Forty-seven percent of witnesses viewing the sequential lineup failed to identify a subject.
“If you’re going to decrease false identifications, then you’re going to decrease correct identifications,” University of Texas Prof. Roy S. Malpass told The Daily in May. Malpass, who designed the study, said studies supporting the sequential lineup had been done under controlled settings.
The police-issued report criticizing the method has far-reaching effects, King said .
“Police departments around the country are using the Illinois report as justification for not trying more reliable methods of witness identification,” he said. Suspect misidentification accounts for more than 70 percent of wrongful convictions, King said.
“If the person goes to trial and is convicted, he is not going to be exonerated,” King said.
Reach Lauren Pond at [email protected].
