Houston Chronicle
HOUSTON — Houston-area law enforcement agencies have made little headway adopting policies to help eyewitnesses accurately identify suspected criminals.
Despite a statewide study last year criticizing how law enforcement agencies conduct police lineups, many departments still have not written policies or adopted procedures that advocates say can reduce faulty eyewitness identification.
Reform is needed because misidentification has played a role in more than 75 percent of DNA exonerations nationwide and 82 percent of DNA exonerations in Texas, making it the leading cause of wrongful convictions, according to The Justice Project, a national organization that works for fairness and accuracy in the criminal justice system.
“Eyewitness evidence is just like DNA evidence,” said Edwin Colfax, executive director of The Justice Project in Austin. “When you collect it, you have to be careful not to contaminate it and you have to store it with scientifically sound protocols.”
A statewide study released by the organization last year revealed that only 12 percent of Texas law enforcement agencies had written policies and at most 7 percent had strong policies regarding cautionary instructions, blind lineups, lineup composition and comprehensive documentation of procedures.
The Harris County Sheriff’s Office, for example, has not updated its written policy to include the use of blind lineups or sequential photo lineups, which are among the best practices endorsed by reformers and the U.S. Justice Department. One procedure requires that an officer not involved in the criminal investigation conduct the lineup to eliminate influences that could change a witness’s memory. The other procedure involves showing pictures one at a time to get a more a accurate identification.
The Houston Police Department is one of the few agencies that has adopted a new policy. The move came in October after the issue was debated during last year’s legislative session, a police spokesman said. HPD officials, however, declined to discuss the policy, which features several best practices, including officer training and documentation.
It does not include blind lineups and sequential photo lineups procedure.
Research rejected
Many law enforcement officials have resisted accepting memory research that shows certain procedures can tap witnesses’ memories more effectively and produce more accurate results.
Some of the resistance has do with entrenched tradition, but, in other cases, the validity and practicality of the procedures have come under question, police officials said.
Eyewitness identification expert Robert Shomer said police reject the research because they don’t understand it and don’t receive training for this specific type of evidence.
“That’s why we’re in the situation we’re in,” said Shomer, who has worked in the field for 35 years.
“Memory is more reconstruction than playing back a video,” he said. “We have to accommodate for the way people actually see, hear and respond to procedures.”
Brazoria County Sheriff Charles Wagner, whose agency has a written policy, said he gets the gist of the scientific evidence. He said he just doesn’t believe that it has been proven to translate into real police situations.
There’s also the ongoing debate about what truly are the best practices and who is in a better position to define them - law enforcement officers or researchers.
“Everybody wants to do what’s right and ensure that we get the right results,” said James McLauglin, president of the Texas Police Chiefs Association. “The devil is in the details.”
During last year’s legislative session, his association supported an unsuccessful bill that would have mandated all police agencies to adopt written policies that incorporated best practices. The group, however, negotiated for less restrictive language, giving agencies some flexibility in developing policies.
New bill expected
Lawmakers set up a panel to review the state’s eyewitness identification procedures and will use the information to draft another bill next year, said Sen. Rodney Ellis, D-Houston.
Despite the resistance, some police agencies are making major changes. The Dallas and Richardson police departments have both successfully adopted written policies incorporating many of the best practices, and the Austin department recently drafted a policy.
Dallas police Lt. David Pughes said his department began looking at the research about five years ago and began making gradual changes. In April 2009, the department adopted a written policy modeled on the recommended best practices.
He said the new protocols are a radical change to the investigative process and more labor intensive but worth the effort if they help to keep innocent people out of prison.
Copyright 2010 Houston Chronicle