New Justice Department guidelines aim to ensure reliability of photo arrays to ID suspects
The U.S. Justice Department has released guidelines for federal law enforcement on how to conduct photo arrays to ensure reliable eyewitness identifications.
The Justice Department says federal agents should use “blind” or “blinded” procedures when conducting the arrays, in which an eyewitness is asked to identify a crime suspect from among several photos. A press release is here, and the memo to law enforcement is here; a story by NPR is here.
In a blind procedure, the agent conducting the array does not know what the suspect looks like. In a blinded procedure, the agent takes steps so that he or she can’t view the order of the photographs viewed by the witness. The procedure is designed to ensure that the agent doesn’t signal the suspect, even unintentionally.
The guidelines also say the witness’s expressed confidence in the initial identification should be documented, either by a video or audio recording of the witness’s reaction, or by a transcription of the witness’s statements that is as close to verbatim as possible.
The guidelines also say that photo arrays should include photos of at least five people who aren’t suspects, and they should generally fit the witness’s description of the perpetrator.
University of Virginia law professor Brandon Garrett tells NPR that the memo reflects a series of best practices that are based on scientific research.
The guidance applies to agents at the FBI; Drug Enforcement Administration; Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives; and U.S. Marshals Service. It is also intended to guide federal prosecutors when deciding whether to charge a suspect identified in a photo array.
