PA District Attorneys Present New Guidelines For Identifying Suspects
By Jim Melwert
PHILADELPHIA (CBS) -- The Pennsylvania District Attorney's Association is out with recommended guidelines on eye-witness identifications of suspects.
Chester County district attorney Tom Hogan chairs the PDAA's best practices committee, which worked with law enforcement, social scientists, and even the criminal defense attorneys association in an effort to establish guidelines for the best ways for investigators to use photos to get an ID from an eyewitness.
There were five recommendations from the committee, one of them: the person showing photos to the witness shouldn't know which one is the suspect to prevent any cues to the witness, intentional or otherwise:
"If you have an administrator who is the case investigator and who knows who the suspect is, there is some concern they might subconsciously affect the person – the witness who is doing the array," said Hogan.
Another recommendation: take note of the reaction of the witness, the confidence level, such as "I think that's him," or "That is definitely him."
Hogan says sometimes, in the case of a violent crime, there may be more obvious cues. The witness may break down or even start to shake when they see a photo of the suspect.
Next up for the committee: police body cameras, including legal and legislative issues.