What have we learned from exonerations? - apparently nothing
Michael Green walked out of a Harris county courtroom several weeks after spending 27 years for a rape he didn't commit. The story was a familiar - a bad eyewitness identification, disproved by DNA evidence. The story is familiar because most of the exoneration involved bad ID's. That's not surprising, since studies show eyewitness identifications are not nearly as reliable as everyone believes. You would think - or at least hope - that these exonerations would give credence to these studies, and cause prosecutors to look closely at cases that are based solely on eyewitness ID's. Well keep hoping.
There is an incredible disconnect between what people read about, and how that applies to their own life. You read about bad things happening to people, and you think nothing like that could happen to you. The same concept applies to eyewitness cases - prosecutors know about them, but they don't think it could happen in their cases. After all, the police officers they work with are good guys, and wouldn't bring a case if they aren't sure the defendant is guilty. Well guess what - the prosecutors in all the 270 plus exonerations probably thought the same thing.
I realized this when talking with a prosecutor last week about a case, where an identification was made in questionable circumstances. There were a number of reasons why the ID could be bad, which I pointed out. The response I got was - yeah but he picked him out, why would he do that if it wasn't the guy. He knew about problems with eyewitness ID's, but he was convinced they didn't apply in this case.
I'm convinced this is always going to be the case. Prosecutors want to believe victims; no one, whether it be the prosecutor or the police officer, wants to tell them they are wrong. They are willing to overlook contradicting evidence because it's just an attempt by the accused to get off. And after all, the victim doesn't have any motive to identify the accused (at least in most cases).
We need to start handling these cases differently. So far changes in identification procedures have been the primary focus, but I'm not sure that is enough. Perhaps we need to treat eyewitness ID's like we treat accomplice witnesses in Texas - require corroboration. Instructions might be another way, as well as greater use of expert testimony. We need to do something though, or we have learned nothing from the individuals who have been required to years of lives to bring the problem in the open.
I agree that ID cases should require some form of corroboration. I grieve to think how many innocent people are in prison today, who are in fact innocent. I know. In 1981, as an Assistant D. A. in Dallas County, I presented a one eye witness case against Charles Chatman. My witness was sure Mr. Chatman was her attacker. Twenty six years later, we were all proven wrong. We must fix this system