Moving Forward: Response to "Studying Eyewitness Investigations in the Field"

Publication Date

2-1-2008

Document Type

Article

Abstract

Field studies of eyewitness identification are richly confounded. Determining which confounds undermine interpretation is important. The blind administration confound in the Illinois study is said to undermine it's value for understanding the relative utility of simultaneous and sequential lineups. Most criticisms of the Illinois study focus on filler identifications, and related inferences about the importance of the blind confound. We find no convincing evidence supporting this line of attack and wonder at filler identifications as the major line of criticism. More debilitating problems impede using the Illinois study to address the simultaneous versus sequential lineup controversy: inability to estimate guilt independent of identification evidence, lack of protocol compliance monitoring, and assessment of lineups quality. Moving forward requires removing these limitations.

Publication Title

Law And Human Behavior

Volume

32

Issue

1

First Page

16

Last Page

21

DOI

10.1007/s10979-007-9104-x

Publisher Policy

pre-print, post-print with 1- to 24- month embargo

This document is currently not available here.

Find in your library

Share

COinS