New Department of Justice guidance will direct agents at the FBI, Drug Enforcement Administration, Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives and the U.S. Marshals Service in how they conduct photo arrays to determine whether a witness can identify a criminal suspect.

The new procedures, announced by Justice Department Deputy Attorney General Sally Q. Yates on Jan. 6, offer guidance as to how agents should administer collected photos containing the image of a suspect to eyewitnesses in either "blind" or "blinded" procedures.

When working "blind," the agents showing photos don’t know what the suspect looks like; in a "blinded" procedure the administrator knows what the suspect looks like but doesn’t know the order or arrangement of photos being shown.

This directive assures that agents will not suggest, even unintentionally, which image is of the believed perpetrator of the crime, assuring witness reactions — the self-confidence of which are to be documented by audio- or video-recording or verbatim transcription — remain accurate and uninfluenced.

"Eyewitness identifications play an important role in our criminal justice system and it’s important that we get them right," Yates said in a news release. "With today’s procedures, we’re taking one more step to ensure that law enforcement officers obtain the most reliable evidence possible during a criminal investigation and that all Americans can have confidence in the fairness of our criminal justice system."

A complete copy of the memorandum can be viewed on DOJ’s website.

Share:
In Other News
Load More