Attempting to reform a practice that has contributed to more than 50 wrongful convictions in Illinois, an organization of criminal defense attorneys urged a state appellate court Thursday to order the release of data purporting to justify the faulty eyewitness identification procedures employed by the Chicago and Joliet Police Departments.
The records supposedly support the use of traditional police lineups, forming the basis for an Illinois State Police study concluding that traditional lineups were more accurate than alternative methods recommended by researchers and used in practice by some police departments. Those findings have been disputed by the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers (NACDL), which cites abundant scientific evidence showing that traditional police lineups are more likely than other methods to yield false identifications.
NACDL has mounted a three-year quest to obtain the Chicago and Joliet police data under the Freedom of Informati on Act (FOIA) Both departments have rebuffed those efforts, and a 2008 Cook County Circuit Court decision required only partial disclosure of the information.
During oral arguments appealing that decision Thursday, NACDL’s attorneys told the court that researchers should be permitted to review the underlying data.
In Illinois, 54 innocent people have spent a total of 601 years behind bars because of erroneous eyewitness convictions, according to an analysis by the Center on Wrongful Convictions.
"We should remember that the connection between these faulty lineup procedures and wrongful convictions was the very impetus for this State Police study," said Locke Bowman, Legal Director of the Roderick MacArthur Justice Center at Northwestern University School of Law, which represents NACDL in the lawsuit.
The data supplied by Chicago and Joliet police were factored into a study by the Illinois State Police, which was ordered by the Illinois General Assembly as part of the reforms associated with the moratorium on executions in the state.
The study compared traditional lineup methods to an alternative using a procedure, validated in a number of research studies, called "sequential double-blind." In that method, witnesses view one suspect at a time under the supervision of an officer who does not know which person in the lineup is the one suspected by police.
In concluding that traditional lineups were more accurate, the Illinois State Police report contradicted extensive scientific research reaching the opposite conclusion. In fact, police departments in other cities have abandoned the lineup procedures favored in Chicago and instead employ the sequential double-blind method.
Updated (11/19/2009)
