Eyewitness Identification and the Problematics of Blackstonian Reform of the Criminal Law

Rosenthal, Lawrence

doi:10.2139/ssrn.3362968

Cited by 1 publication

(1 citation statement)

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“…Furthermore, an ethic of applying more emphasis on protecting the innocent is deeply, philosophically embedded in the American criminal justice system. The most well-known expression of this philosophy is the Blackstone ratio, whereby the cost of acquitting 10 guilty people is equivalent to the cost of convicting one innocent person (Volokh, 1997; for a critique of the Blackstonian approach as applied to eyewitnesses, see Rosenthal, 2020).…”

Section: Defining Utilitiesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Legal actors’ and laypersons’ utility judgments of eyewitness lineup procedures and outcomes.

Zimmerman,

Rodriguez

2024

Law and Human Behavior

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Objective: Recent attempts to model the relative performances of eyewitness lineup procedures necessarily include theoretical assumptions about the various costs/benefits, or utilities, of different identification outcomes. We collected data to incorporate empirically derived utilities into such modeling as well as data on various stakeholders' views of lineup procedures as tertiary objectives. Hypotheses: This research was exploratory; therefore, we did not have a priori hypotheses. Method: We surveyed judges' (n = 70), prosecutors' (n = 28), police officers' (n = 82), and laypersons' (n = 191) opinions about eyewitness identification procedures and the utilities of outcomes of eyewitness identification procedures. We incorporated the utility judgments into models comparing the desirability of various lineup reforms and compared policy preferences between our samples. Results: All samples frequently mentioned estimator and system variables in open-ended evaluations of lineup procedures, but legal samples mentioned system variables more often than did laypersons. Reflector variables (e.g., confidence) were mentioned less often across the board, as was the scientific basis/standardization of identification policy (especially among laypersons). Utility judgments of various identification outcomes indicated that judges adopt values more closely aligned with normative legal ethics (i.e., the Blackstone ratio), whereas other stakeholders (especially laypersons) depart significantly from those standards. Utility models indicated general agreement among samples in lineup procedure preferences, which varied as a function of culprit-presence base rates. Conclusion: Although legal stakeholders vary in how they value eyewitness identification outcomes, their values imply relatively consistent policy preferences that sometimes depart from scientific recommendations. Nonetheless, all samples expressed support for using scientific research to inform legal policy regarding eyewitness evidence. Public Significance StatementLegal stakeholders evaluate eyewitness outcomes reasonably, but their evaluations imply policy preferences that sometimes differ from common scientific recommendations. Such departures from normatively accepted procedural recommendations largely flow from considering all identification outcomes (e.g., filler identifications) instead of only correct/incorrect suspect identifications. Nevertheless, policy reform recommendations sometimes rest on considerations other than just eyewitness identification accuracy, and scientists should effectively communicate this quandary.

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Section: Defining Utilitiesmentioning

confidence: 99%