Alton Logan, Alejandro Dominguez and David Dowaliby (Photos: Jennifer Linzer)
Erroneous eyewitness testimony — whether offered in good faith or perjured — is the single greatest cause of wrongful convictions in the U.S. criminal justice system.
Yet the extent of the problem — and, for that matter, the extent of any of the myriad other problems known to lead to wrongful convictions — can never be known, for the simple reason that it is visible only when innocence is clearly established; erroneous eyewitness identifications in cases in which innocence cannot be proved are permanently out of sight.
Examples of Erroneous Eyewitness Identification in Illinois:
Robert Brown
Ronnie Bullock
Dean Cage
Darrell Cameron
Xavier Catron
Algie Crivens
Alejandro Dominguez
David Dowaliby
Michael Evans
David A. Gray
Dana Holland
Elton Houston
Thaddeus Jimenez
Juan Johnson
Richard J. Johnson
Alton Logan
James Newsome
Marlon Pendleton
Anthony Porter
Donald Reynolds
Steven Smith
Paul Terry
Darby Tillis
John Willis
Robert Wilson
Remedies for Erroneous Eyewitness Identification:
The lineup protocol endorsed by the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers, the Center on Wrongful Convictions, and the MacArthur Justice Center would replace the current lineup procedure with a sequential, double-blind procedure. Presenting suspects to witnesses sequentially rather than side by side reduces the tendency of witnesses to make relative judgments, which often are inaccurate. The double-blind aspect, under which the investigator administering the identification procedure does not know who the suspect is, reduces the possibility that witnesses will be improperly influenced to chose a particular individual.