Judges don't have to screen witnesses, court rules
http://dervishcom.blogspot.com/2012/01/judges-dont-have-to-screen-witnesses.html
WASHINGTON – Judges need not screen potentially unreliable eyewitnesses before they testify as long as the witnesses weren't improperly influenced by police, the Supreme Court ruled 8-1 Wednesday.
Writing for the majority, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg said it suffices to test a witness's reliability through the usual trial procedures of cross-examination, rules of evidence and jury instructions about the fallibility of eyewitness IDs.
The majority rejected a New Hampshire defendant's request to broaden pretrial screening of witnesses beyond what is required when there has been improper police influence, such as when a suspect in a lineup is made to wear distinctive clothes.
Only Justice Sonia Sotomayor dissented. She emphasized the unreliability of eyewitness IDs and said the court's ruling "enshrines a murky distinction — between suggestive confrontations intentionally orchestrated by the police and, as here, those inadvertently caused by policy actions — that will sow confusion."
Eyewitness accounts have long been a subject of concern. The American Psychological Association told the justices that experiments and studies "have consistently found that the rate of incorrect identifications is approximately 33%."
Barion Perry was convicted of theft of stereo equipment from a car after he was identified by a woman who had been watching a man break into a car from her window above the parking lot.
A Nashua police officer who had been called to the scene stopped Perry when she saw him with a set of speakers. He said he had been there innocently and was "just moving them." When another officer asked the witness in the apartment building for a description of the person who broke into the car, the woman said it was the man in the lot talking to the other officer.
Perry's lawyer had argued that the trial judge should have specially reviewed the witness's ID before trial because Perry was next to a police officer when she identified him, possibly suggesting that police considered him a suspect.
He argued that eyewitness testimony is so undependable that it should be reviewed in all suggestive circumstances even when the police are not involved.
In situations when a judge is required to review evidence before trial, it is excluded when there's a "very substantial likelihood of irreparable misidentification" but allowed if the elements of its reliability outweigh any corrupting effect of the police-arranged suggestive circumstances.
In her decision for the majority, Ginsburg noted that the court had concluded in other cases, such as those involving jailhouse snitches, that the potential unreliability of a type of evidence does not render its introduction at trial fundamentally unfair.
"Safeguards built into our adversary system can serve to inhibit juries from placing undue weight on eyewitness and other testimony of questionable reliability," Ginsburg said as she read her decision in Perry v. New Hampshire from the bench.
Writing for the majority, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg said it suffices to test a witness's reliability through the usual trial procedures of cross-examination, rules of evidence and jury instructions about the fallibility of eyewitness IDs.
The majority rejected a New Hampshire defendant's request to broaden pretrial screening of witnesses beyond what is required when there has been improper police influence, such as when a suspect in a lineup is made to wear distinctive clothes.
Only Justice Sonia Sotomayor dissented. She emphasized the unreliability of eyewitness IDs and said the court's ruling "enshrines a murky distinction — between suggestive confrontations intentionally orchestrated by the police and, as here, those inadvertently caused by policy actions — that will sow confusion."
Eyewitness accounts have long been a subject of concern. The American Psychological Association told the justices that experiments and studies "have consistently found that the rate of incorrect identifications is approximately 33%."
Barion Perry was convicted of theft of stereo equipment from a car after he was identified by a woman who had been watching a man break into a car from her window above the parking lot.
A Nashua police officer who had been called to the scene stopped Perry when she saw him with a set of speakers. He said he had been there innocently and was "just moving them." When another officer asked the witness in the apartment building for a description of the person who broke into the car, the woman said it was the man in the lot talking to the other officer.
Perry's lawyer had argued that the trial judge should have specially reviewed the witness's ID before trial because Perry was next to a police officer when she identified him, possibly suggesting that police considered him a suspect.
He argued that eyewitness testimony is so undependable that it should be reviewed in all suggestive circumstances even when the police are not involved.
In situations when a judge is required to review evidence before trial, it is excluded when there's a "very substantial likelihood of irreparable misidentification" but allowed if the elements of its reliability outweigh any corrupting effect of the police-arranged suggestive circumstances.
In her decision for the majority, Ginsburg noted that the court had concluded in other cases, such as those involving jailhouse snitches, that the potential unreliability of a type of evidence does not render its introduction at trial fundamentally unfair.
"Safeguards built into our adversary system can serve to inhibit juries from placing undue weight on eyewitness and other testimony of questionable reliability," Ginsburg said as she read her decision in Perry v. New Hampshire from the bench.
