Courts make a lot of chin music about the perils of eyewitness misidentification. But when it comes to scrutinizing the suggestiveness of lineup procedures. . .
. . . everyone is expected to take the cops’ word for it that they didn’t tell the witness who the suspect is.
When the cops have other evidence – a DNA match, for example – they see no reason not to help the witness i.d. the “right” guy.
Courts frequently chuckle that “police stations are not theatrical casting offices.” Or that the fillers don’t have to be the suspect’s “identical twins.”A difference in skin color, for example, is only one factor to be considered and doesn’t make the lineup suggestive.
If the suspect has a distinguishing feature — a moustache, for example — which the fillers don’t have, the police can cover up the difference. Courts are firmly convinced that height differences are invisible if everyone is sitting down. Apparently they never go to the movies.
If you cannot decide, pick the one in the middle. It works on standardized tests.