Salon.com > The Innocence Project http://www.salon.com Mon, 20 May 2013 02:00:00 +0000 en hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.2.1 Why police lineups can’t be trusted http://www.salon.com/2012/09/29/why_criminal_lineups_cant_be_trusted/ http://www.salon.com/2012/09/29/why_criminal_lineups_cant_be_trusted/#comments Sat, 29 Sep 2012 15:00:00 +0000 http://www.origin.railrode.net/?p=13025289 Pacific Standard Studies have shown that memory and recall are more fallible than failsafe. That finding undermines eyewitness identifications—a critical prosecution mainstay—revealing them as far more fragile evidence than imagined. Just ask Rickey Dale Wyatt of Dallas, Texas. On January 4, 2012, he was released from prison after serving 31 years of a 99-year sentence for a rape he did not commit.

Police were sure that a single rapist had committed a cluster of rapes when they arrested Wyatt for three assaults.

The third victim, who had been grabbed from behind and dragged at knifepoint to a dimly lit area, was the first to identify Wyatt. Ultimately, all three picked Wyatt from photographic lineups. All had described their rapists as being between 170 and 200 pounds, between 5’9” and 6’, and as having no facial hair. Wyatt is 5’6”, was close to 140 pounds—and he had abundant facial hair and a mustache.

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