"Eyewitness" Bill Is Worthy Of Support

It has long been known that eyewitness testimony is not reliable, and yet many criminal cases depend on eyewitness testimony to get a conviction. Both police and prosecutors depend on eyewitness identification, especially when they don't have much other evidence. When this involves a person identifying someone they know and have met before, it is usually reliable. After all, we all are good at recognizing friends and acquaintances.

It is when a person must identify a stranger that problems arise. They may have only seen the person for a few seconds, but they are expected to pick this stranger out (even though there may be many people that look sort of like him/her). This is a problem, and many times the eyewitness may pick up clues (perhaps unintended) from a police officer ( and if asked to identify a single person they may assume this is the guilty party because they have been arrested and look somewhat like the person they hazily remember).

This can result in an erroneous identification, and the conviction of an innocent person. Here in Texas alone at least 44 people have been exonerated by DNA after being convicted of a crime. And 38 of those people had been convicted because of eyewitness testimony. We simply don't know how many innocent people are sitting in prison after being convicted on erroneous eyewitness testimony, but their case doesn't have DNA that can be tested. Obviously this is a problem that needs to be corrected.

I am not suggesting that eyewitness testimony is worthless and must never be used. That would be ridiculous because it is sometimes valuable -- especially in identifying people the eyewitness has known previously. But there must be some rules established for all police agencies to follow to minimize the number of faulty identifications. Currently each police agency is allowed to create and follow its own procedures for eyewitness identifications, and some of those are good while others are not.

State Senator Rodney Ellis (D-Houston) wants to fix this problem. Ellis (pictured) has introduced a bill that would give the Bill Blackwood Law Enforcement Management Institute at Sam Houston State University the authority to develop a policy and training materials on proper procedures for eyewitness testimony. The bill would mandate that all police agencies in Texas then be trained and required to use those procedures.

The bill is not a cure-all for the problem but it would reduce the number of erroneous identifications, and that would be a very good thing. So far the bill is proceeding nicely. It has been recommended out of both the Senate's Criminal Justice Committee and the House's Criminal Jurisprudence Committee. Now it goes to the floor of both chambers for debate and a vote. I hope it can avoid Austin's political game-playing and receive the approval of both chambers and be sent to the governor (where proponents have been assured the governor will sign it).

There have been a lot of silly bills introduced in the Texas legislature this session. This is not one of them. This is badly needed, and should pass. I hope it does.