Citation

Smith AM, Bertrand M, Lindsay RCL, Kalmet N, Grossman D, Provenzano D. J. Exp. Psychol. Appl. 2014; 20(3): 247-259.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2014, American Psychological Association)

DOI

10.1037/xap0000018

PMID

24820149

Abstract

If an eyewitness rejects a show-up, police may respond by finding a new suspect and conducting a second show-up with the same eyewitness. Police may continue finding suspects and conducting show-ups until the eyewitness makes an identification (Study 1). Relatively low criterion-setting eyewitnesses filter themselves out of the multiple show-ups procedure by choosing the first suspect with whom they are presented (Studies 2 and 3). Accordingly, response bias was more stringent on the second show-up when compared with the first, but became no more stringent with additional show-ups. Despite this stringent shift in response bias, innocence risk increased with additional show-ups, as false alarms cumulate (Studies 2 and 3). Although unbiased show-up instructions decreased innocent suspect identifications, the numbers were still discouraging (Study 4). Given the high number of innocent suspects who would be mistakenly identified through the use of multiple show-up procedures, using such identifications as evidence of guilt is questionable. Although evidence of guilt is limited to identifications from a single show-up, practical constraints might sometimes require police to use additional show-ups. Accordingly, we propose a stronger partition between evidentiary and investigative procedures. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2014 APA, all rights reserved).

Language: en