Raising the Standard of Evidence for Initiating an Identification Procedure

Abstract

How do police select suspects for witnesses to identify? There is currently no standard for the quantity of evidence required before investigators can order an identification procedure. Because eyewitness misidentification continues to be the leading cause of wrongful convictions, law and policy should guide police discretion at this investigatory stage by requiring detectives to show an evidentiary basis for placing suspects in lineups, showups, or photo arrays. The American Law Institute has proposed an addition to the Model Penal Code requiring Graduate where she teaches doctoral sem-inars on criminal justice policy, criminology and the law, police, and sentenc- ing. She publishes widely in law and criminal justice journals, most recently on reforming sentencing laws for burglary (in Journal of Legislation, with Phil- ip Kopp, 2020). From 2016–2018, McCoy served as Director of Policy Analysis for the Inspector General for the New York City Police Department. She has served on several policy advisory boards, most recently on the Plea Bargaining Review Task Force of the New York City Bar Association. McCoy holds a B.A. from Hiram College (Political Science and Spanish), a J.D. from the University of Cincinnati, and a Ph.D. in Jurisprudence and Social Policy from the University of California, Berkeley. She is a member of the Ohio bar. † Jacqueline Katzman is a doctoral student at the City University of New York, Graduate Center and John Jay College, where she is dual specializing in the Psy- chology and Law and Basic and Applied Social Psychology Programs. She re-searches the way in which social psychological principles—such as attributions, impression formation, attitudes, and heuristics—affect eyewitness identification and juror decisionmaking. She has presented at conferences nationwide and received the American Psychology-Law Society’s Outstanding Student Presenta- tion Award in Spring 2020. Katzman’s work has been published by traditional outlets such as Oxford University Press as well as digital media outlets