Dallas Pioneers Photo Lineups

Police rely on a witness' memory to identify suspects

The Dallas police department has become the nation's largest force to use a pioneering photo lineup method meant to reduce mistakes by witnesses identifying suspects.
 
Dallas isn't the first department to use the method called sequential blind photo lineups. But it's located in the county that leads the nation in exonerating wrongly convicted inmates. So experts are hoping Dallas will inspire other departments to follow suit.
 
Mug shots are shown one at a time in sequential blind lineups. Traditional methods display all the photos at once.
 
Experts say showing photos together makes witnesses compare the mug shots to one another. But if shown one at a time, witnesses have a better chance of comparing the pictures to their memory.
 

Copyright AP - Associated Press
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