Tuesday, January 09, 2007
Chief Pat Norris of the Winston-Salem Police Department and other officers demonstrated yesterday how the police department would use a new, computer-based photo lineup that a state commission says can help avoid wrongful identifications by witnesses to crimes.
Norris announced in May 2004 that the department would adopt guidelines from the Chief Justice's Commission on Actual Innocence.
The announcement was made not long after Darryl Hunt was exonerated in the 1984 murder of Deborah Sykes, a crime for which he served 18 years in prison. DNA testing led to the identification of a new suspect, who admitted to killing Sykes.
Hunt had been identified based on questionable witnesses.
Yesterday at the Bryce A. Stuart building, Norris cited another misidentification case, that of Ronald Cotton, as the type of case the new technology could help prevent.
Cotton spent more than 10 years in prison after being convicted of raping a Burlington woman in July 1984. He was convicted of that crime and a second rape, mainly based on eyewitness testimony of the victim in both offenses.
Cotton was set free in 1995 after DNA evidence showed that another Burlington man had committed both crimes.
Until now, Winston-Salem police have generally used lineups that were paper based, and witnesses could choose from six photos. Witnesses viewing the new lineups can choose from eight photos and will use a computer to make their selections.
Witnesses will view each photo separately on the computer screen to make their selections. The length of time a witness spends looking at each photo, the selected photo and other information are recorded in a computer-generated report as part of the process.
If a witness fails twice to make a selection after viewing each photo in the lineup, the process ends.
Norris said that her department is one of the first police departments in the state to use the computer software for witness identification.
"The software does the whole procedure for us, so there is less human error involved," Norris said. "It will improve the reliability of eyewitness identification."
Additionally, the officer administering the photo lineup will not know the suspect's identity. The commission said that investigators who know the suspect's identity could inadvertently tip off a witness.
Mark Rabil, an assistant capital defender who helped defend Darryl Hunt, said that the changes should "make the process more scientific."
"They (photo lineups) are being done sequentially, and that compares their memory of the person they saw do something with the person in front of them," Rabil said. "When it's spread out, they compare one photo with the others and pick the best of the six or eight photos that are out there. That's why one photograph pops up after another under the changes."
So far, investigators have shown 12 photo lineups using the new computer software, which cost about $10,000 Norris said. The robbery division has completed training. The remaining investigators should complete training on the new procedure this month, Norris said.
The commission's guidelines that prompted the changes were met with some opposition, however.
Norris, a member on the commission, announced the adoption of the guidelines in 2004, though some of her top investigators disagreed with them.
Police investigators criticized the commission in an internal memo that was circulated to other police chiefs. Norris later said that the memo - distributed before she became chief - was one opinion but was not the position of her department.
Lt. Brad Yandell also said that police will begin videotaping interrogations.
"The video rooms are being constructed, and we are not expecting to be fully operational until the end of February," Yandell said. "We do have the equipment, but it hasn't been installed."
© 2007 Winston-Salem Journal. The Winston-Salem Journal is a Media General newspaper.