I just don’t understand *why *you think that. In your cite, the police are on the scene soon after the crime hass been committed, and so are the perpetrator and the victim. The police detain a suspicious character; he was runing away, or fit a general description, or whatever. The point is, he was *in the *vicinity, and the only suspect in the vicinity. That distinguishes him from just about everybody else on the planet. If she had said “no,” that would have been the end of it. Also, the event was fresh in the victim’s mind.
Now compare this to a photo lineup that happens days or weeks later. Where do the police get the one photo so they can ask “is this the guy?”
Why do you suppose that most states, as well as the DOJ, disagree with you? And that, if anything, the trend is for lineups to be *more *restrictive?
I just heard (WWW.DRUDGEREPORT.COM), that the LW has just given birth to a baby girl. I wonder who the father will turn out to be? Not that this has ANY bearing upon the case!
But the justice system is entirely about determining the veracity of claims in the face of honest and dishonest witnesses, or for that matter simply unreliable ones. The fillers are an absolutely essential tool in determining the reliability of a witness’s evidence, and to say that we simply shouldn’t worry about the case when someone is lying or mistaken is just unsupportable.
I’m sure you believe that you are honest, and that you believe you have the mental fortitude to say “no” when the police present you with their suspect and ask you to concur. But you’re looking at it from the wrong point of view. This is an observational tool for the police to assess the reliability of a witness about whom they can make no assumptions. It’s not supposed to make it easier for the witness; it’s supposed to increase the value of the resultant information. Surely you acknowledge that untrustworty and unreliable witnesses are all over the place, and that we have very little way to know who they are in advance? I know my memory for faces is utterly shit, for example. Why would you choose to discount a tool that makes it more likely for their testimony to be identified as such? Isn’t it absolutely essential?
In Duke, the attackers are also distinguished from just about everybody else on the planet by virtue of them being at that party on that night. This is what I think distinguishes it from many other crimes, the suspects are immediately culled down from millions to 30, now it’s just a matter of picking through the 30 to determine which ones did it.
One other thought, is the line-up procedure there to prevent dishonest accusers, or prevent mistakes?
And it would be immediately known, since at least some of the other people at the party would have fresh memories of the new arrival.
Because the selection of possible suspects in the former situation is determined by impartial facts (the people who are on the scene of the alleged crime in the immediate aftermath) and the selection of possible suspects in the latter situation is determined by the police based on their current suspicions. Fillers serve to blunt the bias inherent to the latter.
I would think it would be to establish whether the accuser is a credible witness to her own claim. Credibility is not just about honesty. It’s also about accuracy.
What puzzles me is why so many seem to leap to the conclusion that she is lying just because she picked out people who weren’t at the party. If I was deliberately making a false accusation, it would make no sense for me to point my finger at someone whom I knew was not even there, as that would hurt my case even before we even got to the part about proving rape. It seems much more likely that such a false identification would be the result of a mistake. Especially in light of the fact that a) she didn’t know the guys beforehand and b) a few days had elapsed.
I haven’t scrunitized Nifong’s line-up procedure much at all, but I’m failing to see the egregiousness that others are seeing. The accuser said that members of the lacrosse team whom were at the party commited the crime. The only people at the party (at the time of the alleged rape) were lacrosse members. But of course not all the members of the team were at the party. Nifong presented her a line-up of all the lacrosse players (minus the black guy). Now wouldn’t the “fillers” therefore be those team members who were not present at the party? I don’t see how this set up is any different from any other line-up in which an accuser is ask to finger the assailant from a group of suspects and non-suspects.
To me, the claim that there were “no wrong answers” is wrong and if only for the fact that we know she was wrong about at least one of them.
Most people who claim she is lying do so because she has given multiple, contradictory accounts of the alleged event, not because of the flawed lineup. Comtradictory accounts neccessarily indicate lying. Cites upon request.
I have followed this case quite closely, and I have never seen it stated that the accuser said that the people at the party were only members of the LAX team. I will gladly be disabused of this notion if I am wrong.
But let’s say that she did say that, and the information is somehow credible. (I have no idea how she would know whether anyone at all was a team member, much less all of them. As it turns out, non team members attended as well.) She still has not identified anyone in particular, only team members in general. As far as the police are concerned, they are all suspects. DOJ guidelines call for 8 fillers per suspect, NC gudelines call for 6, General Rule 4077 calls for 5. That’s a lineup of at least 276 photos. She was shown 46.
As far as anyone knew there were no wrong answers. The sole criteria for being a suspect was “white memeber of the Duke LAX team.” Every photo shown was that of a “white member of the Duke LAX team.” Ergo, no wrong answers. Any answer picked a suspect. In a standard lineup, at least 5 out of 6 are not suspects, somany answer has a 1 out of 6 chance of being wrong.
So does the LW.
Because she claimed that she was raped by people at the party. Since one of the people she has accused turns out not to have been at the party, then she is either lying or mistaken.
Or she was pig-ass drunk at the party, therefore didn’t get paid, and decided to make false charges of rape to try to get revenge or some kind of hush money.
A few months ago I would have said it was hard to understand why you don’t understand something as basic as that. I know better now.
Regards,
Shodan
I think I understand now. I thought a suspect was defined as anyone who was at the party and was a Lacrosse player. If the suspect pool was just limited to team membership, then I can see where the “no wrong answer” thing comes from.
Both, witness can lie, and can be mistaken.
The problem with only showing the LW the 46 photos of people at the party, is they could have just as well put each photo in an envelope sealed them up and handed them to her. Then they could have asked her to hold the envelopes to her forehead one at a time and say “Carnic tell me”
After she had done this with all 46 ask her to pick out the three attackers. No matter which three envelopes she choose, the DA had a valid suspect. This is because there were no wrong answers.
If you have 5 to 8 fillers for each suspect, and the witness chooses three guys that were not even there, it is pretty obvious that you eyewitness isn’t worth a shit. Furthermore, if she chooses one or two guys that weren’t there, it will go a long way to impeach her testimony. Again showing that the witness is not that strong. It is entirely possible that you could have a bad eyewitness case, but a slam-dunk case from DNA, phone records, video tape whatever. If you have no witness, you have to make your case another way.
This lineup reminds me of what we used to say in College chem lab. It is way easier to plot our curve and then gather data to match what we expect, then it is to do it the other way around.
It was way easier to give the LW only photos of people that were on the LAX team and have her pick three, any three than it would be to do a proper photo array and risk having the case turn out to be nothing but a lying witness.
The DA hopped on this lying whore and rode her like a rented horse to reelection. Now he has found out that his date to the reelection has herpes, aids, and the clap. Furthermore he forgot to use a condom. Now he is trying to convince his wife (the public) that he got all of these things from a toilet seat. Sucks to be him. He should have been more careful who he got in bed with.
I have two responses.
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You have been arguing all along that photo ID’s are just like identifying someone at the scene and should be treated as such, not just in this case, but in general. Are you now arguing that photo ID’s should only be treated that way in certain cases? Just asking for clarification here.
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46 is not 1. In your analogy, a victim describes and identifies a single attacker. For your analogy to hold, the victim would have to say “It was three of those 46 guys.” No way is an officer going to arrest 46 guys on such an accusation.
OK, I am pretty much caught up, but what does LW mean?
“Lying Whore”.
And now I feel like an idiot.
No, but I am saying that this particular set of circumstances do not warrant a standard “line-up” procedure, either by photo or in person.
In the situation I cited, the women did not identify one person, they identified that there was one attacker, fitting description X, who ran off into the darkness to parts unknown. The police drove around, passing who knows how many potential suspects, and hit upon a guy who happened to be wandering around the neighborhood and matched the description.
At the time they positively identified him, there was only a description and a general neighborhood to distinguish him, yet he gets stood up alone to be identified. It is trivially easy to see how a person could get brought forth for identification when they had absolutely nothing to do with the crime, and it’s just as easy for a liar to finger someone wrongly, or for someone to be mistaken. Yet, this is a valid ID procedure.
Unfortunately, the legal system is not an a la carte menu. If you show a witness pictures of suspects, that is a lineup. Lineups are standardized. Non-standard lineups will be tossed out of court. Protocol exists for a reason. You said you understood the cites. What is the point of having a protocol if you can just do whatever the fuck you want as long as you call it something else? The police presented Mangum with a lineup. It was fatally flawed. End of story.
Emphasis added. Mangum did not offer a description. The police investigation began three days after the alleged incident. The situations are not analagous. Not even remotely.
There’s been a couple of hypotheticals and references to other situations, so I don’t know if you’re referring to one of those, or to the Crystal Mangum case, when you mention “this particular set of circumstances.”
Surely it can’t be this case, can it?
First, do you agree with those who have suggested the passage of time (at least several days, here) inherently makes identification significantly less reliable than “in the heat of the moment?”
Have you considered that in these circumstances, there was also evidence she was in an altered state on the night of the (non-existent) incident, rendering the reliability of any recollection even more dubious?
Have you further considered that the characterizations of the “rape” (beginning with the other whore’s report of racial slurs but no rape, and going on through LW Crystal’s inconsistent story of being raped by 20, no three, no . . . . however many guys) would be an even further factor that would make you want to set up the lineup in a way that would test the truthfulness and accuracy of her ID?
There were all kinds of suggestions that would lead one to suspect a lineup of only Duke lax players would lead to false positive IDs, and that they would not stand out as false positives because the test was rigged so as to “bolster” her statement that lax players raped her (by supplying her with a pool of only lax players). This would not provide any real incremental proof, but would be touted as doing so or as “confirming” her earlier report.
Sprinkling in a bunch of filler photos would, OTOH, highlight starkly if there were any false positives, and would have minimal risks of leading to false negatives for an honest and credible victim. What compelling reason (and we ought to demand compelling reasons when the government is jeopardizing a citizen’s freedom) can anyone point to for NOT taking this simple step?
It’s hard to escape the conclusion that, in the absence of any motivation NOT to have a proper lineup, and given the significant risks of not doing so, that this decision could only have been taken intentionally and for the purpose of avoiding an undesired outcome of Dumbfuck Nifong’s stupid, substance-addled, lying complainant botching the frame-up.
Really?
Describe the last non-family, non-friend person you met yesterday.
The last person I talked to was
a) an employee at a grocery store
b) maybe 5’7" or 5’8"
c) male, about 22-28
d) dark hair, pale skin, clean-shaven
Pretty damned compelling, huh? Then what you’re saying is that the police should show me a lineup of photos that consist of:
a) employees from the grocery store
b) between 5’6" and 5’9"
c) male, about 20-30
d) dark hair, pale skin, clean-shaven
And I’ll pick one. Guess what? It matches my eyewitness report. Ergo, says the Carolina prosecutor, we have the right person; ergo, since I picked someone who matched my vague description, that person is guilty.
Are you seriously suggesting you can’t pick logical holes in that?
Here’s the latest variation on the story as told by the L.W.