The police just told me who to pick out of a line-up

In My Humble Opinion
1

I was assaulted in an attempted robbery a few nights ago. Two folks jumped me for my backpack, one tall, dark, and thin, the other shorter, lighter, and stockier. Since then, I’ve spoken several times with the detective on the case–let’s call him Harrison.

Yesterday, he came in with a photo array of people resembling the tall thug. Harrison handed the photo array off to an officer who was not involved in the case, to avoid cuing me somehow. The officer gave me a long list of pre-array notices, including that “the suspect may not be in the photos” and that “the detective will continue to investigate thoroughly even if you fail to make an identification.” Indeed, I couldn’t make an ID–the road I was on was poorly lit, and the thin guy hung further back and egged the other one on, so he was never in my face.

Today, though, Harrison handed the case off to another detective whom I will call Franklin. He came with a line-up for the shorter guy, the one who did all the punching. Franklin said he had no knowledge of the case, and gave me the same notices as Harrison’s officer. However, he added his own advice–that it was important to “dial my mind back” all the way to the incident and put myself in the road that night. He repeated this three times.

We went through the photos. The first four I didn’t recognize. Then, before the fifth photo, he stopped, and said, “let me emphasize–it’s really important that you dial your mind back…” before handing me a picture that I recognized as my assailant.

He showed me three more photos after, for about two seconds each, then thanked me for the ID. Before he left, he said “I just wish I could have been there to help you with the first line-up.”

I’m 90-95% confident that I made a valid ID and he really was the guy punching me. But at the same time, this kind of shoddy police work really bothers me. If the photo I picked is really the guy and they put me on the stand, I’d be honest about the ID and there’s a good chance he walks–if he ISN’T the guy, and I made a mistake cause it’s dark, then this police railroading could send the wrong person to jail.

Should I say or do anything, or just let the police do their job? Any thoughts or advice would be appreciated.

2

Your identification is just one part of the case, and a conviction is not guaranteed on your statement alone. Are there witnesses? Can the guy account for his whereabouts at the time of the incident? Is there any physical evidence tying him to the assault?

For your part, if you feel there’s any chance you would not have identified the guy without the detective’s rather unsubtle cues, well, I’d say there’s your answer.

The usual disclaimer: IANAL, I know nothing about the legal niceties except what I see on cop shows, etc.

3

It’s a lawyer’s job to see to it that people go to jail for the crimes they did, based on evidence. It’s the police’s job to protect the peace. So far as the duty which has been given to them is concerned, locking up people who do bad things is the important thing, not having irrecontrivertable evidence to that fact.

If a cop hints that you should lock someone up, he definitely thinks that the perp did something bad to someone, and may well think that this is indeed the guy who did something bad to you. If you take the cop’s recommendation, the end-result on the world is going to be that 99 guilty guys and one innocent guy with a bad attitude are all locked up. The crime rate drops and people are safe (except the innocent guy with the bad attitude). If you go with what you can genuinely be confident about, 25 guilty guys are locked up, and the crime rate rises a little. If the cop recommends someone AND you’re genuinely confident about the selection, then that’s the one case where you don’t have to do any moralizing.

4

As a rule, I support the Police, but this is over the line. Prompting witnesses is fabricating evidence. Nobody wants the innocent in jail and it corrupts a justice system that is already justifiably questioned by a great percentage of the US citizenry. While there are cases of large scale Police conspiracies, what I have seen is what we used to call adding horsepower to the case. The detective probably really thinks that this is the guy, but because he doesn’t want to see the guilty walk, he helps you with your identification.

In this specific case, if you get prepped by the DA or if called to testify, I would tell them point blank that the detective was trying to help you to the right conclusion. If, even after that, you still believe your witness identification to be true, then say that and stand on it.

In the end, I would report the behavior to the department. The Government and Police don’t get corrupt over night but inch by inch.

5

Wow, so police corruption is no biggie in your world? Because in mine, it’s a serious criminal offence. If Police are allowed to just frame whoever they fancy, then we’re all in trouble.

6

Is this satirical?

7

in principle I agree, but in practice I’m not sure if reporting will do anything except annoy the local police force. My town is 60-80,000 people, which is small enough for the police to remember individual residents. I don’t want to run face first into the Blue Wall.

8

I recommend talking to a lawyer in your jurisdiction. Tell them you are a crime victim and you have some questions about how the police conducted themselves in the investigation and you that you really need to talk to someone briefly and for free in the interest of justice.

Not only can they give you better advice on your options, but if you decide that this needs to be brought to light, they can help you in that process. I’m certain that any decent criminal attorney will help you for free in this matter. If they won’t do it for free, they aren’t worth talking to anyway.

9

Wow.

Not that I’m surprised that the police gave you some “hints” when you were looking at photos, I’m surprised that they took any interest in your case at all.

Here in NYC, if you’re not hospitalized and at death’s door after a mugging, the cops just aren’t interested, and will get downright unpleasant if you press the issue.

10

There was a story from a 'Doper from several years back, where he was almost railroaded into a conviction for something he didn’t do, with help from an “ID” that might have been guided by the cops.

I’m not sure he’d agree with Sage Rat’s advice.

11

Yes, the cops’ goal is to get the criminals off the street. This is a very good reason why they shouldn’t use the sort of prompting the OP describes. Using that sort of prompting, if it’s discovered, is likely to get the case thrown out of court, and to get the perpetrator to walk free. If the cop is prompting you for that particular picture, it presumably means that he has some other sort of evidence that that was the guy… in which case, his proper course of action is to testify to that evidence in court, and let it stand on top of your line-up identification.

12

My neighborhood is gentrifying rapidly; there is a lot of pressure to clean things up. Also, two guys matching the description of my muggers had apparently slipped through justice’s fingers for several similar incidents, and I think the cops were eager to have found something that they could finally make stick.

13

I didn’t offer any advice and I pointed out that the police will try to railroad people who are innocent.

14

What ,specifically, did Franklin say that was illegal?

If all he said was “think carefully” or “dial your mind back”, well, that’s good advice, and perfectly legal. And I assume that he knows it very well, and uses those specific words every time he requests evidence from a witness…

Yeah, we may agree that his timing was unethical, pausing before a specific photo.But there’s no specific law against that.

So, although you can legitimately complain here on the internet, you can’t officially file a complaint about police tactics.
I think it was Lenny Bruce who said: “in the Halls of Justice, the only justice is in the hallways.”

15

No. Wrong. Please do not take legal advice from random internet posters.

16

Yeah, I’d agree with this a lot more if you put ‘purported’ in front of ‘perpetrator’. If there’s already beyond-a-shadow-of-a-doubt proof that the guy did it, the OP’s not doing a photo line ID anyway. And you may think that cops never work on hunches, biases, mistakes, or just putting speed above accuracy, but in my world cops are just as human as the rest of us (but less intensely supervised).

17

This is certainly true!
I am not a lawyer-- I’m just a random internet poster. And certainly nobody should take legal advice from me.

But now I’m curious…what did I post that was wrong?
The title of the thread says “the police told me who to pick”. But they appear to have been much more subtle than that.
From the facts presented in the OP, is there any legally acceptable evidence of wrongdoing by the police? If accused, couldn’t detective Franklin defend himself easily? Couldn’t he just say that in his professional opinion, with years of experience in questioning victims of assault, Reyemile was vividly re-living the shock and fear he felt as the robber assaulted him, and he was showing signs of agitation and nervousness. So, naturally, Franklin paused, taking time to calm the victim, and remind him that he needs to think carefully and “dial his mind” back in time.

18

The evidence of wrongdoing would be the OP’s testimony that the cop stopped before the right photo and said a phrase that seemed clearly designed to identify that photo as significant, which was underscored by the rapid flip through the remaining photos and by the officer’s later comment about wishing he had been there for the first lineup.

I think you’re suggesting that, in practice, this cop could easily lie and say he wasn’t tipping off the OP. No doubt that’s true. That why he did it this way. But that’s not the same as saying that what the cop did is “perfectly legal” as you stated above. It is far from perfectly legal to indicate, even with plausible deniability, that the victim should ID a certain person.

If what you’re suggesting is that this might all genuinely be a coincidence, then you’re correct. But obviously the OP didn’t see it that way, and the OP is in the best position to say whether this was intended as a tipoff. From the story as recounted above, I’d say there’s a pretty good chance it was intended as a tipoff.

19

I almost wish I had just let them take my bag instead of fighting back; if the arrest was likely to catch them with my stuff, and the physical evidence would be enough to convict, I’d feel a lot less sketchy about the setup.

20

Did the officer make the statement ‘…dial…mind back…’ every time before handing you that picture of that one person?

If, however, the officer only made the one statement, the one time, it just may be that he understands that the witness needs to put things in proper perspective and get their minds off of whatever they are doing now, and, actually, ‘dialing their minds back’. You seem to think that the ‘…dialing…back’ is synonomous with ‘this is the bastard’, when it may be your CSI powers are a bit errant.
You don’t seem like a good candidate as a witness. If you think you have been hypnotized, or tricked, or pressured, by all means, tell the officers. You seem 95% certain that your ID was correct, yet, just as certain that you were tricked by the officers.