# The police just told me who to pick out of a line-up **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [August 15, 2014, 12:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-police-just-told-me-who-to-pick-out-of-a-line-up/695557 "2014-08-15T00:25:25Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Tim\_T-Bonham.net](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/46a35a/32.png) [@Tim\_T-Bonham.net](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tim_T-Bonham.net)\ **Post date:** [August 16, 2014, 3:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-police-just-told-me-who-to-pick-out-of-a-line-up/695557/21 "2014-08-16T03:58:45Z")
> [@Richard\_Parker](#): > > 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. Better yet, talk to the County Attorney who will eventually prosecute this case. He will be very interested, because it represents a threat to his use of your ID in court. He may try to limit your testimony in court, or even not call you at all. And he will certainly make clear to the police department supervisors how the behavior of this cop has threatened the case against these 2 probable criminals. ---
**Author:** ![handsomeharry](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/e9c0ed/32.png) [@handsomeharry](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/handsomeharry)\ **Post date:** [August 16, 2014, 4:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-police-just-told-me-who-to-pick-out-of-a-line-up/695557/22 "2014-08-16T04:04:19Z")
> [@Richard\_Parker](#): > > No. Wrong. Please do not take legal advice from random internet posters. This adds nothing. I have had some extremely good advice from ‘random internet posters’, and a good friend of mine has had some really shitty advice from a ‘real’ lawyer who worked in an exclusive office in the downtown area. People are too ready to diss good advice, when they want you to give a lot of money to a complete stranger, without helping you to pay him. ---
**Author:** ![chappachula](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/d2c977/32.png) [@chappachula](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/chappachula)\ **Post date:** [August 16, 2014, 10:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-police-just-told-me-who-to-pick-out-of-a-line-up/695557/23 "2014-08-16T10:27:11Z")
> [@Richard\_Parker](#): > > 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… > > It is far from perfectly legal to indicate, even with plausible deniability, that the victim should ID a certain person. Here is a 20-minute long [lecture](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=08fZQWjDVKE) by a police detective to a class of law students at Regent Law School, in which he explains that during a police interrogation, pretty much anything is acceptable. Examples: There is the old "good cop/bad cop"routine, where the tough guy scares the suspect, and the the good cop comes in and says, "listen, just confess it all to me in private, and I’ll help you get off with a lighter sentence."It’s a lie: they just want the suspect to start talking. Or, there is the trick of turning off the tape recorder: The cop first tries to scare the suspect into confessing, and when that doesn’t work, he switches to the soft touch. “Listen, I’ll turn off this tape recorder for a few minutes, if you’ll just be honest with me. I promise --see the tape recorder is off”. This wins the trust of the suspect, so he starts talking. But it’s a lie…Yes, the tape recorder is turned off, but the video camera in the ceiling is still recording everything. Now I realize that the examples I just gave are different from the OP. The examples are of how police interrogate suspected criminals to extract confessions. The OP is not a criminal suspect, he was the victim; and the police did not question the OP because they want him to confess to a crime, they want him to give eyewitness evidence about a crime. But it seems to me that the cops use similar psychology in each case…Trying to get the person to start talking, and say what the police want. In this specific case, the cops said only “think carefully, dial your mind back.” They did not put suggestive words in the OP’s mouth. They let the OP do all the talking, of his own free will…And he just happened to say what they wanted to hear… ---
**Author:** ![Reyemile](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/46a35a/32.png) [@Reyemile](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Reyemile)\ **Post date:** [August 16, 2014, 1:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-police-just-told-me-who-to-pick-out-of-a-line-up/695557/24 "2014-08-16T13:40:33Z")
Police lineups are completely different from police interrogations. Even subtle hints during the process can lead to [all kinds of trouble.](http://www.innocenceproject.org/fix/Eyewitness-Identification.php) ---
**Author:** ![garygnu](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/garygnu/32/2924_2.png) [@garygnu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/garygnu)\ **Post date:** [August 16, 2014, 3:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-police-just-told-me-who-to-pick-out-of-a-line-up/695557/25 "2014-08-16T15:14:49Z")
I’m shocked that anyone is OK with police prompting during a photo lineup. It kinda sucks the the OP thinks the ID was right anyway, because if reported, that’s the first question that will be asked, and the immoral behavior of the detective(s) will be blown off. ---
**Author:** ![Habeed](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/a587f6/32.png) [@Habeed](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Habeed)\ **Post date:** [August 16, 2014, 3:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-police-just-told-me-who-to-pick-out-of-a-line-up/695557/26 "2014-08-16T15:19:48Z")
The really messed up thing is that your memory is itself dishonest. That belief you now have is that “this is the guy”. It’s entirely possible that it isn’t the guy, but the prompting has caused your brain to rewrite your memory of the event slightly so that he matches. Our brains have poor I/O design such that accessing any memory also modifies it. You could be wrong, and you might send an innocent guy to jail. There needs to be other corroborating evidence indicating that it’s this guy (say they find the stuff he stole in his possession, or a video camera showing he was nearby that night, etc) ---
**Author:** ![Rushgeekgirl](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rushgeekgirl/32/3715_2.png) [@Rushgeekgirl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rushgeekgirl)\ **Post date:** [August 16, 2014, 4:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-police-just-told-me-who-to-pick-out-of-a-line-up/695557/27 "2014-08-16T16:16:08Z")
> [@Just\_Asking\_Questions](#): > > 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. There was also my story from my SO being robbed. I know I wrote about this but I can’t find the post. It was several years ago. He was pushed to pick the wrong man in a lineup, then they kept him locked up despite Mig and me and the man’s family all calling everyone we could to explain that they had the wrong man. The man stayed in lock-up until the court date, missing his child’s birth and losing his job. Only when they were in front of the judge was Mig able to explain the mistake and they let the guy go. Of course the real robber got away. ---
**Author:** ![Mr.Nylock](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/77aa72/32.png) [@Mr.Nylock](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mr.Nylock)\ **Post date:** [August 16, 2014, 5:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-police-just-told-me-who-to-pick-out-of-a-line-up/695557/28 "2014-08-16T17:38:50Z")
Statistically speaking, witness identification is the leading cause of false convictions AFAIK. If you have a lot of uncertainty about the accuracy of the identification, you may be doing yourself more harm than good depending on the level of guilt you may feel at the possibility that you caused someone to be thrown in jail who is innocent. There are many instances where people are more certain about the ID and it turns out their memory is wrong - the Ronald Cotton case comes to mind for me. ---
**Author:** ![handsomeharry](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/e9c0ed/32.png) [@handsomeharry](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/handsomeharry)\ **Post date:** [August 20, 2014, 10:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-police-just-told-me-who-to-pick-out-of-a-line-up/695557/29 "2014-08-20T22:41:29Z")
I think that the OP’s interpretation of the facts are clearly confused. There is no indication that the officer told him that ‘this was the guy’, and, yet, the title of the thread is "…told by a cop…whom to ID’. I think that this person needs to go to the DA really soon and give him a copy of his post. Or, the defense attorney. ---
**Author:** ![Reyemile](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/46a35a/32.png) [@Reyemile](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Reyemile)\ **Post date:** [August 25, 2014, 8:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-police-just-told-me-who-to-pick-out-of-a-line-up/695557/30 "2014-08-25T20:33:40Z")
> [@handsomeharry](#): > > I think that the OP’s interpretation of the facts are clearly confused. There is no indication that the officer told him that ‘this was the guy’, and, yet, the title of the thread is "…told by a cop…whom to ID’. > > I think that this person needs to go to the DA really soon and give him a copy of his post. Or, the defense attorney. “hint hint nudge nudge wink wink” is no defense against spoiling a lineup. It might have been more precise to say “cued by a cop” rather than “told by a cop,” but I don’t see how you can possibly interpret our interaction as anything but being cued, unethically and possibly illegally. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Second\_Stone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/bbe5ce/32.png) [@The\_Second\_Stone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Second_Stone)\ **Post date:** [August 25, 2014, 9:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-police-just-told-me-who-to-pick-out-of-a-line-up/695557/31 "2014-08-25T21:05:53Z")
It sounds to me like you know the difference between right and wrong and are now wondering what action to take. Most jurisdictions have an “internal affairs” or “professional conduct” department. You might want to print out your post and give it to them. Or, if you are comfortable sending this man to prison based on the coaching and your 90 to 95 percent being sure after what you know to be improper coaching, you might want to keep quiet. I’d turn the cop in. His is the bigger offense to society at large, and you are certain of it. ---
**Author:** ![SpeedwayRyan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ce7236/32.png) [@SpeedwayRyan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SpeedwayRyan)\ **Post date:** [August 26, 2014, 6:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-police-just-told-me-who-to-pick-out-of-a-line-up/695557/32 "2014-08-26T18:58:27Z")
Are lineups like this “all or nothing?” As in, if you aren’t 100% certain, it doesn’t count? Just wondering if you can say “I’m 95% sure that this is the guy” and have that count for something. I’m guessing a lot of people wouldn’t be 100%, absolutely, without any doubt, certain of an identification in a situation like this. ---
**Author:** ![Tim\_T-Bonham.net](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/46a35a/32.png) [@Tim\_T-Bonham.net](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tim_T-Bonham.net)\ **Post date:** [August 26, 2014, 7:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-police-just-told-me-who-to-pick-out-of-a-line-up/695557/33 "2014-08-26T19:23:21Z")
> [@SpeedwayRyan](#): > > Are lineups like this “all or nothing?” As in, if you aren’t 100% certain, it doesn’t count? > > Just wondering if you can say “I’m 95% sure that this is the guy” and have that count for something. I’m guessing a lot of people wouldn’t be 100%, absolutely, without any doubt, certain of an identification in a situation like this. 95% sure is not “beyond a reasonable doubt”, which is the standard for conviction. So there would have to be other evidence for a jury to convict. ---
**Author:** ![Reyemile](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/46a35a/32.png) [@Reyemile](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Reyemile)\ **Post date:** [August 26, 2014, 10:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-police-just-told-me-who-to-pick-out-of-a-line-up/695557/34 "2014-08-26T22:51:49Z")
> [@t-bonham@scc.net](#): > > 95% sure is not “beyond a reasonable doubt”, which is the standard for conviction. > > So there would have to be other evidence for a jury to convict. The officer explicitly told me not to give odds–something to the effect of, “we don’t do percents. If you say 50% sure or 75% sure, it gets tossed out of court. Just tell me if you see the guy who hit you.” ---
**Author:** ![thelurkinghorror](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/7c8e57/32.png) [@thelurkinghorror](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/thelurkinghorror)\ **Post date:** [August 26, 2014, 11:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-police-just-told-me-who-to-pick-out-of-a-line-up/695557/35 "2014-08-26T23:10:28Z")
> [@Habeed](#): > > The really messed up thing is that your memory is itself dishonest. That belief you now have is that “this is the guy”. It’s entirely possible that it isn’t the guy, but the prompting has caused your brain to rewrite your memory of the event slightly so that he matches. Our brains have poor I/O design such that accessing any memory also modifies it. Yep. > [@SpeedwayRyan](#): > > Are lineups like this “all or nothing?” As in, if you aren’t 100% certain, it doesn’t count? > > Just wondering if you can say “I’m 95% sure that this is the guy” and have that count for something. I’m guessing a lot of people wouldn’t be 100%, absolutely, without any doubt, certain of an identification in a situation like this. There are ways to influence it. The “movie version” is 5 guys standing in line, in person. That is much less reliable (for positive and false id). The photo way works better. Also, it is much better if you show one guy (no matter the method), ask if it is him, then move on to the next guy. Showing someone 5 photos and asking to choose the culprit implies that he is actually present. I don’t know if this would get the cop fired, and I’m not sure it would be prudent to. An ideal situation would be a firm talking-to, but realistically I doubt it. The cop might not even be aware of his leading. This is probably not a rare occurrence. ---
**Author:** ![Reyemile](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/46a35a/32.png) [@Reyemile](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Reyemile)\ **Post date:** [October 8, 2014, 6:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-police-just-told-me-who-to-pick-out-of-a-line-up/695557/36 "2014-10-08T18:33:48Z")
Bump with a status update: the suspect is a teen, but is being tried as an adult. He has a grand jury date; to my knowledge, they are using my statements and police statements, but do not need me to testify. DA implied that if the indictment goes through, the suspect will probably plead out. No charges on the other guy, who I couldn’t pick out of the line-up and who didn’t actually hit me. ---
**Author:** ![bup](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/6bbea6/32.png) [@bup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bup)\ **Post date:** [October 8, 2014, 7:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-police-just-told-me-who-to-pick-out-of-a-line-up/695557/37 "2014-10-08T19:14:10Z")
> [@Reyemile](#): > > Should I say or do anything, or just let the police do their job? Any thoughts or advice would be appreciated. Yes you should say something. There are people on death row who are there based on nothing but an eye-witness ID. Those have been wrong in the past. I know yours isn’t a capital crime, but this police crap is a HUGE problem and ruins credibility of the whole system. The guy who told you which one to pick committed as big a crime as the person who assaulted you. ---
**Author:** ![VarlosZ](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/d78d45/32.png) [@VarlosZ](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/VarlosZ)\ **Post date:** [October 8, 2014, 7:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-police-just-told-me-who-to-pick-out-of-a-line-up/695557/38 "2014-10-08T19:56:04Z")
> [@Sage\_Rat](#): > > 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. Wow. I’m a lot more sympathetic to this \*type \*of argument than almost anyone else here, but I think your made up numbers are bullshit. You’re straining to reach the conclusion you prefer. ---
**Author:** ![Ennui](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ennui/32/3396_2.png) [@Ennui](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ennui)\ **Post date:** [October 8, 2014, 9:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-police-just-told-me-who-to-pick-out-of-a-line-up/695557/39 "2014-10-08T21:08:00Z")
> [@Reyemile](#): > > 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. A bunch of years back I used to drive a cab and was robbed at gunpoint in a pretty bad neighborhood. I wasn’t hurt and only lost about $30 so might have let it slide but the cops were pretty much on the scene, not quick enough to run the guy down but close enough that it wasn’t like I needed to report it. When they brought me in for the photo line up the guy who robbed me was the third or forth picture, the detective didn’t do anything to draw my attention but the guy who robbed me had very dark skin and all the other pictures were of lighter skin guys. That being said I’m 100% sure I identified the right guy. After that and while setting me up to go to the grand jury they told me the guy who robbed me was suspected of, among other things two rapes in his neighborhood but no one was willing to press charges against him and his running buddies. So it turns out they were glad they could get him on something to slow him down for a bit and glad I was willing to testify. That being said I agree completely with the following: > [@t-bonham@scc.net](#): > > Better yet, talk to the County Attorney who will eventually prosecute this case. He will be very interested, because it represents a threat to his use of your ID in court. He may try to limit your testimony in court, or even not call you at all. And he will certainly make clear to the police department supervisors how the behavior of this cop has threatened the case against these 2 probable criminals. ---
**Author:** ![VarlosZ](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/d78d45/32.png) [@VarlosZ](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/VarlosZ)\ **Post date:** [October 9, 2014, 1:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-police-just-told-me-who-to-pick-out-of-a-line-up/695557/40 "2014-10-09T01:43:06Z")
[Interesting article](http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2014/10/the-evolving-science-of-police-lineups/381046/) in _The Atlantic_ about research into the best lineup methods. It would seem the detectives in the OP’s case are probably making an error by telling witnesses not to give a percentage or something like it: > [@Virginia Hughes](#): > > One thing all of these scientists agree on—and was underscored repeatedly in the NAS report—is the importance of recording the witness’s level of confidence immediately after making a photo identification. As many studies have shown, witnesses’ confidence in their memories tends to inflate over time, which is obviously problematic if they’re testifying in court long after the event took place. As Wixted points out, most of the people who were wrongly convicted and then exonerated with DNA were initially identified with low-confidence witness ratings. Making sure to record confidence immediately “is a fantastic recommendation that will do far more to protect innocent suspects” than switching from one lineup type to another, Wixted says. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-police-just-told-me-who-to-pick-out-of-a-line-up/695557.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-police-just-told-me-who-to-pick-out-of-a-line-up/695557.md?page=3)