ABSTRACT
BY NOW, THE READER KNOWS that despite its compelling nature and importance as a criminal identification tool, mistaken eyewitness testimony has been the largest contributor in DNA-proven wrongful convictions and is a significant contributor across all known exonerations. Eyewitness testimony, as it is often utilized, cannot be considered the most reliable testi mony. DNA exonerations have proven this. The consistent exclusion of more than 25 percent of rape suspects whose DNA is now checked with crime scene biological evidence before indictment has proven this. Hundreds of research experiments involving memory and eyewitness testimony have proven this. Police detectives have learned this through the significant error rate of eyewitnesses in lineups: About 30 percent of the time, witnesses who make a selection choose a “filler,” one of the nonsuspects included in the lineup.1
