St. Joseph’s Healthcare/Port Coquitlam, British Columbia,
Canada: Forensic Psychiatric Services Commission.
Webster, C. D., Nicholls, T. L., Martin, M. L., Desmarais, S.
L., & Brink, J. (2006). Short-Term Assessment of Risk
and Treatability (START): The case for a new violence
risk structured professional judgment scheme.Behavioral
Sciences and the Law, 24,747–766.SHOWUPS
Showups are an identification technique in which a
single individual, the suspect, is presented in a one-
on-one confrontation with the victim or other witness
of a crime. The witness is asked to indicate whether
the suspect is or is not the perpetrator. Showup identi-
fications are very common and even favored by the
police as an investigative procedure. They are consid-
ered inherently suggestive because the witness views
only one person and the identification requires only
the assent of the witness. This entry describes the cri-
teria used to justify the use of showups, compares the
outcomes of showups and lineups, and reviews some
of the dangers presented by the use of showups.
Although showup identifications may be viewed
with disfavor by the courts, they are not per se con-
sidered violations of due process if there was an over-
riding need in light of the totality of circumstances.
Showups may be justified when an immediate identi-
fication would facilitate an ongoing police investiga-
tion, a quick exoneration of the innocent could be
made, the identification is completed in close proxim-
ity in time and place to the scene of the crime, and the
witness’s memory is strongest or in its freshest state.
Whether a crime scene showup is unduly sugges-
tive and results in a misidentification is a mixed ques-
tion of law and fact. If the prosecution can prove by
clear and convincing evidence that the showup identi-
fication was reliable enough to be probative despite
some suggestiveness, the witness’s identification is
admissible. Any suggestiveness in the process would
go to the weight of the identification, not its admissi-
bility. In contrast, if the defense can prove that the
showup procedure was unduly and unnecessarily sug-
gestive, the identification evidence based on an
unfairly conducted showup would be suppressed.
Judges typically consider the following factors in
determining whether pretrial suggestiveness unduly
influenced the identification trial testimony of an eye-
witness: (a) the opportunity of the witness to view theperpetrator at the time of the crime, (b) the witness’s
degree of attention at the time of the crime, (c) the accu-
racy of the witness’s prior description of the perpetrator,
(d) the level of certainty demonstrated at the time of the
identification, and (e) the lapse of time between the
crime and the identification procedure. Scientific
research has shown, however, that only the opportunity
to observe and the length of the retention interval are
related to accuracy of identification. Most eyewitness
researchers agree that the use of showups in contrast to
many-person lineups increases the risk of misidentifica-
tion, and the evidence in support of this conclusion is
generally reliable.
It has been argued that showups, in principle, are less
fair than lineups because they fail to protect the innocent
suspect. That is, showups cannot distribute the probabil-
ity of identification of an innocent suspect across lineup
fillers, and thus, they increase the risk of an identification
error. Also, it is assumed that showup procedures are
high-pressure situations in which witnesses are encour-
aged to make an identification or situations that force
witnesses to make an identification. Because a showup
involves the single presentation of a suspect, it is hypoth-
esized that a witness’s decision is based on an absolute
judgment in which the suspect is compared with his or
her memory of the perpetrator. Viewing the showup may
be similar to viewing the first person in a sequential
lineup, where the witness must make an absolute judg-
ment based on individual presentations of the suspect
and a number of fillers. In contrast, simultaneously pre-
sented lineups of a suspect and fillers involve witnesses
making relative judgments of who in the lineup most
closely resembles the perpetrator. Sequential lineups
have been shown to increase correct rejections of inno-
cent suspects without significantly affecting the accuracy
of identification (hit) rate compared with simultaneously
presented lineups of a suspect and fillers. Thus, in theory,
showups may be beneficial if they increase correct rejec-
tions; however, they may be dangerous if they fail to pro-
tect an innocent suspect from false identifications.
Furthermore, if the procedure is suggestive, there will be
increased pressure to choose, thereby generating an
increase in both correct and incorrect selections.
Meta-analytic comparisons of showup and lineup
presentations reveal that showups generate lower choos-
ing rates than lineups. This suggests that witnesses may
be more cautious with their identification in a showup
situation. Unlike actual cases where the presence of the
guilty suspect cannot be controlled, meta-analysis com-
parisons indicate that the correct identification (hit) rate
is very similar in both conditions (approximately 46%)746 ———ShowupsS-Cutler (Encyc)-45463.qxd 11/18/2007 12:44 PM Page 746