which indicates that the suggestive aspects of the
identification procedure should be weighed against
the likelihood that the identification is accurate. The
two prongs that constitute the Manson test are not
independent of each other because suggestive lineup
procedures can readily infect the criteria that judges
must consider when evaluating the probability that the
identification is accurate. Moreover, the identification
accuracy criteria that are to be considered have little to
do with eyewitness memory or lineup identification
accuracy. In summary, there are several reasons to
question the effectiveness of motions to suppress
lineup identifications as a safeguard against wrongful
convictions.
A motion to suppress is a request to the court to
exclude evidence on the grounds that it was obtained
unfairly or illegally. These motions are typically filed
by criminal defense lawyers in an attempt to keep the
evidence in question from consideration at a hearing or
at trial. A motion to suppress must be accompanied by
supporting arguments or facts that speak of the reliabil-
ity of the evidence or violations of due process under
the Fourteenth Amendment. For example, a lawyer may
file a motion to suppress evidence that the police
obtained during a search and seizure that was con-
ducted without a warrant or without consent. Lawyers
may also file a motion to suppress hearsay testimony,
confession evidence, or information gleaned during the
course of an interrogation. Finally, lawyers may file
motions to suppress eyewitness testimony that stems
from a police lineup on the grounds that the lineup
identification procedure was conducted unfairly.
There is psychological research that bears on
issues surrounding motions to suppress lineup identi-
fication evidence. A defense lawyer who believes that
a witness erred in the lineup identification because the
lineup procedure was conducted unfairly or in a
biased manner may (and probably should) file a
motion to suppress this evidence from relevant hear-
ings and from trial. Such motions are designed to safe-
guard against wrongful convictions that are the
product of mistaken eyewitness identifications pro-
duced by suggestive lineup procedures.Judges’ Sensitivity to
Suggestive Lineup Procedures
Psychological research has raised some serious ques-
tions about the effectiveness of motions to suppress
lineup identifications by challenging the validity of
assumptions that form the backbone of this safeguard.One assumption underlying the effectiveness of motions
to suppress the lineup identification as a safeguard is
that judges are sensitive to unfair lineups and that their
rulings on motions to suppress lineup identifications are
a function of their evaluations of lineup suggestiveness
and fairness. In an effort to determine what judges know
about eyewitness memory and the factors that affect
lineup identification accuracy, a few surveys of judges in
the United States have shown that judges are aware of
some factors that affect eyewitness memory and lineup
identification accuracy but not others.
Judges’ knowledge about eyewitness testimony
probably plays an important role in their motion rul-
ings. Richard Wise and Martin Safer surveyed 160
judges and found that familiarity with eyewitness
memory issues was related to their tendency to permit
the use of legal safeguards such as jury instructions on
memory issues and expert testimony. The Wise and
Safer research did not examine the link between edu-
cation and motions to suppress, however.
Taking an experimental approach, Stinson and col-
leagues presented Florida criminal judges with a
description of a simulated crime and eyewitness’s
description of the perpetrator as well as a photo lineup
that varied in terms of the suggestiveness of the lineup
instructions, lineup composition (i.e., the extent to
which the photos in the lineup matched the eyewitness’s
description of the perpetrator), and lineup presentation
(sequential or simultaneous). Judges recognized the
unfairness of suggestive lineup composition and instruc-
tions, and they ruled on the simulated motion accord-
ingly. Interestingly, some judges indicated that they very
rarely see these types of motions. Neither the reason for
this finding nor the extent to which results generalize to
other areas is clear. Until fairly recently, the only record
of a lineup procedure was a photograph of the array or
the lineup members, so defense lawyers would not be
able to evaluate the fairness of the lineup procedure nor
obtain much evidence to support a motion to suppress.
Additionally, some judges indicated that their general
practice was to deny these types of motion; their justifi-
cation typically revolved around the notion that jurors
ought to evaluate and weigh the lineup identification
evidence and that judges should not be gatekeepers of
this type of evidence.Defense Lawyers’ Sensitivity to
Suggestive Lineup Procedures
Another assumption impinging on the motion to
suppress safeguard is that lawyers are sensitive toMotions to Suppress Eyewitness Identification——— 519M-Cutler (Encyc)-45463.qxd 11/18/2007 12:43 PM Page 519