Editor’s note: This commentary is by Daniella Henry, a policy analyst with the Innocence Project.
During a hearing on Jan. 16 this year, Dennis Maher, an Army veteran, spoke to members of the Vermont House and Senate Judiciary committees about his experience being wrongly convicted of crimes he did not commit. After being misidentified by three different sexual assault victims, Maher spent 19 years in prison before DNA evidence ultimately proved his innocence.
Jennifer Thompson also testified to the committee members about her own experience in a case involving a wrongful conviction. While a college student, Thompson was raped. During the proceeding investigation, she misidentified the wrong person as her assailant, sending him to prison for over 10 years.
Though they experienced the impact of wrongful conviction very differently, both Maher and Thompson were failed by the criminal justice system. In both cases, the necessary safeguards were not in place to ensure that innocent people were protected and that the real perpetrators of crimes were not free to commit subsequent crimes.
Maher and Thompson were testifying in support of two bills that, if enacted, would help implement some of these missing safeguards in Vermont. The first, S.184, would call for the “blind” administration of photo lineups, meaning that the administrator of the lineup is unaware of who the suspect is. This reform has been shown to reduce eyewitness misidentifications such as those experienced by Maher and Thompson. Eyewitness misidentifications are the leading contributor to wrongful convictions, and have been present in 73 percent of the 312 cases of wrongful convictions later overturned by DNA evidence.
The second bill, S.297, would require the recording of custodial interrogations in homicide and sexual assault cases to help protect against false confessions, another leading cause of wrongful conviction. False confessions are present in nearly a third of wrongful convictions later overturned by DNA evidence.
S.184 and S.297 not only benefit the innocent, but law enforcement as well.
Wrongful convictions not only send innocent people like Maher to jail, they also leave the real perpetrators of crimes free to commit other crimes. Of the 312 DNA exoneration cases, the real perpetrators of these crimes have been identified in 153 cases. While innocent people languished behind bars, the real perpetrators in these cases went on to commit 139 additional violent crimes that have resulted in convictions. These crimes include more than 30 homicides and 70 rapes.
S.184 and S.297 not only benefit the innocent, but law enforcement as well. Reforms to lineup procedures can help reduce the amount of valuable time and resources lost pursuing the wrong individual following a misidentification. Similarly, recording interrogations can protect police against allegations of police misconduct, and free investigators to focus on the details of an interrogation, rather than writing up a meticulous account of the statements provided by a suspect. Overburdened courts, moreover, will no doubt welcome a huge reduction in defense motions to suppress unrecorded statements and confessions as well as pretrial and trial hearings focused upon establishing what transpired during the course of an interrogation.
Fortunately, eyewitness identification reforms have already begun to take hold in Vermont, thanks in large part to the work of Richard Gauthier, executive director of the Vermont Criminal Justice Training Council. According to Gauthier, Vermont has already trained 25 percent of law enforcement officers the “blind” administration of lineups. By the end of 2013, the council planned to have trained 50-60 percent of agencies. S.184 simply builds upon this success by requiring that local law enforcement agencies uniformly adopt the core scientifically supported “best practices” contained in Vermont’s Eyewitness Identification Model Policy.
Vermont is also uniquely positioned to implement the recording of interrogations as Vermont’s state police barracks are already outfitted with video equipment. While cost has been raised as a concern, S.297 provides for an audio option for departments unable to afford video equipment. Furthermore, because there are many creative and cost effective ways of ensuring that interrogations are recorded, S.297 calls for a task force that will have over a year to identify how this reform can be effectively implemented without becoming a burden to the state of Vermont. S.297 also provides for numerous exceptions for situations that may arise and are out of law enforcement’s control, including equipment malfunction and exigent circumstances.
These reforms improve reliability in the integrity of the justice system, which law enforcement works hard to ensure. We look forward to continuing to work with Vermont’s law enforcement leadership and Legislature to ensure the implementation of these important reforms.
