Hennepin County Attorney Office's new policy tackles eyewitness ID issues

HCAO's new policy tackles eyewitness ID issues

FOX 9 has obtained a copy of the Hennepin County Attorney’s Office new policy on Eyewitness Identification Evidence. The 10-page policy is the first time County Attorney Mary Moriarty has put the office’s best practices into writing.

MINNEAPOLIS (FOX 9) - FOX 9 has obtained a copy of the Hennepin County Attorney’s Office new policy on Eyewitness Identification Evidence. The 10-page policy is the first time County Attorney Mary Moriarty has put the office’s best practices into writing. Experts say faulty eyewitness identification is the leading cause of sending innocent people to prison. 

Moriarty tells FOX 9 her team has learned from past mistakes, including the first-degree murder conviction of Marvin Haynes that was eventually tossed out. Haynes spent nearly 20 years in prison for a Minneapolis murder he did not commit.

The new 10-page policy

What we know:

The policy states that jurors generally lack a full understanding of the factors influencing the reliability of eyewitness identification evidence. And it is up to the state to make sure eyewitness identifications of a suspect are fully reliable.

The policy states, "Given the particular risks involved, extra caution is merited where the Hennepin County Attorney’s Office pursues charges that rely in large part on eyewitness identification evidence."

Moriarty said research shows that 75% of wrongful convictions come from bad eyewitness identification across the country. 

"The research is very clear," explained Moriarty. "There are particular things that police and prosecutors can do to try to prevent a non-reliable identification. So, we have put that in a document and so it will provide guidance for our staff."

Marvin Haynes' wrongful conviction

The backstory:

Moriarty pointed to the wrongful conviction of Marvin Haynes as a lesson on how faulty eyewitness identification can land an innocent person in prison. Haynes was arrested and convicted in the 2004 murder of Randy Sherer outside a Minneapolis flower shop, when Haynes was 16 years old. There was no physical evidence ever linking him to the crime. After spending nearly two decades behind bars, Haynes’ conviction and life sentence was vacated in 2023 due to unreliable eyewitness testimony and unconstitutional police investigative tactics. 

Haynes’ attorneys successfully argued that initial eyewitness reports, including from Sherer’s sister inside the store, varied widely from the teen’s appearance at the time – in height, weight, age and hairstyle.

"I think people can understand how powerful that kind of evidence is," said Moriarty. "This is what you see in movies and on TV, right? That moment where the person who's been harmed is on the witness stand and the prosecutor says, ‘can you identify the person who did this?’ And they look over at the defendant and say, ‘he did it.’ And you can imagine how compelling that is for jurors. But the science tells us that certainty is not the same thing as accuracy."

‘Trying to get it right’

Dig deeper:

The new policy outlines how prosecutors can best use an eyewitness identification in making criminal charging decisions as well as utilizing the evidence at trial. It states, "A prosecutor should only seek to introduce eyewitness identification evidence at trial if the prosecutor reasonably concludes that the totality of the circumstances supports the reliability of the identification."

Added Moriarty, "There is absolutely no criticism, nothing wrong with the motivation of witnesses who desperately want to get it right. Prosecutors, law enforcement are all trying to get it right. We just now know a lot about how memory works and suggestibility. And so, there are these best practices that really help limit the opportunity for something like (a wrongful conviction) to happen."

Among the factors prosecutors are told to consider in assessing the reliability of an eyewitness identification at the scene of a crime – distance, lighting, duration (length of time exposed to the suspect), the presence of a disguise or mask, whether a weapon was used and the level of stress of the individual making the identification.

"A moderate amount of stress can be helpful in terms of focusing someone’s attention on the events taking place, which may lead to better visual encoding of the perpetrator and thus a more reliable identification," the policy states. "Extreme stress, however, has been shown to disrupt attention and encoding and therefore to significantly increase identification errors."