When I was growing up in Maysville, Oklahoma, there were only a couple of “police” officers — and I use that term loosely. Of course there wasn’t much need for the police in Maysville. The biggest “crimes” committed around there was kids turning over outhouses or maybe a drunk being escorted home from the only “beer joint” — as my mother referred to it.
Anyhow, what got me to thinking along these lines was a blurb on the news a couple of days ago about some criminal being picked out of a police lineup.
I didn’t know much about police lineups when I was growing up — maybe I saw one in a movie or something like that, but that’s about all.
In a traditional police lineup, a witness tries to pick out the bad guy from behind a one-way mirror. The police typically present one actual suspect and four or five similar-looking inmates from the local jail. The lineup can be either simultaneous (with the suspect and the “fillers” standing together) or sequential (with the possible perpetrators coming out one by one.) When there aren’t enough suitable inmates, police officers or other station staff may participate. Sometimes, the police will even recruit people with the right look off the street and pay them a small fee for their trouble.
But sometimes it can be difficult to come up with five people who closely match the description of a suspected criminal. Even when proper fillers can be found, using people who look very much like the culprit can lead to false identifications. And, if the police choose a filler who doesn’t closely match the description of the suspect, a judge might later rule that the lineup was unfair.That’s one reason a lot of police departments have switched from traditional lineups to photo arrays, or virtual lineups, in which the police select a series of mug shots that closely match the suspect’s description. The conventional virtual lineup includes two rows of three pictures (dubbed the “six pack”.) Just like with the live lineup, some departments prefer a sequential virtual lineup (showing only one picture at a time.)
It’d be interesting to see how Maysville would have implemented a lineup procedure….
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