What governs the admissibility of eyewitness identifications?

• A. Procedures must be fair; unnecessarily suggestive procedures may violate due process unless the identification is reliable in light of the circumstances.
• B. Identifications are admissible based solely on the witness's confidence, regardless of procedures.
• C. Eyewitness identifications are never admissible.
• D. The identification is admissible only if it is supported by expert testimony.

Answer: (A)

The key idea is that eyewitness identifications are admissible only when the procedure used to obtain them is fair and the identification is reliable in the circumstances. The due process concern is about unnecessarily suggestive procedures; if those procedures would likely produce a mistaken identification, the trial judge must exclude the identification unless it remains reliable under the totality of the circumstances.

If the procedures are fair, the identification is generally admissible, even if the witness later expresses strong confidence. If the procedure was unnecessarily suggestive, the court weighs reliability using factors like the witness’s opportunity to view the criminal, their attention, the accuracy of any prior description, the degree of certainty at the time of identification, the time elapsed between the crime and the identification, and any corroborating or conflicting information. This totality-of-the-circumstances approach determines whether the identification is trustworthy enough to be admitted.

Relying solely on the witness’s confidence isn’t enough to justify admissibility, because confidence can be inflated and misleading. Eyewitness identifications are not categorically barred in all cases, and expert testimony about identifications is not always required for admissibility.