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New Mexico Senate passes eyewitness identification reform bill
Posted: February 6, 2007
The New Mexico Senate passed a bill that would reform police lineups and reduce eyewitness misidentifications. The bill passed by a vote of 22-20 and will now go to the state House of Representatives. The bill would require police to conduct photo lineups sequentially, rather than simultaneously, an important reform (read more here), and includes several other vital reforms.
“This bill simply recognizes that police officers are human; we want to try to eliminate as much human error as possible and make sure that we get the actual perpetrator of a crime convicted,” Sen. John Grubesic, a Santa Fe Democrat, told the Sante Fe New Mexican.On Monday, Innocence Project Co-Director Barry Scheck and Staff Attorney Ezekiel Edwards (Mayer Brown Eyewitness Fellow) posted this letter online, calling for the passage of the New Mexico bill. The letter reads, in part:
It’s not complicated: mandating reform in eyewitness identification procedures is a win-win situation, resulting in fewer innocent people being sent to prison, more guilty people getting caught, and our communities becoming safer.
“For years, Democrats and Republicans alike have embraced policies that are tough on crime. Now it is time they get smart about crime, too. In light of the daunting number of wrongful convictions caused by erroneous eyewitness identifications, along with the copious scientific research documenting the factors that enhance its error rate, our leaders must prioritize aggressive reform of police procedures in this arena. Supporting bills like New Mexico Senate Bill 5 is a good place to start.”Several blogs posted the Scheck and Edwards letter on Monday, including Talk Left, and a Christian Science Monitor story today discusses how states are turning to sequential lineups to improve the quality of eyewitness identifications.
- View the Innocence Project Fact Sheet on Eyewitness Identifications
- Read the Scheck/Edwards letter (PDF)
- New Mexico Senate Bill 5 (as introduced)
Tags: New Mexico, Eyewitness Identification
Openings and closings: Fair justice relies on effective crime labs
Posted: November 15, 2007 12:55 pm
With two Michigan crime labs set to close in 2008 due to insufficient funding, law enforcement officials said recently that cutting back on forensic testing will have a drastic impact on the state’s ability to identify and prosecute criminals. “That’s a longer time they will be out there doing crime,” Delta County Undersheriff Ed Oswald said. “It’s not good for Michigan.”
And every time a state cuts funding for crime labs, the chance of forensic error is increased. Overburdened and understaffed labs are less able to store, retrieve and test evidence in a reliable, efficient manner. With growing demands from state DNA databases and law enforcement agencies, many labs, like those in Michigan, are stretched to the breaking point.
In Wisconsin, a murder prosecution has been held up for months while forensic testing drags on at a private lab, which was employed to avoid backlogs at state labs. Three Minnesota counties have asked the state legislature for three consecutive years to fund a new crime lab, because backlogs at the state lab have delayed investigations in the county.
Texas voters last week passed an amendment to the state constitution which allowed several state agencies to fund new projects, including a new crime lab in El Paso and increased funding for labs elsewhere in the state. Several observers of the state’s criminal justice system, however, opposed the bill because it also funds the construction of three new prisons and a new juvenile facility. Read more on the Grits for Breakfast blog.
Read more about crime lab closures in Michigan, Wisconsin lab backlogs, a new lab in El Paso and hiring in Santa Fe, New Mexico, to reduce the crime lab backlog.
Read previous blog posts on crime lab backlogs.
Tags: New Mexico, Michigan, Wisconsin, Crime Lab Backlogs
New Mexico Repeals the Death Penalty
Posted: March 19, 2009 12:47 pm
Citing the possibility of executing an innocent person, New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson signed a law last night repealing the state’s death penalty. New Mexico is now the 15th state in the country without capital punishment.
“I do not have confidence in the criminal justice system as it currently operates to be the final arbiter when it comes to who lives and who dies for their crime,” Richardson said. “If the State is going to undertake this awesome responsibility, the system to impose this ultimate penalty must be perfect and can never be wrong.”Seventeen people have been exonerated by DNA testing nationwide after spending time on death row for crimes they didn’t commit. The Innocence Project supports a moratorium on capital punishment while the causes of wrongful convictions are fully identified and remedied.
Read more here. (Associated Press, 03/19/09)
Tags: New Mexico, Death Penalty