Confidential File

Mash Notes and Comments

"Mr. Coates:

"Some
years ago I recall reading one of your columns that was written in a
nudist camp somewhere in the L.A. or Southern California area.

"Would you mind telling us where it's located?

"We are traveling through this area and would like to absorb some sunshine if they'll accept us.

"The whole family is agreeable to the idea, except my little boy.

"He's a very shy child, and he says that no matter what happens, he won't take off his clothes in front of a bunch of people.

"But I guess we can talk him into it."

(signed) Mrs. R. C., Los Angeles.

-Just tell him children should be seen and not heard.

(Press
Release) "A company has come up with a product for utility poles that
will cut down on squirrel deaths and end power failures, line shorts
and fires," reports Electrical Wholesaling, McGraw-Hill publication.

"Squirrels,
with their affinity for power line poles and transformers, are often
welded to the spot when they nuzzle up against wires carrying 7,200
volts.

"Now an insulating cover can be fused to the metal of the
transformer with just enough juice coming through to give the squirrel
a discouraging tickle."

(signed) Publicity Department, McGraw – Hill Publications, New York City, N.Y.

– What's discouraging about a tickle?

Confidential File

Why Eyewitnesses Aren't Too Reliable

Yesterday I detailed three recent local cases of innocent persons being jailed by mistaken eyewitness testimony.

I told you that the cases weren't rare ones.

Today, I'm going to tell you why.

To do it, I have to point the finger at some highly respected groups who don't like people who point.

For example, the police.

Too often, their power of subtle suggestion is used to influence a witness to make a wrong identification.

As an exaggerated example, there's the "Arkansas lineup," which has become kind of a bitter joke among criminologists.

It
apparently was (and — from what I read in the papers — probably still
is) common police procedure in the state after which it was named. It
works like this:

A woman reports that a crime was committed
against her by a Negro. She gives police a physical description of the
suspect. Police find a man — any man — who generally answers the
description she gave. Then they stick him — one Negro — in a lineup
with eight white men, and ask, innocently:

"You see anybody there who looks like him, lady?"

Any conscientious cop would condemn the "Arkansas lineup."

But chances are that he, to a lesser degree, is employing the same tactic.

I talked about it at length this week with Marshall Houts, a former judge and FBI man, and one of the nation's best authorities on criminal evidence.

"Just 
by handing a book full of mugshots to an eyewitness or by letting him
view a lineup of suspects, the police are planting the suggestion that
the criminal is there," he pointed out.

"It's a dangerous procedure but obviously it's necessary," he added.

Houts' criticism was of the additional persuasion and influence — often unintentionally — used too often by police.

For example, showing a witness just one suspect or his picture.

Or,
as is the procedure in San Francisco (you've probably seen it on the
television show "Lineup), having an officer recite the past criminal
record of a man in a line up for the witness to hear.

"Some victims are extremely susceptible to suggestion," Houts said.

In his book, "From Evidence to Proof," Houts cites example after example of persons later found innocent whose convictions resulted from "rigged" or unobjective witness-identification methods.

Houts' suggestion: "It should be standard police department practice to tape record lineups, and take pictures of them."

Houts also recited to me the dozens of cases where as many as 6, 10, 12 witnesses made identification of a suspect — and were wrong.

"And as a general rule," he said, "the real criminal bears very little physical resemblance to the falsely identified party."

The
problem today, he told me, is to educate judges, lawyers, police
officers and the public that eyewitness identification is the type of
evidence most susceptible to error.

Some Strong Words Coming Up

It's also been my experience," Houts said, "that the more positive an eyewitness is, the less likely it is that he's right.

"Today,
judges and juries put too much credence in the eyewitness. In most
cases, eyewitness identification should be considered little more than
an investigative lead for the police.

"And if eyewitnesses are
used in court, I think the judge should instruct the jury in every
instance as to the unreliable nature of the evidence."

Those are strong words.

But they're coming from a man — as general counsel of Erle
Stanley Gardner's Court of Last Resort — has seen dozens of the
terrible injustices caused by equally strong words of "positive"
eyewitnesses who were wrong.