identification remains among the most persuasive evidence a hears.
It is also among the least reliable, and the two facts are connected.
Memory does not store an event; it one, using expectation to fill gaps.
Each retelling becomes the new original, and confidence grows with repetition.
A witness who was uncertain in the first hour may be certain in court a year later.
Jurors read that confidence as accuracy, and the correlation between them is weak.
Procedural reforms address the collection of the memory rather than its interpretation.
A double-blind prevents an officer from signalling, even unconsciously.
presentation reduces the temptation to pick the closest match.
Recording a confidence statement at the moment of identification preserves the only number worth having.
These measures cost almost nothing and have been adopted unevenly.
Courts have been slower to change how the evidence is explained to a .
Expert about memory is admitted in some and excluded in others.
Where it is excluded, the is asked to weigh a witness with no idea how memory behaves.
Innocence projects report the same pattern in case after case, which is an argument that has now been made for forty years.