Snap Shot
- The question: How should a lineup or photo array be built and administered so that a witness’s choice reflects memory rather than the structure of the procedure, and how can its fairness be measured?
- What the research shows: Fillers should fit the witness’s description so the suspect does not stand out; among description-matched fillers, choosing those otherwise less similar to the suspect increased correct identifications of guilty suspects without increasing mistaken identifications of innocent suspects in large online experiments that the authors called a first step. Fairness can be measured with mock witnesses, double-blind administration and unbiased instructions reduce mistaken identifications, and under these conditions an initial high-confidence identification is generally accurate.
- What it does not show: A fair lineup does not prove that an identification is correct, and an unfair one does not prove it wrong. The research has not settled whether simultaneous or sequential presentation is better overall, live lineups have not been shown to outperform photo or video lineups, and no study can say whether a particular witness’s choice was accurate.
- The law: Due process screens police-arranged identification procedures that are unnecessarily suggestive and judges reliability under Neil v. Biggers and Manson v. Brathwaite; Perry v. New Hampshire limits that screen to suggestion arranged by law enforcement. Mil. R. Evid. 321 governs identifications in courts-martial, and Arizona tests challenged pretrial identifications at a Dessureault hearing.
- Issues for each side: Prosecutors should document how the lineup was assembled, who administered it, the instructions given, and the witness’s immediate confidence, without treating fairness alone as proof of accuracy; defense counsel should examine whether the suspect stood out and how the procedure was run, without assuming that every departure from recommended practice produced an error.
A lineup, whether live or photographic, is a test of a witness’s memory. It places one suspect, who may or may not be the perpetrator, among fillers whom police know to be innocent. If the witness chooses the suspect from among plausible alternatives, the choice carries information about memory. If the suspect stands out so that a person who never saw the crime could pick him or her from the witness’s description alone, the choice carries much less.
Lineup procedures reach court because identification is often central to a prosecution and because mistaken identifications have contributed to many wrongful convictions later overturned by DNA evidence (Wells et al., 2020). The same research shows that identifications obtained under sound procedures can be highly informative (Wixted & Wells, 2017). Lineup construction is a “system variable,” a feature of the procedure that the justice system controls, so it is where practice can most directly improve the evidence for both sides.
This paper covers filler selection and lineup size, fairness measures, administration and instructions, presentation formats, the 2020 scientific recommendations, the limits of the evidence, and the governing law.
Choosing Fillers
Early research established that fillers should fit the witness’s verbal description of the perpetrator rather than resemble the suspect as closely as possible (Luus & Wells, 1991; Wells et al., 1993). Everyone who fits the description is a plausible choice, while some natural variation among the fillers, which Wells and colleagues called propitious heterogeneity, leaves room for genuine recognition. A meta-analysis found that greater filler similarity to the suspect reduced identifications of innocent suspects but also reduced correct identifications of guilty suspects, largely because witnesses chose the suspect less often (Fitzgerald et al., 2013). Reviewing the older comparisons, Lane and Houston (2021, p. 148) concluded that neither description-matched nor suspect-matched fillers had shown a clear advantage.
A large study has since clarified the question. Colloff et al. (2021) found that, when every filler matched the description of the perpetrator, choosing fillers who were otherwise dissimilar in appearance to the suspect increased correct identifications of guilty suspects without increasing mistaken identifications of innocent suspects, and so improved discriminability. The main experiment involved more than 10,000 online participants who each watched one mock-crime video, and the authors called the work a first step without immediate policy implications. In a second experiment, which defined similarity relative to the actual perpetrator (something police cannot know), less similar fillers increased mistaken identifications of innocent suspects, and the authors predicted, without testing, the same result when an innocent suspect closely resembles the perpetrator. The fair reading is that description-matching remains the starting point and that, within a pool of description-matched fillers, maximum resemblance to the suspect is not required and may cost correct identifications.
Distinctive features need separate attention. If only the suspect has a described feature, such as a scar or tattoo, a choice may reflect the feature rather than recognition. One study found that replicating the feature across fillers produced more correct identifications than concealing it, without increasing filler choices in culprit-absent lineups (Zarkadi et al., 2009); a larger study found that a distinctive black eye reduced discriminability whether it was replicated or removed, with no difference between the methods (Jones et al., 2020). Either approach is preferable to leaving the feature visible only on the suspect.
How Many Fillers
The 2020 recommendations call for a single suspect and at least five fillers (Wells et al., 2020), and six-person photo arrays are common in the United States. In a study of more than 10,000 participants, lineups outperformed show-ups, but adding description-matched fillers beyond three lineup members did not improve discriminability; larger lineups mainly reduced the chance that the suspect, guilty or innocent, was chosen (Wooten et al., 2020). A meta-analysis of 14 experiments found that larger lineups give innocent suspects more protection but make guilty suspects harder to identify, so the preferable size depends on how often lineups contain the culprit and how costly a wrongful identification is judged to be (Juncu & Fitzgerald, 2021). A 2023 modeling study reached a similar conclusion: the culprit was detected better in smaller lineups, while guesses in larger lineups were spread across more members, protecting the suspect (Menne et al., 2023). On this evidence, filler quality appears to matter more than filler number.
Measuring Lineup Fairness
In the mock-witness procedure, people who never saw the crime receive only the witness’s description and choose the lineup member who best fits it (Doob & Kirshenbaum, 1973). In a fair six-person lineup, about one in six should choose the suspect by chance; if many more do, the suspect can be singled out from the description alone. Nominal size is the number of people in the lineup. Functional size is the number of mock witnesses divided by the number who chose the suspect, so a six-person lineup in which half the mock witnesses choose the suspect has a functional size of two (Wells et al., 1979). Effective size counts the plausible members, discounting fillers who are rarely chosen (Malpass, 1981). Tredoux’s E, an effective-size index, ranges from one (every mock witness picks the same person) to the nominal size (choices spread perfectly evenly), and Tredoux (1998) supplied confidence intervals so that small samples are not overread.
These measures do not always agree; conclusions about the same lineups varied with the method of collecting mock-witness choices and the measure applied (Mansour et al., 2017). A fairness analysis is stronger when it reports the description used, the number of mock witnesses, the measure, and its confidence interval. It shows whether the lineup was a fair test of memory, not whether the witness chose correctly.
Double-Blind Administration and Pre-Lineup Instructions
In a double-blind lineup, the administrator does not know which member is the suspect. A review concluded that administrators who know can influence witnesses’ choices and confidence, usually without intending to, and that blind administration removes that influence (Kovera & Evelo, 2017); where no blind administrator is available, blinded methods that keep the administrator from seeing which photograph the witness is viewing serve the same purpose (Wells et al., 2020). The National Research Council (2014) recommended double-blind administration as standard practice.
Many witnesses assume that police would not hold a lineup unless they had the right person. An instruction that the perpetrator may or may not be present, and that the witness need not choose anyone, reduces mistaken identifications in culprit-absent lineups (Steblay, 1997). Such instructions also reduce correct identifications somewhat, because witnesses become more cautious overall, but the reduction in mistaken identifications is generally larger (Clark, 2005). The 2020 recommendations add that witnesses should be told the investigation will continue regardless of their decision (Wells et al., 2020).
Simultaneous and Sequential Lineups
In a simultaneous lineup, the witness sees all members at once; in a sequential lineup, one at a time, deciding about each before seeing the next, often under a rule that ends the procedure at the first identification. A meta-analysis of 72 tests found that sequential lineups produced fewer mistaken identifications in culprit-absent lineups and fewer correct identifications in culprit-present lineups, and many jurisdictions adopted them (Steblay et al., 2011).
Researchers then applied receiver operating characteristic (ROC) analysis, which separates the ability to tell guilty from innocent suspects (discriminability) from the willingness to choose anyone (response bias), and argued that the older ratio of correct to mistaken identifications mixes the two. ROC studies found that simultaneous lineups yielded discriminability equal to or higher than sequential lineups, which mainly made witnesses more conservative (Mickes et al., 2012). Wixted and Mickes (2014) proposed that seeing all members together lets a witness discount shared features and focus on those that distinguish the perpetrator. The six-person simultaneous photo lineups typical of the United States outperformed the nine-person sequential video lineups used in England and Wales (Seale-Carlisle & Mickes, 2016). The National Research Council (2014) recommended ROC analysis as one tool and declined to endorse either format pending further research.
Field data are mixed. In a randomized study of 494 actual eyewitnesses in four jurisdictions, suspect identification rates did not differ between formats, but sequential lineups produced fewer identifications of known-innocent fillers, 11% compared with 18% (Wells et al., 2015). Houston police field data showed confidence strongly related to accuracy and simultaneous lineups, if anything, more diagnostic (Wixted et al., 2016). Later modeling found little or no difference in underlying discriminability (Kaesler et al., 2020), and a 2024 experiment concluded that sequential presentation itself has little effect, with observed differences arising from accompanying features such as stopping rules or a second viewing (Kaesler et al., 2024). Some researchers argue that ROC analysis omits outcomes that matter for policy, such as fillers absorbing mistaken choices that would otherwise fall on an innocent suspect (Smith et al., 2017). On current evidence, simultaneous lineups have not been shown to impair performance, sequential lineups generally make witnesses more conservative, and whether that conservatism is desirable depends on judgments about the costs of missed and mistaken identifications that science alone cannot settle.
Photo, Live, and Video Lineups
A review found little evidence that live lineups outperform photo or video lineups and noted practical problems such as delay and the difficulty of assembling suitable fillers in person (Fitzgerald et al., 2018). In a study in which 1,048 people unknowingly witnessed a staged event, live presentation did not improve performance over photo or video presentation (Rubínová et al., 2021). In interactive lineups, witnesses can rotate each face; in experiments with more than 8,700 participants, interactive lineups improved discrimination compared with static frontal photographs, and simultaneous interactive lineups did better than sequential ones, whether or not witness and suspect were of the same race or ethnicity (Colloff et al., 2022). These formats are not yet in general use.
Current Recommendations
A 2020 scientific review paper for the American Psychology-Law Society updated the 1998 recommendations (Wells et al., 1998, 2020). Four of its nine recommendations continue earlier guidance: double-blind administration, fillers chosen so that the suspect does not stand out, unbiased pre-lineup instructions, and a confidence statement taken immediately after the identification. Five are new: a pre-lineup interview of the witness, an evidence-based reason to suspect the person before a lineup, video recording of the entire procedure, avoiding repeated procedures with the same witness and suspect, and avoiding show-ups when a lineup is possible (Lane & Houston, 2021, pp. 143–155). A lineup is safest when the suspect is likely guilty, yet officers’ decisions to place a suspect in a lineup were affected by evidence strength less than they should have been (Katzman & Kovera, 2022). The recommendations did not endorse either simultaneous or sequential presentation.
Under what Wixted and Wells (2017) call pristine conditions (a fair lineup, blind administration, unbiased instructions, an initial test, and an immediate confidence statement), confidence and accuracy are strongly related in adults and high-confidence initial suspect identifications are generally accurate; when the lineup is unfair, even a high-confidence identification is much less reliable.
Limits of the Evidence
Most lineup research uses students or online volunteers who watch a brief video with no personal stakes. Many studies use one or a few perpetrators and a single set of fillers, which limits generalization to other faces. Field studies use actual witnesses but usually cannot know whether the suspect was guilty, so they rely on filler identifications, which are known errors, or indirect measures. Many procedural effects are modest, and results vary across studies and analytic methods. Group findings describe how procedures change error rates across many witnesses; they cannot establish whether a particular witness chose correctly.
Questions to Ask About This Research
When a mock-witness analysis is offered, counsel should ask what description the mock witnesses received, how many took part, which measure was used, and what the confidence interval was, because Tredoux (1998) and Mansour et al. (2017) show that small samples and different measures can change the conclusion. When Colloff et al. (2021) is cited, counsel should ask whether the fillers first matched the description, whether the suspect might be an innocent person who closely resembles the perpetrator (a situation the study did not test), and whether one online experiment with one mock crime generalizes to this lineup.
When the simultaneous-sequential literature is cited, counsel should ask which outcome is described (discriminability, mistaken identifications, or filler identifications), whether the studies were laboratory or field studies, and whether this procedure used a stopping rule or a second viewing (Kaesler et al., 2024). When the 11% and 18% figures from Wells et al. (2015) are cited, counsel should ask what was counted: identifications of known-innocent fillers, not the accuracy of suspect identifications. When high-confidence identifications are described as reliable (Wixted & Wells, 2017), counsel should ask whether the pristine conditions that finding depends on were present. These questions are explained in “Reading Research Claims: A Guide for Attorneys” on this site.
Lineup Construction and the Law
Federal and Military Standards
In Simmons v. United States (1968), the Supreme Court held that an identification following a pretrial photographic display will be set aside only if the procedure was so impermissibly suggestive as to give rise to a very substantial likelihood of irreparable misidentification. Foster v. California (1969) found a due process violation where the defendant stood out from the other lineup members in height and clothing and was then shown alone and in a second lineup. Neil v. Biggers (1972) listed reliability factors: opportunity to view, degree of attention, accuracy of the prior description, level of certainty at the confrontation, and time between crime and confrontation. Manson v. Brathwaite (1977) held that reliability is “the linchpin,” so a suggestive identification may be admitted if reliable under those factors, and Perry v. New Hampshire (2012) limited the due process screen to suggestive circumstances arranged by law enforcement. The right to counsel attaches at a post-indictment live lineup (United States v. Wade, 1967) but not at a photographic display (United States v. Ash, 1973). The research suggests the Biggers certainty factor is most informative when certainty is recorded at an initial, properly conducted procedure (Wixted & Wells, 2017). In federal court, expert testimony is governed by Federal Rule of Evidence 702, as amended December 1, 2023 (proponent must show it is more likely than not that the requirements are met).
In courts-martial, Military Rule of Evidence 321 governs eyewitness identification. On a timely motion to suppress or objection, an identification of the accused is inadmissible if it resulted from an unlawful lineup or other unlawful identification process conducted by the United States or other domestic authorities, or if the Due Process Clause requires its exclusion. The rule defines a process as unreliable, and therefore unlawful, if it is so suggestive as to create a substantial likelihood of misidentification; a lineup conducted in violation of the right to counsel is also unlawful. When an objection raises an unreliable identification, the prosecution must prove by a preponderance of the evidence that the identification was reliable under the circumstances, and a later identification following an unreliable one may be admitted only if the prosecution proves by clear and convincing evidence that it is not the result of the inadmissible identification. Expert testimony is assessed under Military Rule of Evidence 702 and United States v. Houser (1993); under Military Rule of Evidence 1102, the 2023 federal amendment to Rule 702 became part of the military rule in 2025 (Joint Service Committee on Military Justice, 2025), and practitioners should confirm current text.
Arizona
A defendant who challenges a pretrial identification may request a hearing outside the jury’s presence under State v. Dessureault (1969). The State must show by clear and convincing evidence that the pretrial procedure was not unduly suggestive or, if it was, that the in-court identification is not tainted by it, and on request the jury is instructed on the identification’s reliability. Applying Perry, the court of appeals held in State v. Nottingham (2012) that a Dessureault hearing is not constitutionally required when the State did not arrange the suggestive circumstances, but the Arizona Supreme Court later rejected Nottingham’s conclusion that Perry requires a cautionary identification instruction, holding that it had stretched Perry too far (State v. Bigger, 2021). Arizona’s standard jury instruction on identification (RAJI Standard Criminal 45, formerly No. 39) tells jurors that the State must prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the in-court identification is reliable and lists factors drawn from Biggers, including the witness’s level of certainty at the time of the pretrial identification and the time between the crime and that identification. In State v. Chapple (1983), Arizona’s leading case on eyewitness expert testimony, the Arizona Supreme Court held that excluding such testimony was an abuse of discretion on the facts of that case, where identification was the central disputed issue; admission otherwise remains within the trial court’s discretion (State v. Nordstrom, 2001). Arizona Rule of Evidence 702 adopted the Daubert standard effective January 1, 2012, and was amended effective January 1, 2024, to track the 2023 federal amendment (Ariz. Sup. Ct. Order R-23-0004).
Special Issues in Legal Practice
The principles described above apply with equal force to every party in a legal proceeding. The science operates the same way regardless of who is asking the questions, and the research summarized here does not by itself favor either side. What differs between the parties is not the science but the vantage point — the particular places where these issues tend to surface, and the particular errors each party is best positioned to guard against. The two summaries below identify those recurring issues. They are offered for orientation, not as litigation strategy; in every case the controlling question is what the evidence in that case will, and will not, support, and the expert’s role is to inform the trier of fact rather than to advocate for either side.
Special Issues for Prosecutors
The research supports several propositions prosecutors can legitimately present. A lineup with one suspect, at least five description-matched fillers, nothing that singles out the suspect, double-blind administration, unbiased instructions, and an immediate confidence statement is a sound test of memory, and an initial high-confidence identification obtained that way is generally accurate. Live lineups have not been shown to outperform photo or video lineups, and the simultaneous format has not been shown to impair performance. A lineup checked with mock witnesses, preserved as shown, and video recorded leaves little room for dispute about how it was conducted.
The research also counsels caution. A fair lineup shows that the procedure was a fair test, not that the witness chose correctly, and confidence first expressed at trial or after feedback carries much less information than confidence recorded at the initial procedure. Fillers who can be ruled out at a glance, a distinctive feature visible only on the suspect, a non-blind administrator, or instructions implying the perpetrator is present reduce an identification’s value, and prosecutors are best positioned to prevent these problems before the procedure. A suspect placed in a lineup on weak evidence is more likely to be innocent, which makes procedural quality more important.
Special Issues for Defense
The research supports several propositions defense counsel can legitimately present. A suspect who stands out from the fillers by appearance, clothing, photograph quality, or a distinctive feature can be chosen without genuine recognition, and mock-witness analysis offers an objective test of whether that occurred. An administrator who knows the suspect, instructions implying the perpetrator is present, and repeated procedures increase the risk of mistaken identification and can inflate confidence. Expert testimony on these principles, together with evidence of how the lineup was actually built and run, is a legitimate way to help the factfinder evaluate an identification.
The research also counsels caution about its limits. A departure from recommended practice raises the risk of error across many cases; it does not show that a particular identification was wrong. Fillers less similar to the suspect are not necessarily unfair if they fit the description, and the simultaneous format is not, on current evidence, a defect. A fairness analysis needs adequate samples and appropriate measures, and an expert may not testify that a particular identification is mistaken. When a fair, blind, properly instructed procedure produced an immediate high-confidence identification, the research generally supports its accuracy.
This paper is for educational purposes only and is not legal advice. The author is a psychologist, not an attorney; summaries of law are general and must be verified against current authority or with a licensed attorney.
References
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Jones, A. R., Carlson, C. A., Lockamyeir, R. F., Hemby, J. A., Carlson, M. A., & Wooten, A. R. (2020). “All I remember is the black eye”: A distinctive facial feature harms eyewitness identification. Applied Cognitive Psychology, 34(6), 1379–1393. https://doi.org/10.1002/acp.3714
Juncu, S., & Fitzgerald, R. J. (2021). A meta-analysis of lineup size effects on eyewitness identification. Psychology, Public Policy, and Law, 27(3), 295–315. https://doi.org/10.1037/law0000311
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Kaesler, M., Dunn, J. C., Ransom, K., & Semmler, C. (2020). Do sequential lineups impair underlying discriminability? Cognitive Research: Principles and Implications, 5, Article 35. https://doi.org/10.1186/s41235-020-00234-5
Kaesler, M., Dunn, J. C., & Semmler, C. (2024). Clarifying the effects of sequential item presentation in the police lineup task. Cognition, 250, Article 105840. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cognition.2024.105840
Katzman, J., & Kovera, M. B. (2022). Evidence strength (insufficiently) affects police officers’ decisions to place a suspect in a lineup. Law and Human Behavior, 46(1), 30–44. https://doi.org/10.1037/lhb0000476
Kovera, M. B., & Evelo, A. J. (2017). The case for double-blind lineup administration. Psychology, Public Policy, and Law, 23(4), 421–437. https://doi.org/10.1037/law0000139
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Mansour, J. K., Beaudry, J. L., Kalmet, N., Bertrand, M. I., & Lindsay, R. C. L. (2017). Evaluating lineup fairness: Variations across methods and measures. Law and Human Behavior, 41(1), 103–115. https://doi.org/10.1037/lhb0000203
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Legal Authorities
Foster v. California, 394 U.S. 440 (1969).
Manson v. Brathwaite, 432 U.S. 98 (1977).
Neil v. Biggers, 409 U.S. 188 (1972).
Perry v. New Hampshire, 565 U.S. 228 (2012).
Simmons v. United States, 390 U.S. 377 (1968).
State v. Chapple, 135 Ariz. 281, 660 P.2d 1208 (1983).
State v. Bigger, 492 P.3d 1020 (Ariz. 2021).
State v. Dessureault, 104 Ariz. 380, 453 P.2d 951 (1969).
State v. Nordstrom, 200 Ariz. 229, 25 P.3d 717 (2001).
State v. Nottingham, 231 Ariz. 21, 289 P.3d 949 (App. 2012), abrogated in part by State v. Bigger, 492 P.3d 1020 (Ariz. 2021).
United States v. Ash, 413 U.S. 300 (1973).
United States v. Houser, 36 M.J. 392 (C.M.A. 1993).
United States v. Wade, 388 U.S. 218 (1967).
Fed. R. Evid. 702.
Ariz. R. Evid. 702.
Mil. R. Evid. 321.
Mil. R. Evid. 702.
Mil. R. Evid. 1102.
Revised Arizona Jury Instructions (Criminal), Standard Criminal 45 (Identification) (2022).
Related topic papers: Eyewitness Memory · Confidence and Accuracy · Show-Ups · Improving Eyewitness Memory · The Cross-Race Effect · Memory Expert Testimony
Related topics from Arizona Forensic Services: Courts-Martial