The US Supreme Court ruled on Wednesday that the Constitution does not require a special judicial inquiry into the potential unreliability of eyewitness testimony in criminal cases when there has been no police misconduct. By a 8-1 vote, the high court sided with New Hampshire and Obama administration attorneys, who argued that existing safeguards were sufficient to prevent unreliable testimony.
Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg wrote for the court majority that the US Constitution's due process protections do not require a judicial inquiry into the reliability of an eyewitness identification in cases when the police do not improperly suggest to the eyewitness that the suspect was guilty.
The Supreme Court's ruling came at a time of renewed debate about the trustworthiness of eyewitness accounts and concerns mistaken eyewitness identifications can lead to wrongful convictions. A recent book by University of Virginia law professor Brandon Garrett found that 190 of the first 250 people exonerated by DNA evidence had been convicted because of mistaken eyewitness testimony.
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