Portfolio Identification in Eyewitness Identification Procedure
Why are photo identifications the most unreliable eyewitness identification procedure?
Marc Green indicated three reasons of failures during the photo identifications procedure. The first one is connected with the fact that the witness is frequently not aware that the picture of a culprit may not be among the suggested alternatives. Very often the witness does not use memory during reviewing each picture; instead, a person usually compares pictures, thus picking the most likely one to be the culprit (Green, Marc). There is a thought that a culprit must definitely be among the alternatives and it is necessary to pick the picture. Moreover, the increase of a false decision is caused by police’s statement that they probably caught a criminal. The second reason is in a poorly chosen “distracters” (Green, Marc). The suspected one must not stand out from other people in the set of pictures. It means that there is not appropriate to use different coloring, clothes, height, weight, behavior, etc. There exist many ways to make a picture different by using various tones of colors, lighting, sharpness, brightness, viewing angle, background, location of a face, etc. It is necessary to avoid such distracters, because it may lead to a false identification. The third reason is the fact of knowing by the person conducting the photo identification who is the suspected one (Green, Marc). Such person can instinctively send signals or give signs that may influence the choice of a culprit. The witness subconsciously expects for signals during the procedure of identification, and every sign of an examiner can be considered as an affirmation.
Identify and describe the differences between two kinds of state civil lawsuits against individual state officers.
According to Samaha there are two kinds of civil lawsuits, particularly, State Tort lawsuits and US Civil Rights Act lawsuits. The difference between them is in the fact that State torts implicate an individual officer, and Civil Rights act lawsuits require an agency to perform their functions (Samaha, Joel). An agency has not the right of an absolute immunity for its investigative of administrative functions ("Absolute or Qualified Immunity"). It cannot be free from consequences of results of a suit. However, there exists a qualified immunity, protecting all, except those who are incompetent or evidently break the law. Qualified immunity can be applied to administrative officers only if their activities belong to the sphere of their scopes, are objective, and do not break the established constitutional rights of people ("Absolute or Qualified Immunity"). The main difference between two kinds of civil lawsuits is in the various executors, performing the functions necessary for realization of their main goals and objectives.
Can you sue a judge for damage? A prosecutor? Explain.
There exists an exception called absolute immunity (Chemerinsky, Erwin). According to the decision of a Supreme Court, judges have absolute immunity that gives them the right to be free from criminal prosecution and lawsuits during performing their duties. The official actions that were taken by a judge cannot be …
