You may already be familiar with the concept of a police lineup from your own knowledge of television shows. What you may not know is that you have legal rights that pertain to a police lineup and eyewitness identification of you as a suspect. Law enforcement is not allowed to simply do whatever they want to have you identified as a suspect in a crime. Their ability to conduct lineups is subject to limitations imposed by the Supreme Court and Wisconsin legal precedent. If the identification of you as a suspect was improperly obtained, your criminal defense attorney can move to suppress the identification evidence. Then, the prosecutor may be forced to do without key evidence that they would have used at trial. Contact Hogan Eickhoff immediately for help.
Why Police Use Lineups for Identification Purposes
Police can use lineups for various reasons in your case, including the following:
- Corroborating evidence – Eyewitness identification can support other evidence, such as surveillance footage or forensic findings.
- Narrowing suspects – Lineups help police distinguish the actual suspect from other potential individuals.
- Building a case – A reliable identification can strengthen the prosecution’s case in court.
- Preventing wrongful arrests – Properly conducted lineups can reduce the risk of mistakenly arresting an innocent person.
If you are identified as a suspect at a lineup, the evidence can be used against you in court. Even if it is not the only evidence that a prosecutor will use in your case, eyewitness identification can mean that you are facing an uphill battle as a defendant.
Police Lineups Cannot Be Overly Suggestive
One of the major issues involved in police lineups is whether it was impermissibly suggestive. When law enforcement believes that they have a suspect in an alleged crime in their custody, they may have an incentive to get the evidence that they need to win a conviction. They might set up the lineup in a suggestive way where the alleged victim was led to identify you as the suspect. Police lineups can be impermissibly suggestive in the following ways:
- They may have put you in front of the alleged victim without including any other potential suspects
- The other possible suspects could have had starkly different appearances from yours, leading the alleged victim to select you
- Police may have provided verbal or other cues to the alleged victim or other witnesses to lead them to select you
- You may have been put in front of the alleged victim multiple times, leading to a suggestion that you were the suspect
When it comes to suggestive lineups, the United States Supreme Court has held that a court should look to the totality of the circumstances to determine whether it was improper. The mere fact that a lineup might have been suggestive may not be enough on its own to have it thrown out of your case.
The Wisconsin Supreme Court has held that police are not allowed to conduct suggestive and unnecessary police lineups. You must show that the lineup was both suggestive and unnecessary to have it thrown out in your case. In the end, the court will adopt a standard of reliability in determining whether evidence obtained from a police lineup should be admissible.
You Are Entitled to Have Your Lawyer Present at a Police Lineup
Your Sixth Amendment right to counsel applies at many phases of your case, and a police lineup is one of them. You have the right to have your attorney present at the lineup to view how police are following their required identification procedures. Your criminal defense lawyer can examine how the police conducted the lineup to determine whether you will challenge it as unnecessarily suggestive. Police officers may feel like they have greater latitude when they see that they are not being watched by someone whose role it is to protect your legal rights.
If you were not given an opportunity to have your lawyer present, the evidence from a lineup may not be admissible in court. The fact that your lawyer can and should be present at the lineup is another reason why you must seek immediate legal counsel after you have been taken into custody. On your own, you may not even know that you have the right to have an attorney present at the lineup.
You Can Challenge a Lineup & Eyewitness Identification in Court
Just because you have been identified as the suspect in a police lineup does not mean that a jury will even get to hear that evidence. Like any form of evidence that the prosecutor intends to introduce in your case, you can challenge it before your case even goes to trial. Your criminal defense lawyer can file a motion to suppress this evidence just as they would any other evidence that a prosecutor may be improperly attempting to introduce in your case. If you are successful, a judge can suppress this evidence, and it will not be allowed to be introduced into court.
Even if the judge allows this evidence into the trial, it can form the basis of your appeal in the case. If your constitutional rights were violated, and it was prejudicial to your case, an appeals court might overrule what the trial court judge decided. Then, your conviction can either be thrown out entirely, or the case can be remanded back to the court with the instruction that the improper evidence should not be allowed to be heard at any subsequent trial.
Contact an Appleton Criminal Defense Lawyer
If you have been arrested or charged with a crime in Wisconsin, not only is it crucial that you hire a lawyer, but it is critical that you do it immediately. There are many ways that your rights can be violated during the early phases of your case, and hiring a criminal defense lawyer now can keep them from happening.
Schedule a free initial consultation with an Appleton criminal defense attorney at Hogan Eickhoff. You can speak with a criminal defense attorney by messaging us online or by contacting us today at (920) 450-9800 for a free consultation. Learn more about other ways we can help defend various misdemeanors and felonies including property crimes, violent crimes, domestic violence, sex offenses, and drug offenses.