By Joanne Fine
Public Safety Partnership
"The Reliable Eyewitness Act" is anything but reliable. It will place an even greater burden on the victims of crime, as well as the police that service our communities daily.
Senate Bill 5 and House Bill 295 would make victim identification of offenders a more time-consuming process, less accurate, and more difficult for victims.
Current photo lineups and the way they are administered have a long, proven investigative and court record of working extremely well.
Currently, a victim is shown a photo-array, which provides photographs of six possible offenders who share the same physical characteristics. These photo arrays use pictures that are already on file, allowing police to present information promptly to victims. This makes it possible for law enforcement to pursue offenders while the trail is still warm, if not hot.
The proposals, sponsored by Sen. John Grubesic, D-Santa Fe, and Rep. Joseph Cervantes, D-Las Cruces, would take the investigators out of the equation.
An independent party would conduct a lineup or present 10 separate photos of possible offenders. The legislation, which has already passed the Senate and is now in the House, tilts toward having victims view a lineup rather than photos, and it asks that people not knowledgeable about the case conduct the identification process.
The judicial process already allows for outside people who are not knowledgeable about the case to assess the case merits. We know them as the jury.
A physical lineup also creates another loophole for defense attorneys. With this legislation these attorneys can argue that a lineup is preferable to photos and question, "Why wasn't a lineup used for my client." This new bill is another "Get Out of Jail" card for offenders. Is that what you want in your neighborhood?
An actual lineup is a difficult and time-consuming process— it can take days— which makes it harder to catch offenders.
Under this legislation, we would be using the time of experienced crime investigators to chase around for persons for the required lineups instead of investigating the crime. Meanwhile the offender remains on the street ready to victimize another innocent citizen.
Is this legislation what we want in our communities? As members of the Public Safety Partnership, citizens from across our community focused on public safety in partnership with the Albuquerque Police Department, we don't think so.
Public Safety Partnership members Anne Mitchell, Art Flicker, Christa Bolden, Dolly Sanchez de Rivera, Jane Webster, Ken Cox, Nancy Woodford, Spencer Nelson, Steve Cox, Virginia Kinney and Woody Simpson contributed to this commentary.
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