I remember very well the first movie that I saw from the “cops and robber” genre. The scenario was always similar. A crime would occur and the cops would summon a line-up of one thug after another, the usual suspects as they were called, for the victim to pick out the bad guy. As the line-up candidates began to walk in, it was always the crooked nose, cigarette smoking, scar faced suspects that seemed to appear in every movie’s police line up. And sure enough, the person who committed the crime was always one of the suspects in the line-up. Obviously just some good police work!

Now, after nearly thirty years of real life police work, the old movie scenario has not really changed that much. Photograph line-ups and in-person line-ups are still used to identify suspects who are believed to have been involved in a crime. The only real thing that has changed is the attitude by some toward this particular investigative technique. Apparently, they believe that by putting someone in a line-up, it is too inflammatory to have them positioned, shoulder to shoulder, with such nefarious characters. Secondly, they feel that putting someone in a line-up is, in fact, nothing short of profiling by placing them by other photos or persons of similar appearance concerning their race, stature, hair color, and etcetera. If this is their best argument, maybe we should grant their wish. Instead of putting the suspect’s picture among other candidates of similar appearance, we could always do things to bring immediate attention to the suspect in question. Maybe, some horns that have been pencil drawn into the photo or maybe a big gold star over the head of the real bad guy? It might be a little obvious who the bad guy is but it sure isn’t profiling.

There is no doubt that the line-up technique, in some instances, has been abused over the years. There is also no doubt that everything that we do, in all walks of life, has been abused or compromised in some way. But, to attempt to do away with a proven method of investigative identification, based on a small percentage of cases, seems asinine. While we should acknowledge the mistakes that may have been made in this process and correct them immediately, fairness would require us to give credit to the huge number of cases that have been solved over the years by utilizing this method. The truth is that the line-up method is based on the iron clad rule that if something quacks like a duck and walks like a duck, and it looks like a duck, it usually is a duck. A line up is made up of those who fall into this category and most often the right duck is picked out.

It seems that the ones who object the loudest are the guys, and of course their lawyers, who have been picked out of the line-up by the witnesses. This is particularly annoying to them when they are in fact the one who committed the crime. Only after they have been picked out of the line-up, and headed for trial, do they abandon their duck like appearance. Not only do they no longer look like a duck, they would never be seen with anyone else who did. Talk about a “real life” make-over show. Some of these transformations are magical.

There will always be examples of mistaken identity. As long as human observation is the key ingredient in the process, then human nature will prevail and mistakes will be made. Luckily, and unlike the days of Dick Tracey and Sgt. Friday, we now have other identifiable factors that are available to corroborate the lineup identification. Anything from the old reliable fingerprint to the more technological iris prints to DNA are all examples of the strides that have been made to ensure the police really got their man. But, as wonderful as the scientific progression has been, we must never allow the human touch to be discontinued. I am still not sure that we will ever be able to beat the earlier inventions that are still fairly trustworthy; the human brain and the human eye.