Original Article Eyewitnesses most common reason for mistaken IDs Tammy Fonce-Olivas and Daniel Borunda El Paso Times Learn more about the Eyewitness Identification Research Laboratory at UTEP at http://eyewitness . utep.edu/ Mistaken eyewitness identification is the most frequent problem leading to a person being wrongly sent to prison, said a UTEP professor who is a national expert in the field. "It's hard to estimate how frequently it occurs. It may occur as much as 5 percent of the time, some studies have estimated," said Roy S. Malpass, director of the criminal justice program and a psychology professor at the University of Texas at El Paso. Mistaken eyewitness identification appears to have played a key role in Brandon Moon's conviction for a 1987 sexual assault in West El Paso. The victim identified Moon as her attacker in a police lineup and later in court. But new DNA evidence conclusively proves that Moon could not have been the attacker, the district attorney and defense lawyers now agree. Moon is expected to be exonerated at a court hearing today based on the new evidence. Several factors can make eyewitness recollection unreliable, Malpass said. Memory can be influenced by fear. And people tend to remember people of their own race better than those of other races, said Malpass, who has studied eyewitness identification since the 1960s. "The single most important thing about witness memory is it can be contaminated," Malpass said. Despite the problems, the judicial system relies heavily on the recollection of witnesses and victims, according to local law experts. "It has to be taught, the pitfalls and the strong points. Don't get me wrong, it's not totally reliable, but law enforcement has to be trained on it," said Vince Pokluda, director of training for the El Paso County Sheriff's Department. Pokluda said eyewitness identification is incorporated into the 48 hours of criminal investigation training given at the academy for sheriff's deputy recruits. Officers are taught to seek out eyewitnesses because "the more sources of information you can get to nail the identification of either an innocent or responsible party the better off you are," he said. Moon's lawyer said many cases of incorrect identification are created by poor police work. "This case is just another example of something that we have known for well over a decade -- that a mistaken eyewitness identification is the single leading cause of wrongful convictions in America," said Nina Morrison, a lawyer for the New York-based Innocence Project. "You wonder how many more cases like this will it take before those in charge of administering lineups and photo spreads start to take seriously the research that shows that there are so many ways we can do it better and to avoid the risk and error and permit someone like Brandon from going to prison for something that he didn't do," she said. Eyewitness testimony continues to heavily influence the outcome of trials, said Joe Spencer, a longtime defense attorney. "Surely, it weighs a lot in court if you have a victim that points at the defendant and says, 'That's him; I know it's him,' " Spencer said. "Jurors want to believe the victim because the victim, I'm sure, is being sincere and doesn't want to make a mistake. But you can't rely on that testimony because studies have shown how unreliable it is." Tammy Fonce-Olivas may be reached at tfonce@elpasotimes.com; 546-6362.; Daniel Borunda may be reached at dborunda@elpasotimes.com; 546-6102. http://www.borderlandnews.com/stories/borderland/20041222-2903.shtml Lab errors erode confidence in system, some lawmakers say Gary Scharrer Austin Bureau AUSTIN -- Some key Texas lawmakers say crime lab errors resulting in conviction of innocent people such as Brandon Moon must be corrected or the public will lose confidence in the criminal justice system. The Moon case and hundreds of tainted cases handled by the Houston Police Department's crime lab have inspired legislative hearings intended to find out what happened and how to fix those problems. "I think, temporarily, the publicity given to the Brandon Moon case and those cases coming out of the Houston lab erode the public's confidence in the forensic evidence and analysis of that evidence," state Sen. Robert Duncan, R-Lubbock, said Tuesday. State Senate Criminal Justice Chairman John Whitmire, D-Houston, will collect testimony at a hearing Jan. 4 in Houston to learn why criminal forensic labs are making so many mistakes. "We want to review the El Paso case carefully and learn what happened and to make certain we do everything possible to prevent another similar incident," Whitmire said. "I don't think we know the depth of the problem." Moon's lawyers contend that sloppy or faulty analysis of semen at the scene of a 1987 sexual assault of a West Side homemaker played a crucial role in influencing an El Paso jury to convict the former UTEP student and sentence him to 75 years in prison. He was released Tuesday because of DNA testing showing that Moon was "conclusively excluded" as the rapist. The Department of Public Safety's crime laboratory in Lubbock handled the evidence, and prosecutors touted the DPS as being "like the FBI of Texas" before agency serologist Glen David Adams testified at Moon's trial. The DPS expert told the El Paso jury that the semen from the assailant came from a person whose blood type could not be detected in such bodily fluids as saliva or semen. Such a person is considered a non-secretor. Adams determined that the crime scene evidence came from a non-secretor and told jurors that the victim's husband and son were secretors. Moon was part of a small group of the population who could have left the semen, according to the DPS serologist. But Adams' analysis was faulty because he failed to properly identify the victim and her husband also as non-secretors, Moon's lawyers said. Duncan agreed that the state needs to fix the problems, of the type coming out of the Department of Public Safety's Lubbock office, that helped convict Moon. Those DPS tests performed by serologist Adams "were far from 'reliable' -- indeed, they appear to be marred by incompetence, fraud, or both," Moon's lawyers said in court papers. "A very strict review of these labs is appropriate in order to repair the public's confidence in those labs," Duncan said. He is the author of legislation that state lawmakers passed in 2001 giving inmates such as Moon another chance to prove their innocence through DNA testing. Adams, who no longer works for the DPS, declined opportunities to rebut criticism or to defend his work. In a statement, DPS officials in Austin said Adams' trial testimony concluded that Moon could not be eliminated as a suspect. The evidence was tested in 1987 using the most up-to-date serology tests available at the time. Gary Scharrer may be reached at gscharrer@ elpasotimes.com; (512) 479-6606.