CBS 2 Chicago wbbm7801059 670 The Score

Local

How Can An Eyewitness Be So Wrong?

View Comments
Brian Dorian

Lynwood police Officer Brian Dorian (Source: Facebook Profile Photo)

miller250

Reporting Steve Miller

Don't Miss This

CHICAGO (WBBM/CBS) – The question remains: How can an eyewitness be so wrong?

LISTEN: Newsradio 780′s Steve Miller Reports


“Eyewitnesses are overrated as evidence of a person’s guilt, ” Locke Bowman is legal director of the Roderick MacArthur Justice Center and adds he has been involved in a number of cases where faulty eyewitness identification has been an issue.

In this case, investigators showed a witness six driver’s license photos, and he picked Brian Dorian’s photo.

Later, he picked Dorian out of an in-person lineup. Bowman says authorities should not have shown the witness the photos first or at all.

“The witness begins to imagine that he saw Officer Dorian at the scene of the crime,” Bowman tells Newsradio 780, “when he’s just actually remembering what he observed in the photo spread.”

The Will County Sheriff’s office says the witness was so sure of Dorian, that he said, “Definitely, that’s the guy.”

CBS 2 Legal Analyst said Will County prosecutors also share in the blame, for failing to make sure they had all the evidence.

“I blame the felony review system of the Will County State’s Attorney’s office. They didn’t do their job,” Miller said.

Miller also blamed the state’s legal system, for allowing the testimony of a single eyewitness to be sufficient evidence to bring such charges.

“And I blame the law in the state of Illinois. It says eyewitness identification by one witness is sufficient to convict. That’s our law and it’s proven over and over again – even in death penalty cases – to be wrong,” Miller said.

View Comments
  • Skeptic

    That’s ridiculous. The witness picked him out of 6 licenses. I guess we can only hope that the other victim wakes up to straighten this out!
    Does anyone know what the farmer in Indiana is saying? He should know for sure if it was him or not!
    If Brian is really innocent…that’s a shame he had to go through this!

    • THE REALIST

      HOW FUNNY TO HEAR.THEY ALWAYS PROTECT THEIR OWN KIND FOR SURE. IF HE HAD BEEN AFRICAN AMERICAN HE BEEN GUILTY NO MATTER WHAT….IT NEVER AMAZES ME

      • Scot Flynn

        aRICAN AMERICANS GET AWAY WITH MORE CRIMES BECAUSE OF THEIR RACE, YOU JERK

  • Scot Flynn

    Hey Mr.” African American’. do you think he should be convicted because he is white?

blog comments powered by Disqus
Listen Live!

RSS Most Popular News

Follow CBS Chicago

Like us on foursquare

RSS Contests & Promotions

WBBM Newsradio 780, Radio Stations & Broadcast Companies, Chicago, IL

Twitter Updates