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To: SLB
This might not be a bad thing, if "cold hits" are rightly recognized as being unreliable. The notion that a "cold hit" in any sort of lineup means anything is absurd.

To clarify: suppose one figures that a lineup of 10 people has a 33% chance of identifying the right guy, a 33% chance of identifying the wrong guy, and a 33% chance of identifying nobody. If the police have a suspect and two people ID him, that increases the likelihood that they in fact have the correct suspect. On the other hand, there's a 1 in 27 chance that two people will ID the same wrong suspect if their mistakes are independent; if the wrong suspect has some trait that increased his likelihood of being picked, the odds of erroneous double-ID go up substantially.

12 posted on 04/22/2002 7:13:19 AM PDT by supercat
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