John Wixted

All right, here's where the story takes another interesting turn.

On this first test, using a photo lineup, witnesses often don't even tentatively identify the suspect the way that Jennifer Thompson tentatively identified Ronald Cotton.

Instead, at a time when the witness's memory of the perpetrator is as fresh and strong and uncontaminated as it will ever be, the witness looks at the photos, including the photo of the suspect, and says, none of these guys match my memory of the person who committed the crime.

In other words, the witness rejects the lineup, providing clear evidence that the suspect in the lineup is innocent.

You see, this is absolutely the key point.

The first test of an eyewitness's uncontaminated memory can provide reliable evidence pointing in either direction, towards guilt or innocence, depending on how the test turns out.

And when the witness rejects the lineup,

It provides reliable evidence pointing in the direction of the suspect's innocence.

Yet many witnesses who reject an initial photo lineup after their memory becomes contaminated will show up at a criminal trial a year or two later unaware that their memory is contaminated

and now confidently identify the very same person they initially rejected.

Half the time, they don't even remember doing that.

It was so long ago.

These defendants are often convicted, sentenced to long prison terms, and are now behind bars.

And unlike Ronald Cotton, they do not have any DNA evidence to prove their innocence.

But what they do have

is a new message from the world of memory science that can help to do that.

And ironically, in a complete mind flip, it's reliable evidence of innocence from the memory of an eyewitness the first time they were tested.

Consider the case of Miguel Solorio.

He was arrested in 1998 for murder, but on the first test, four witnesses rejected his photo lineup.

Nobody paid any attention to that,