UNcertainty

Of the three eyewitnesses for this case, only one claimed he could see the shooter's face, a Morgan State University student who was also waiting at the bus stop. He helped police construct a computer-generated composite sketch of the shooter he had seen and later identified Bond in a photo array that police showed him. However, at trial, the eyewitness was unsure that the defendant before him was the shooter. He told the judge, "I see that Mr. Bond looks a lot like the person I saw that night, but I cannot be one hundred positive." According to experts, it is rare for witnesses to become less certain about their identification over time.  Eyewitness expert John Wixted has said that for an uncontaminated memory test, confidence is a reliable indicator of witness reliability. Today, the eyewitness says he was never completely sure that the shooter he had seen that night was Bond: it was dark outside and he saw the shooter, who was wearing a hood, only briefly. Eyewitness experts say that darkness, stressful situations, a suspect holding a weapon and a suspect something on his or her head all can negatively impact the accuracy of eyewitness identifications. Faulty eyewitness identifications are the most common cause of wrongful convictions. 

Procedure

The gold standard in eyewitness identification is the double-blind procedure, where the administering officer of a lineup or photo array does not know which individual is the suspect. This extra precaution is meant to protect eyewitnesses from being influenced by an officer, even unintentionally, but this step was not common practice in the late 90s in Baltimore. Based on the timeline, it is likely that the officer who was administering the photo array to the chief eyewitness was aware of which individual in the array was Bond, who had been identified by a confidential informant. Additionally, the eyewitness has said that he looked through an album of police photos of possible suspects before assisting in creation of a composite sketch, a step that could have allowed him to see Bond's face. Although this is unverified, the eyewitness has said that he believes he could have been shown multiple photo arrays containing a picture of Bond before ultimately identifying him in a photo array.  He was issued instructions that included the comment that people pictured in the array could have cut their hair or changed their appearance - an instruction that eyewitness expert Dr. Nancy Franklin says can be unduly suggestive.