I. INTRODUCTION Over the last century, scholars have studied the relevance of psychological influences and their growing presence in the legal context, specifically in criminal law. As a result, the areas of eyewitness identification, trial testimony, and jury awareness have received heavy examination. Pre-trial identification procedures have come under scrutiny based on psychological factors and constitutional issues that often arise, and remain to be a topic of interest among legal and psychology scholars. While the commonly used lineup procedure has received much attention, researchers have not been as generous to the showup procedure commonly used by police. This note will first examine the historical background of lineup (1) and showup (2) procedures to date through a review of the Supreme Court's jurisprudence on showup procedures. (3) Specifically, the analyses and arguments of this note will address the psychological relevance of pre-trial, showup identifications through the following: a) the inherently suggestive nature of showup procedures; b) the psychological effect of eyewitness identifications on the jury; and c) the constitutional implications as a result of showup identification. Further, recommendations to the judicial community will be made along with suggested legislative reforms and policies that will, if implemented, alleviate the many problems associated with showup identification procedures.
