Pretrial Identification

Key Cases

• United States
  • Neil v. Biggers, 409 U. S. 188 (1972) - In Neil v. Biggers, the US Supreme Court provided the defendant with a mechanism to challenge a pre-trial identification by requesting a hearing on the validity of the identification. The two-pronged test asks 1) whether the identification procedure was suggestive and 2) if it was suggestive, were there indicia of reliability such that the witness's testimony should still be admissible even if the procedure was suggestive.