The vagaries of eyewitness identification are well known; the annals of criminal law are rife with instances of mistaken identification. Mr. Justice Frankfurter once said:

"What is the worth of identification testimony even when uncontradicted? The identification of strangers is proverbially untrustworthy. The hazards of such testimony are established by a formidable number of instances in the records of English and American trials. These instances are recent -- not due to the brutalities of ancient criminal procedure."

The Case of Sacco and Vanzetti 30 (1927). A major factor contributing to the high incidence of miscarriage of justice from mistaken identification has been the degree of suggestion inherent in the manner in which the prosecution presents the suspect to witnesses for pretrial identification. A commentator has observed that “[t]he influence of improper suggestion upon identifying witnesses probably accounts for more miscarriages of justice than any other single factor -- perhaps it is responsible for more such errors than all other factors combined.” Wall, Eye-Witness Identification in Criminal Cases 26. Suggestion can be created intentionally or unintentionally in many subtle ways. And the dangers for the suspect are particularly grave when the witness' opportunity for observation was insubstantial, and thus his susceptibility to suggestion the greatest.

United States v. Wade, 388 U.S. 218, 228-229 (1967) (emphasis added).

Faulty eyewitness identification was the primary cause for the wrongful convictions in over 75% of the DNA exoneration cases.

Davis was convicted of shooting Officer MacPhail on the testimony of four stranger eyewitnesses - Harriet Murray, Dorothy Ferrell, Antione Williams, and Stephen Sanders - each of whom had a brief glimspe of the shooter and were particularly susceptible to the improper suggestion inherent in the identification procedure in this case.

Simply put, Davis was convicted based on 1) a woman who changed her original report of who committed the crime after the police strongly suggested that the "police suspect" committed the crime, not Redd Coles, the person she originally reported, 2) a woman who too far away to see the face of the shooter and who admitted immediately after her testimony that she lied when she identified Davis and only did so because that was the person the police wanted her to select, 3) a man who was only 60% sure after he studied a photo of the police suspect for 10 days before he selected the same photo from a group of five, and 4) a man who could not identify the shooter that night, one month later, or anytime within the 23 months following the shooting.