Objective

Our objective was to assess Amendola and Wixted’s (Journal of Experimental Criminology, 2015b, this issue) response to our critique of their conclusions regarding simultaneous and sequential lineups.

Methods

We calculated the expected distribution of adjudicated guilty and not guilty cases in the smaller sample of cases for simultaneous and sequential lineups if a stratified sample of the larger set of cases had been used.

Results

The results demonstrate more clearly our point that the 52 cases used in the Amendola and Wixted analysis were distributed in a manner that was not representative of the larger sample. Specifically, the 52 cases used by Amendola and Wixted overrepresented the number of cases not prosecuted for the sequential and underrepresented the number of cases not prosecuted for the simultaneous.

Conclusions

The outcome measure was strength of corroborating evidence, which is strongly related to whether or not the case was adjudicated guilty. Hence, when comparing simultaneous and sequential lineups, the small subsample that was tested should have reflected the nearly equivalent rates of adjudicated guilty for simultaneous versus sequential. Given the demonstrated unrepresentativeness of the small sample, no conclusions should be reached from these data.