BOSTON (AP) – Norfolk District Attorney William R. Keating, troubled by a series of wrongful convictions in Massachusetts, is pushing for changes in the way investigators conduct police lineups.

Keating wants to make sure officers conducting lineups don’t know which person in the lineup is the suspect.

That way, police won’t be able to use their own reactions, either deliberately or accidentally, to influence a witness into choosing the suspect.

Keating’s push for changes reflects a growing body of research that suggests traditional lineups – in which the officers conducting the lineup are aware which person is the actual suspect – can produce false identifications and lead to the conviction of innocent people.

Police would also be asked to show witnesses photographs of potential suspects one at a time instead of in groups. The new method has been approved by the U.S. Justice Department and has been shown to be more accurate.

Keating is expected to ask representatives of 27 police departments and six State Police barracks at a July 15 training session to adopt the new procedures.

Keating is the first district attorney in Massachusetts to request the new procedures be used. He said that while there may be times when investigators cannot comply with the new methods, the procedures will result in better police work.

He said the state’s other district attorneys may follow suit.

Defense attorneys praised Keating’s move, saying the new identification procedures are among several steps they have urged law enforcement officials to take to cut down on the number of wrongful convictions.

Some police officers have bristled at the proposed change, saying they felt it questioned their integrity.

Part of the motivation for the proposal is a spate of wrongful convictions in Massachusetts.

In the past two decades, 23 prisoners statewide have been freed based on evidence that they were wrongly convicted, according to the Innocence Project, which specializes in using DNA testing to reverse wrongful convictions.

Keating’s office last year completed a review of more than 200 cases in which people claimed they were erroneously convicted of crimes over the past two decades. The review found no merits to the claims.

Of the 144 people exonerated nationwide as a result of DNA evidence since 1992, about 75 percent had been convicted based chiefly on mistaken eyewitness testimony, according to the Innocence Project.

AP-ES-07-03-04 0421EDT