As police increasingly rely on a controversial investigative tool called facial recognition technology to identify crime suspects, New Jersey’s top court gave defense attorneys a win Wednesday, ordering prosecutors to more fully explain how they used the technology in a Jersey City murder case.
New Jersey Supreme Court Justice Douglas Fasciale, in a unanimous ruling, wrote that prosecutors were wrong to deny Tybear Miles’ discovery demand for details on what facial recognition software investigators relied on to arrest him for the June 2021 shooting death of Ahmad McPherson and how exactly they used it.
The technology is controversial because misidentifications have resulted in at least eight wrongful arrests nationally, with research showing it most often fails at identifying people of color, women, children, and elderly people. It also has gone largely unregulated both in New Jersey and nationally, alarming civil rights advocates…