About a month before Samuel Lawson was to go on trial for the 2003 murder of a Douglas County man, a detective in the case quietly took a star witness to one of Lawson's hearings to get a look at him.

Sherl Hilde had been unable to consistently identify Lawson as the suspect who shot her and killed her husband in the attack at a national forest campsite.

But a few weeks after her courtroom visit, the doubt was gone. "I'll never forget his face as long as I live," Hilde told jurors. Lawson was convicted of five counts of aggravated murder and is serving a life sentence.

the Oregon Supreme Court not only ordered a new trial for Lawson, but also established a new procedure for evaluating whether eyewitness identifications can be used as evidence.

The Supreme Court found "serious questions" about the reliability of Hilde's identification of Lawson, Justice Paul De Muniz wrote in

Police asked Hilde leading questions, gave her a photo of the suspect and made suggestive statements that could have implanted in her mind that Lawson -- who had encountered the couple earlier in the day -- was the shooter, the justices said.

Daniel Casey, who argued the appeal on behalf of Lawson, declined to comment.

Attorneys for the state Justice Department were reading the order and did not immediately have a comment.

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The court's order stemmed from two eyewitness identification cases -- the Lawson conviction, which the justices reversed, and a Umatilla County robbery conviction, which the court upheld.

Citing research over the past 30 years, the justices determined that Oregon's two-step process for weighing eyewitness identifications -- established in 1979 -- "does not accomplish its goal of ensuring that only sufficiently reliable identifications are admitted into evidence."

That process requires that a court first determine whether investigators used "suggestive" tactics to get an identification and then whether other information -- independent of the suggestive tactics -- supports the identification.

But it doesn't account for other factors found to affect eyewitness identifications, the court wrote. For example, if an investigator offers "confirming feedback" to a witness who makes an identification, the witness feels an inflated sense of confidence in the accuracy. Stress and fear also can hinder a witness' ability to make accurate identifications, the court wrote. And even the level of lighting or the race of the witness compared to the suspect can impede accuracy.

Under the revised test, if a defendant objects to eyewitness identification evidence, the burden is on prosecutors to show its validity. That may entail proving that the witness had "an adequate opportunity to observe" whatever they plan to testify about. It also may mean showing the identification was "rationally based" on qualities such as facial features, for example, but generally not such indistinct characteristics as race, height, weight and clothing.

The opinion was hailed as "a landmark decision that makes the

a national leader on a critical issue of criminal justice," said Karen Newirth, an expert on the issue with

The group, which works to exonerate people that it believes the courts have wrongfully convicted, was part of The Innocence Network that filed a brief on Lawson's behalf.

The court's ruling also offers a good blueprint for other states grappling with identification evidence, Newirth said. Misidentifications contributed to 75 percent of the 301 exonerations that Innocence Project and affiliated groups have secured, she said.

Eric Nisley, district attorney for Wasco County and president of the Oregon District Attorneys Association, said he is still studying the lengthy opinion. But he maintained that "a large number of jurisdictions in the state are already utilizing some of these methods. And we understand some of the issues raised by the Supreme Court."

He said that both prosecutors and law enforcement officers will do their part to follow the court's decision, but it may require additional training for some counties.

"We want to have good evidence to present in court," he said.

In Lawson's case, the testimony of Sherl Hilde was critical in part because prosecutors did not have DNA evidence and fingerprints to tie Lawson to the killing. They also did not recover a murder weapon.

Hilde and her husband, Noris, had encountered Lawson earlier in the day, when they drove up to the tent that Noris Hilde had pitched the weekend before to claim the campsite. Lawson's truck was parked in their space and he was inside the tent. Lawson apologized, saying he thought the tent had been abandoned, and moved his gear to another site before leaving about 40 minutes later.

That night, Sherl Hilde was shot in the chest as she stood at the window of her trailer at the site. Her husband was shot while calling 911. Sherl Hilde said at the time she did not see the shooter, referring to "them."

In initial interviews, Hilde was unable to pick out Lawson as the suspect and said she could not identify anyone. But after police asked "leading questions," the court wrote, Hilde began to confirm that the man who had been in the camp earlier that day was the shooter.

With the trial coming up, police showed Hilde a single photo of Lawson, De Muniz wrote, and took her to the hearing to see Lawson in advance of the trial. She then was able to pick out his photo from a line-up that she had been unable to do previously, De Muniz wrote.

Prosecutors never reported those actions to defense attorneys despite being constitutionally required to disclose information that may help exonerate a defendant, he said.

Douglas County District Attorney Rick Wesenberg did not return a call or email from The Oregonian on Thursday. Douglas County Sheriff's Lt. Chris Merrifield, who led the investigation, declined to comment.