Although Vixen tells us he has a good degree in psychology he seems sadly unaware of the research on identification. I suspect the eye witness testimony would never have been presented in the UK. There was no attempt by the Italian police to have a photo line up to confirm reliability of identification. The unreliability of eye witness identification is mentioned here;
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/4177082.stm
and there is an interesting summary here;
http://www.visualexpert.com/Resources/mistakenid.html
and
http://www.apa.org/monitor/apr06/eyewitness.aspx
In England judges have to warn juries about the risks of eyewitness identification.
http://www.inbrief.co.uk/court-proceedings/turnbull-guidelines/
Absolutely. There were, from the outset, grotesquely huge problems with the credibility and reliability of the "eyewitness" testimony of both Curatolo and Quintavalle (as well as the "earwitness" testimony of Capezzali*). The flaws were so tremendous that it's truly astonishing that the Massei and Nencini courts accepted their identifications as reliable - the only feasible explanation of this IMO is that these courts were still hopelessly bound up in their deference to the prosecution case (and therefore if the prosecutors announced that, in their opinion, these witnesses were utterly reliable and credible, then what reason could the court have to disbelieve the "fair, impartial and truth-seeking" prosecutors....?).
As you correctly point out, one of the cornerstones of eyewitness evidence and testimony in properly-constituted criminal justice systems is the necessity for the witness to positively confirm identity. And this, as you say, is most often done by a fair and properly-run test in which the witness is shown the suspect alongside a number of other, similar, people. This is done by way of an identification parade line-up, or via photo or video compilations in which the suspect is randomly inserted among the others (usually at least five others) in the line-up. The police must not give any direction to the witness other than to say something along the lines of: "You're about to see a number of faces/people; if the person you saw is one of these in the line-up, then point that person out to an officer."
It should be obvious as to how and why such a test makes a massive difference in credibility and reliability of identification, when compared with something along the lines of the police simply showing an eyewitness a photo of the suspect(s) and asking "Is this the person(s) you saw?". There's no evidence that anything other than the latter approach was adopted by the "crack" investigating police in the Knox/Sollecito case. This alone (as you say) should have been sufficient to render their evidence and testimony unreliable to the point of inadmissible (and almost certainly would have done so in any court in E&W or the US). But of course over and above that, there were numerous other extraordinary problems with these peoples' credibility and reliability - not least the fact that, in the case of both Quintavalle and Curatolo, there were initial denials of having seen anyone/anything relevant to the case, then the elapsing of a huge period of time (months in the case of Curatolo, around a year(!!!) in the case of Quintavalle) before their memories miraculously got stronger and they were suddenly able to identify Knox or Knox & Sollecito in stunning accuracy and detail.
All that aside, Chieffi's statement is actually even more incredible if read carefully. Chieffi wrote:
"...when he was called to testify both in the first and second trials, Curatolo was able to identify and easily recognize the two defendants – even some time after the fact"
There's an inherent ambiguity in this statement. Chieffi could be meaning that Curatolo was, in court, able to testify that he had easily identified and recognised Knox & Sollecito
to the police during police investigations. One would, at the very least, hope this was what Chieffi meant - though it's still amazing and damning that the Chieffi court could not recognise the fundamental credibility/reliability issues with Curatolo's "identifications".
But (as others have also pointed out) Chieffi could be meaning here (and taken at its most literal, it's what the statement implies) that Curatolo was, in court, easily able to identify and recognise Knox and Sollecito
in the courtroom in the midst of the trial. Again, one would hope that this is not what Chieffi meant, since this would be a beyond-fatuous statement for a Supreme Court judge to make. But then again......
* I cannot help but repeat one of my favourite pieces of abominably poor "reasoning" on the part of Massei in his (convicting) motivations report, in respect of his rationale in accepting Capezzali's testimony as credible and reliable. He wrote these extraordinary words in a shocking example of flawed logic and circular reasoning:
"If there had not been such a scream, and if Mrs Capezzali had not actually heard it, then the Court can see no reason why she would have spoken about it."
