Brief filed: 05/28/2025
Documents
State v. Tybear Miles
New Jersey Supreme Court; Case No. 090275
Prior Decision
Appeal from Hudson Cty., Ind. No. 22-06-798-I, court’s orders granting Mr. Miles’ motion to compel discovery (Oct. 11, 2024) and denying the State’s motion to reconsider (Dec. 5, 2024)
Argument(s)
Police used facial recognition to identify an Instagram user implicated by a confidential informant in a murder. Investigators imported the photo to the New York/New Jersey HIDTA facial recognition system and determined Mr. Miles was a “match.” Mr. Miles sought discovery on the facial recognition search, including the software parameters and its error rate, pursuant to a prior New Jersey Appellate Division ruling, State v. Arteaga, 476 N.J. Super. 36 (App. Div. 2023).
NACDL’s brief highlights the unreliability of facial recognition technology, including its known racial biases, low accuracy in common law enforcement investigative settings, and the many resulting wrongful arrests based on erroneous matches. The brief argues that discovery is required for such “black box” technologies under both Florida v. Harris (affirming an individual’s right to challenge the reliability of a drug-detection dog) and Brady v. Maryland (where these details may undermine the credibility of the identification and alternative “hits” may be exculpatory) and highlights recent jurisprudence around the country recognizing concerns with facial recognition.
Author(s)
Daniella Gordon, NACDL Amicus Committee Vice-Chair; Michael Price, NACDL Fourth Amendment Center; Shreya Tewari, NACDL Fourth Amendment Center; Christopher Frascella, Electronic Privacy Information Center; Abigail Kunkler, Electronic Privacy Information Center; Hannah Zhao, Electronic Frontier Foundation
