Final answer:
Before the 1900s, the criminal justice system mainly relied on eyewitness testimony to identify culprits, as evidenced by historical trials and the Innocence Project's findings on wrongful convictions due to eyewitness misidentification.
Step-by-step explanation:
Before the 1900s, identifying the guilty party was mainly based on eyewitness accounts. Court hearings from earlier periods serve as a testament to the reliance on witness testimonies before modern forensics evolved. The Innocence Project discovered that eyewitness misidentification is the leading cause of wrongful convictions, emphasizing the unreliability of such methods. The case of Sacco and Vanzetti in the 1920s further illustrates the justice system's reliance on eyewitness identification during that era, despite conflicting testimonies and a lack of physical evidence linking the accused to the crimes.