Exoneration Case: Victor Burnette

a. Victor Burnette lived in Richmond, Virginia in 1979. He cared for his blind and arthritic grandmother at night and was getting ready to get his career started. However this all change on the 5th of August that year, when a local woman identified him as the man who raped her. When DNA testing was done in 2009 it confirmed that he was not the attacker. It had taken 20 years for Burnette to clear his name. [Exoneration Case Detail. 2014]

Mary Jane Burton a state forensic analyst testified at Burnette’s trail that she examined the pubic hairs from the rape kit and the victim’s sheet. She announced that one hair was consistent with Burnette, others with the victim, and yet the others were consistent with neither Burnette nor the victim. She also determined that sperm cells were present on the vaginal swab from the rape kit. However, the serology testing only showed presence of Type A blood antigens. Burton testified that the victim was a Type A and Burnette was a non-secretor, this meant that his blood type could not be determined from bodily fluids. Although Burnette story changed a bit, he stated that his grandma had heard him come home that early morning. The jury convicted Burnette of rape and burglary. [Exoneration Case Detail . 2014]

b. Rape trauma syndrome (RTS) is the psychological trauma experienced by a rape victim. This can cause troubles to normal physical, emotional, cognitive, and interpersonal behavior. [Rape Trauma Syndrome, 2014]

Stress at the time no doubt affected the victim’s memory of her attacker. When stressed the brain is not at its greatest when it comes to memory formation and retrieval. When the body is stressed it starts to pump adrenal glands like there’s no tomorrow. The trauma by actually being ra...

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... the stress and depression they may be facing after viewing a crime. When an eyewitness is facing depressing they tend to have high stress levels and to tend to get damaged brain cells these are some of the factors that can cause such disruption and therefore source error can occur. Another issue that may interfere with an eyewitness' memory is retroactive interference. This usually occurs when new information is processed that obstructs the retrieval of old information. [Retroactive Interference Defined, 2014]. The most common source of interference that can occur after the event of a crime is the reporting of the crime. Police investigations include leading questioning that is often suggestive, which can cause confusing to the eyewitness. The processing of new information may disrupt or entirely replace old information. [Rawlings, Maren Skouteris, Helen, 2004.]