Eyewitness memory Truth be told, eyewitnesses always play a crucial role in the judgment process. In the present justice system, the testimony from eyewitnesses could possibly be one of the most reliable evidences and influence jurors on judging corresponding perpetrator. In psychology, researchers use eyewitness memory instead of any other expressions. To our knowledge, eyewitness memory could be simply defined as a person’s episodic memory that he or she has been a witness of a certain criminal event. However, psychologists have discovered that the confidence of memory recall of eyewitness, would increase significantly by asking them the simple question, (e.g., Do you see the perpetrator below the following pictures?), even though the feedback …show more content…
But rarely few researches have been focused on witness memory for firearms. As a matter of fact, firearms usually represent a significant factor for law enforcement in the present judicial system. For making police or other investigators to get the weapon information correctly and efficiently, some researchers conducted a study (Sharps et al. 2015), which was aimed to discover whether typical questioning patterns would affect the results of the memory test of eyewitnesses, who could recall the firearms evidence in some certain crimes, which may potentially assist investigators to identify the criminals. The study was basically separated into two major sections, one was the free recall stage and another was specific-information recall stage. As a result, these researchers have found that, even though there was no significant difference they thought it would be observed in specific response section, the significant result was observed in the free recall stage. Researchers concluded that they could get the more accurate testimony of the given firearms in the free recall stage rather than they could get in the condition of specific questioning. By focusing on not outlaws, but firearms, this study has shown a new potential way to get required evidences. Based on this idea, researchers have analyzed that the …show more content…
In a previous study, the researchers Michael and Garry have argued that eyewitnesses’ confidence of memory and juror’s corresponding beliefs about eyewitnesses’ memory recall could both be altered by simply switching the order in the question list (e.g., a low-to-high confidence order and a high-to-low confidence order). Back in the time, researchers’ main purpose of the study was surprisingly not on the accuracy of participants’ answers, but on how much confidence participants had for their responses. In this way, by conducting two versions of six-sets experiments, the data, researchers has collected, firstly proves eyewitnesses expressing more pessimistic and feeling less confident about their responses in a low-to-high confidence order of question than in a high-to-low confidence order of question. Secondly, the data also showed that the switched order would affect how jurors’ attitude on eyewitnesses. Specifically, jurors would tend to believe more on eyewitnesses who hold high confidence of their memory recall at the very beginning the experiment. All these results show that the ordering difference certainly affects jurors’ belief in the accuracy and reliability of eyewitnesses’ saying. Thus, by realizing the importance of ordering of investigative questions, the present justice system may reconsider
The use of eyewitness statements and testimony’s can be a great source of information, but can also lead to wrongful convictions. Due to eyewitness testimony, innocent people are convicted of crimes they have not committed. This is why the wording of a question is important to consider when interviewing witnesses. Due to the fact that eyewitness testimony can be the most concrete evidence in an investigation, witnesses may feel they are helping an officer by giving them as much information as possible, therefore they may tell them information that is not entirely true, just to please them. This is why there are advantages and disadvantages to using open and close ended questioning at different durations of an interview. The way you word a question may impact the memory of a witness, this is because a person cannot completely memorize the exact occurrences of an event.
This paper will consider eye witness testimony and its place in convicting accused criminals. Psychology online (2013) defines “eye witness testimony” as a statement from a person who has witnessed a crime, and is capable of communicating what they have seen, to a court of law under oath. Eye witness testimonies are used to convict accused criminals due to the first hand nature of the eye witnesses’ observations. There are however many faults within this system of identification. Characteristics of the crime is the first issue that will be discussed in this paper, and the flaws that have been identified. The second issue to be discussed will be the stress impact and the inability to correctly identify the accused in a violent or weapon focused crime. The third issue to be discussed is inter racial identification and the problems faced when this becomes a prominent issue. The fourth issue will be time lapse, meaning, the time between the crime and the eye witness making a statement and how the memory can be misconstrued in this time frame. To follow this will be the issue of how much trust jurors-who have no legal training-put on to the eye witness testimony, which may be faltered. This paper references the works of primarily Wells and Olsen (2003) and Rodin (1987) and Schmechel et al. (2006) it will be argued that eye witness testimony is not always accurate, due to many features; inter racial identification, characteristics of the crime, response latency, and line up procedures therefore this paper will confirm that eyewitness testimonies should not be utilised in the criminal ju...
For example, when the victims want to remember something, or someone, strongly and with high confidence, the witness can still be wrong. The eyewitness is given all the photos of the suspects laid out to identify the person they remember committing the crime. Also the eyewitness is asked to identify each photo whether is the culprit or not. Prosecutors should look over the cases before relying on eyewitness. Prosecutors should not depend on eyewitness testimony because that will lead to wrongful convictions. The wrongful convictions span the criminal justice system from investigation and arrest to prosecution and trail(Ferrero). False conviction makes the justice system stronger and arresting innocent is wrong. And picking out person similar to the murder. Not catching the real suspect might cause the public risky. Public safety be in risk."Wrongful conviction is gravest violation of personal liberty and also poses severe public safety risks, as the real perpetrator could remain on the street," an innocence Project news release said. The real suspect might kill many people or if the eyewitness might be in risk. If the victim is still life might be kill again. Lying about someone is not good thing might have miserable life in their future.
During the identification and prosecution of a suspect, eyewitnesses are the most important. Eyewitness testimony needs to be reliable as it can have serious implications to the perceived guilt or innocence of a defendant. Unfortunately, the reliability of eyewitness testimony is questionable because there is a high number of eyewitness misidentification. Rattner (1988) studied 205 cases and concluded that eyewitness misidentification was the factor most often associated with wrongful conviction (52%). Eyewitness testimony can be affected by many factors. A substantial literature demonstrates own group biases in eyewitness testimony. For example, the own-race bias, in which people are better at recognizing faces of their own race versus another
Elizabeth Loftus, is a psychologist, mainly concerned with how subsequent information can affect an eyewitness’s testimony. Loftus has focused on misleading information in both the difference in wording of questions and how these questions can influence eyewitness testimony. This research is important because frequently, eyewitness testimony is a crucial element in criminal proceedings. Throughout Loftus’s career she has found a witness’s memory is highly flexible and subject to being influenced. The classic study by Loftus and Palmer (1974), illustrates that eyewitness testimony can be influenced by leading questions and ultimately proved unreliable.
There has been considerable debate worldwide, regarding the accuracy of eyewitness testimony in the criminal justice system. Particularly, arguments have surrounded wrongful convictions that have resulted from incorrect eyewitness evidence (Areh, 2011; Howitt, 2012; Nelson, Laney, Bowman-Fowler, Knowles, Davis & Loftus, 2011). The purpose of this essay is to consider psychological research about the accuracy of eyewitness testimony and its placement in the criminal justice system. Firstly, this essay will define how eyewitnesses and their testimonies are used within the criminal justice system and the current debate surrounding its usage. Secondly, the impact of post-identification feedback will be used to show the affect on the confidence of a witness. Thirdly, studies around gender related differences will show how a witnesses gender can affect memory recall and accuracy. Fourthly, empirical studies will be used to highlight how a psychological experience called change blindness can cause mistakes in eyewitness identification. Finally, the effect of cross-examination will be used to explore the impact on eyewitness accuracy. It will be argued, that eyewitness testimony is not accurate and highly subjective, therefore, the criminal justice system must reduce the impact that eyewitness testimony is allowed to have. Developing better policies and procedures to avoid wrongful convictions by misled judges and jury members can do this.
The justice system depends on eyewitness evidence to convict offenders. Eyewitness is a difficult task to achieve in the justice system. According to Wise, Dauphinais, & Safer (2007), in 2002 one million offenders were convicted as felons in America. Out of those one million offenders, 5000 of them were innocent in 2002 (Dauphinais, 2007). The Ohio Criminal Justice survey states that 1 out of 200 felony criminal cases is a wrongful conviction (Dauphinais et al., 2007). According to Dauphinais et al., (2007), Dripps said that eyewitness error is a huge factor in cases of wrong convictions. A study conducted in 1987 indicated that in roughly 80,000 criminal cases, eyewitness error was the only sole evidence against the defendant
In the court of law, eyewitnesses are expected to present evidence based upon information they acquired visually. However, due to memory processing, presenting this information accurately is not always possible. This paper will discuss the reliability of eyewitness testimony, its use in a relevant court case, and how the reasonable person standard relates to eyewitness testimony.
Researcher Richard A. Wise and his colleagues focused on finding out how prosecutors and defense attorneys felt and treated eyewitness testimonies. They found that defense attorneys are more likely to question an eyewitness’s credibility than prosecutors (Wise, et al. 1278). They also found that prosecutors knew less about eyewitness testimonies than defense attorneys (Wise, et al. 1277). This study suggests that attorneys should be informed about the risk of eyewitness testimonies being false or fallible (Wise, et al. 1280). In contrast to the study discussed before, a study conducted by researchers Tim Valentine and Katie Maras looked at the effects of cross examining evidence between eyewitnesses instead of focusing on prosecutors and defense attorneys. They conducted an experiment in which the participants had to watch an event and then talk about it with other people who saw the same event (Valentine and Maras 556). They found that the act cross examining what they all saw led to people coming up with false testimonies with many inaccuracies (Valentine and Maras 557). Both of these studies differ in that the first study focused on defense attorneys and prosecutors while the second study discussed on the eyewitnesses themselves. Even though they focused on analyzing two different demographics, they both
Eyewitness testimony is when people who were either involved in the “accident/ situation” give their side of the story, and give a testimony on what supposedly happened all through their eyes (Branscombe & Baron, 2017). In the movie eyewitness testimony was key to convict the “killers” of the store clerk murder, and one example was when each person described the car all from different points of view and distances. I felt like the eyewitnesses just used each other to reference the same car, they all didn’t have an accurate description of the car but when with it based on what the lawyer was say and hinting at. Another way these eyewitness testimonies seemed to be completely wrong and even harmful to the investigation was because everyone said that they saw Billy and his friend running away and speeding off when they could not really describe those two young mans descriptions with great detail. Which this was another form of eyewitness testimonies are really unreliable and shouldn’t really be used in a court of
Eyewitness identification and testimony play a huge role in the criminal justice system today, but skepticism of eyewitnesses has been growing. Forensic evidence has been used to undermine the reliability of eyewitness testimony, and the leading cause of false convictions in the United States is due to misidentifications by eyewitnesses. The role of eyewitness testimony in producing false confessions and the factors that contribute to the unreliability of these eyewitness testimonies are sending innocent people to prison, and changes are being made in order to reform these faulty identification procedures.
For example, the old man that lived beneath the boy and his father testified that he heard a fight between the boy and the father and heard the boy yell, “I’m gonna kill you,” along with a body hitting the ground, and then claims that he saw the boy running down the stairs. With this information, along with other powerful eyewitness testimonies, all but one of the jury members believed this boy was guilty. The power of eyewitness testimony is also shown in Loftus’s (1974) study. In this study, Loftus (1974) found that those who claimed to “see” something were usually believed even when their testimony is pointless. She discovered in her study that only 18 percent of people convicted if there was no eyewitness testimony, 72 percent of people convicted when someone declared, “That’s the one!”, and even when the witness only had 20/400 vision and was not wearing glasses and claimed “That’s the one!”, 68 percent of people still convicted the person. This proves that in 12 Angry Men and Loftus (1974) study, eyewitness testimony is very powerful and influential in one’s decision to convict a
Eyewitness testimony is especially vulnerable to error when the question is misleading or when there’s a difference in ethnicity. However, using an eyewitness as a source of evidence can be risky and is rarely 100% accurate. This can be proven by the theory of the possibility of false memory formation and the question of whether or not a memory can lie. For instance, a group of students saw the face of a young man with straight hair, then heard a description of the face supposedly written by another witness, one that wrongly mentioned light, curly hair. When they reconstructed the face using a kit of facial features, a third of their reconstructions contained the misleading detail, whereas only 5 percent contained it when curly hair was not mentioned (Page 359). This situation shows how misleading information from other sources can be profoundly altered.
The Innocence Project has assisted over 300 men and women be freed and acquitted of crimes they did not commit (Arduengo &Adam, 2014: Malpass, Roy, 2006). In approximately 75% of these cases, faulty eyewitness identifications were a significant cause to their false imprisonment. One can clearly see that today’s lineup procedures do not effectively protect innocent individuals, nor do they take into consideration the different abilities of individuals to memorise faces . Despite the known problems with eyewitness memory, courts and juries will continue to rely on eyewitness identifications (Arduengo &Adam, 2014). The two methods an eyewitness can identify a criminal
The mistaken recollection of information or the recollection of an event that never happened is known as a false memory (Rajagopal & Montgomery, 2011). The study of false memories has been of interest to cognitive psychologists (Otagaar, Smeets & Scoboria, 2013) for many years as it implies that human memory is vulnerable to the influence of external information, it also implies that our ability to recall events may not always be accurate. One major issue that has arisen with the research on false memories is the argued validity of eyewitness testimony (Wade, Green & Nash, 2011). Eyewitness testimony is the verified report made by someone who witnessed a crime (Wade et.al., 2011). False memories can interfere with the correct recollection of criminal offences which can potentially result in inaccurate accusations of a crime (Wade et.al., 2011). Researchers have been interested in studying false memories to develop a better understanding of how false memories work, and to what extent our memories can be assumed accurate (Jou & Flores, 2013).