Eyewitness Testimonies

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Recommended: importance of eyewitness testimony in the criminal justice system

A man named Calvin Willis, considered to be a family man with a wife, two year old child and another one on the way, served 21 years for a crime he did not commit. He was confined to living behind bars, missing out on family functions, and given a tarnished reputation, all of which he did not deserve. He and many others are incarcerated due to the flaws of our Criminal Justice System. According to the Innocence Project website, “between 2.3% and 5% of prisoners locked up in United States prisons are innocent. To put into context, if 1% of prisoners are innocent that would mean 20,000 innocent people are in prison.” For Calvin Willis, it all started in 1981 when he was accused of raping a 10 year old (Corsello 2007). Based off of conflicting eyewitness testimonies and serological testing that proved Willis was innocent, Willis was still charged for the crime. From the very beginning, Willis denied partaking in the crime. The evidence did not match up that Willis committed the crime but the jury did not believe his alibi and still found him guilty for rape and sentenced to life without parole.
According to the Innocence Project, of those who have been exonerated due to DNA results, almost 80% were because of false identifications done by eyewitnesses. “To date, more than 300 people in the United States have been exonerated by DNA testing, including 18 who served time on death row. These people served an average of 13 years in prison before being exonerated and released” (Findley 2006). This has fueled the fire to those who disagree with the death penalty because there is always that chance that someone is wrongly accused. Law enforcement has relied on eyewitness identification to convict offenders for many years. Mistaken eyewitnes...

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... Testimony. Retrieved February 2013, from http://psychology.iastate.edu/~glwells/annual_review_2003.pdf
Schleh, J. (2003). The Why and How of Blind Sequential Lineup Reform. Train the Trainer, 1-8. Retrieved from http://www.co.ramsey.mn.us/NR/rdonlyres/CFFF14C4-0F44-4BD9-9995-0186E9C17085/18041/TheHowandWhyofBlindSequentialLineupReform.pdf
Wells, G. (1978). Applied Eyewitness-Testimony Research: System Variables and Estimator Variables. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 36(12), 1546-1557. Retrieved from http://www.psychology.iastate.edu/~glwells/Wells_articles_pdf/Applied_Eyewitness-Testimony_Research.pdf
Wise, R. A., Fishman, C. S., & Safer, M. A. (2009). How to Analyze the Accuracy of Eyewitness Testimony in a Criminal Case. CONNECTICUT LAW REVIEW, 42(2), 437- 512. Retrieved from http://www.neulaw.org/papers/AnalyzeAccuracyEyewitness_Wiseetal2009.pdf

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