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Reliability of eyewitness testimony
Historical role of eyewitness testimony
Reliability of eyewitness testimony
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There have been several cases in which eyewitness testimony led to the conviction of an innocent person. In one notable case, Raymond Towler was wrongly convicted in 1981 of the rape, kidnap, and assault of an 11-year old girl based on eyewitness testimony in which the victim and other witnesses identified him from a photo. Towler had been serving a life sentence and was released in 2010 after serving nearly 30 years until DNA evidence proved that he did not commit the rape (Sheeran, 2010). In another case, Kirk Bloodsworth was convicted and sentenced to death for the rape and murder of a nine-year-old girl near Baltimore in 1984. Five different eyewitnesses testified that they saw him at the scene of crime. After serving nine years in prison on death row, he was released and paid compensation after traces of semen found in the victim’s underwear excluded him as the person responsible for the crime. Although he was released, he was not formally exonerated for another decade until the real killer was found, Kimberly Shay Ruffner. Ruffner was already incarcerated for unrelated crimes and was identified after the DNA sample from the crime scene was added to state and federal databases and came back as a match for him. Despite the fact that Bloodsworth was a completely different height and weight than Ruffner, five eyewitnesses testified that they saw him at the murder scene (Marshall, 2009). Another case in which the reliability of eyewitness testimony was questioned was that of Troy Davis, who was convicted and executed for the murder of police officer Mark Allen MacPhail. Seven of the nine witnesses who testified against Davis in the shooting later recanted their testimonies (Pappas, 2011). Jason Chan, assistant professor of psych... ... middle of paper ... ...ggers (1972) in which the Supreme Court identified five factors to be used in determining the reliability of eyewitness identification, particularly when identification was not immediately made at the crime scene. Manson v. Brathwaite (1977) resulted in the Biggers-Brathwaite Factors Test, which weighs the five factors of Biggers against the “corrupting” effect of any procedures conducted by law enforcement that jeopardize “the fairness or impartiality of a procedure.” If such “corrupting” effects take occur due to a law enforcement officer or investigator, the eyewitness identification may still be used in court if the reliability of the eyewitness identification is strong (Swanson et al., 2011). The most logical and obvious question to all of these reliability issues with eyewitness testimony is what changes can be made to prevent further miscarriages of justice?
Psychological research shows that eyewitness testimony is not always accurate, therefore it should not be used in the criminal justice system. Discuss.
You can't trust eyewitness reports because the human mind can't remember some things. “Every year more than 75,000 eyewitnesses identify criminal suspects in the us and studies suggest that as many as a third of them are wrong.” Thats 25,000 eyewitness reports wrong. All those mistakes caused the victims their lives. in the article by the week staff it says that the...
Such devastating mistakes by eyewitnesses are not rare, according to a report by the Innocence Project, an organization affiliated with the Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law at Yeshiva University. The Innocence Project uses DNA testing to exonerate those wrongfully convicted of crimes. Since the 1990s, when DNA testing was first introduced, Innocence Project researchers have reported that, “Seventy three percent of the two hundred thirty nine convictions overturned through DNA testing were based on eyewitness testimony” (Loftus xi). One third of these overturned cases rested on the testimony of two or more mistaken eyewitnesses. How could so many eyewitnesses be wrong? This paper will identify a theoretical framework that views eyewitness testimony ...
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
With the emergence of DNA evidence, cases ae not as highly dependent on eyewitness accounts. So even now there will be fewer wrongful convictions. Juries, judges, prosecutors and police must adjust the weight that they put in eyewitness accounts. An eyewitness account should be a piece of the pie, not the entire pie.
Fradella, H.F. (2006) Why judges should admit expert testimony on the unreliability of eyewitness testimony. Federal Courts Law Review. Retrieved from http://www.fclr.org/fclr/articles/html/2006/fedctslrev3.pdf
Eyewitness identification has been used to convict criminals for many years. With the new use of DNA we are finding that many individuals convicted using eyewitness identification are in fact victims themselves.
In recent years, the use of eyewitness testimonies as evidence in court cases has been a subject in which various researchers have been interested in. Research suggests that eyewitness testimonies are actually not reliable enough to use as primary evidence in court cases. There have been many cases in which an innocent person gets sent to prison for a crime they did not commit because an eyewitness testified that they were the ones that they saw at the scene of the crime. Researchers’ goal is to improve the legal system by finding out whether eyewitness testimonies should be used in the court of law or not.
Often, previous or new knowledge of an experience will alter our memories. That is why the use of Eyewitness testimony in judging a suspect is highly controversial. Many people believe that eyewitness testimony can be highly unreliable. On the other hand, many believe eyewitness testimony to be the most trustable and accurate way in deciding on the final verdict.
Although testimony by witnesses is an invaluable tool in assisting judges and juries’ efforts to convict violent criminals, however, there are major issues with witness memory and recall of events. For this reason, officers of the court use the professional psychological research to deal with the likelihood of significant errors in eyewitness testimony. The fact is, human memory begins to fade within the first hour. In addition, memory continues to decrease for the next nine hours and beyond. Furthermore, recall of a crime can be affected by other factors. As a consequence of major mistakes in observer evidence many innocent victims spend years in prison before they are vindicated and
The use of eyewitnesses has been a constant in of criminal justice system since its very beginning. Unfortunately, people do not make the best witnesses to a crime. The person may not have seen the actual criminal, but someone that looks similar to them. The witness may lie about what he or she may have scene. Also the witness can be influenced by the police as to who or what they saw at the time of the crime. The witness or victims memory of the person may have faded so that they don’t remember exactly what had seen, which could be disastrous for the accused.
This case started on July 25, 1984, with the death of a nine year old girl by the name of Dawn Hamilton. The story plays out as follows: Dawn approached two boys and an adult male that were fishing at a pond in a wooded area near Golden Ring Mall in eastern Baltimore, Maryland. Dawn asked the boys to help her find her cousin, they declined the adult male however agreed to help her look. This was the last time anyone saw Hamilton alive. Hamilton’s body was found to have been raped, strangled and beaten with a rock. The police collected a boot print at the scene and DNA that was found in Hamilton’s underwear. The police also relied on the witness testimonies and line-ups, which in this case was the photo array. With the five eye witness testimonies and a tip the believed to be suspect was found. Kirk Noble Bloodsworth a prior U.S. Marine with no prior criminal record was taken into custody and charged with intentional first degree murder, sexual assault and rape. Bloodsworth was basically convicted on the eye witness testimonies. The state requested the death penalty. Bloodsworth was sentenced to two consecutive life terms. (BLOODSWORTH v. STATE, 1988)
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.
From a legal standpoint, eyewitness memories are not accurate. Though they all illustrate the same concept, each paper described different ways eyewitness memories were altered. One’s memory can be misleading by their own attributions towards the situation, what they choose to see and not see, and if the individual has been through a single event or repetitive stressful events. As human beings, our memories on all matters are not concrete. When retelling stories, we tend to modify the situation and tailor certain events, making the information provided unreliable. An eyewitness testimony changes the track of a trial and information that is given to the court can be ambiguous and can cause bias towards the circumstances. Eyewitnesses can even be confident in their retelling of a situation and explain a complete event, when in fact, that particular event never