Throughout the year’s photo line up’s of suspects have rightfully convicted many criminals, but have you ever stopped to think that some of the witnesses may misconceive who the perpetrators actually are. I have heard of a few criminal investigations where the wrong person was incarcerated for many years because of the witness’s identification of the “suspects” photo in a line up. When I saw this topic in the FBI’s archived stories I knew I had to read it. I know that the percentage of rightfully convicted criminals are high, but there is still room for error. I knew quite a bit about this topic before I had read the article and this is why I was interested in it.
When an eyewitness is present in a criminal investigation they are asked to identify the suspect. Witnesses are asked the description of the perpetrator then the officers create a lineup off of the description with the most closely looking “suspects”. The identification of a suspect is very detrimental to a criminal investigation. It can be very useful in a criminal investigation if a suspect is identified, and no other sig...
“Eyewitness Identification: A Policy Review.” The Justice Project, Iowa State University. Web. 22 April 2014.
From a trial strategy point of view, you always start with the piece(s) of evidence you believe are most damaging to the client's case and work backwards looking for an exploitable flaw in the search and seizure procedure that would make that or those item(s) inadmissible. The further back in the series of events you can argue a fatal flaw, the more likely that the evidence and any additional materials which flowed from that particular item of evidence will be excluded. This is the practical analysis of all the times we see or hear of law enforcement arguing that there was some technical item which drew their attention and suspicion and justifies their hunch that criminal activity is afoot.
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...
The Central Park Jogger case is one of false confessions to a crime, with a little help from police, which the defendants did not commit. Evidence taken at the crime scene did exclude the defendants, however, because of videotaped confessions they were sentenced to prison for a crime they admitted to committing even though they did not. It was not until many years later did the original perpetrator step forward from prison to admit he was the one who committed the crime with evidence (DNA) and firsthand knowledge of the scene. The five original defendants were released from prison but until serving a lengthy term. There are cues that can be noticed when investigators are conducting preliminary interviews that have a very high rate of success in determining the guilt or innocence of an individual. Some of these cues may be verbal such as a rehearsed response (Kassin, 2005). Other types of cues may be nonverbal body language such as a slouching (Kassin, 2005).
Eyewitness misidentification cost innocent people to end up in prison. Eyewitness misidentification is the single greatest cause of wrongful convictions in the United States, having played a role in more than 70% of original convictions later overturned by new DNA evidence(Dunn). This explains eyewitness misidentification is not a reliable solution to prison the suspect and deal with other solution. The suspect is effected because the suspect goes through terrible life for crime they did not commit and false witness hunts
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
On February 27th, 2014 I had the pleasure to interview Detective Vincent Velazquez who was referred to me by Professor Paul Guerrucci. Vincent currently works at the Atlanta Police Department located in 226 Peachtree Street, Atlanta, GA 30303. On the day of the interview, I was a little anxious since this was actually the first time I interview a crime investigator, however Vincent was very professional and he allowed me to record the entire conversation. I was able to ask questions about his personal life, full details of his profession, current case assignments, criminal investigation procedures and existing problems in the investigation process.
Line ups and show-ups are typically used to identify a witness or a suspect. Lineups are an identification procedure, in which the witness or the victim is able to observe and pick out any possible suspects related to the crime. With a traditional lineup, a photo lineup can also be conducted. Investigators will rely on this method more frequently because there is an urgency to proceed in the case. As for a show-up, the witness of the crime is able to view the suspect alone, without other possible suspects. For example, when a suspect is apprehended, a police officer could rely on a show-up procedure and present the victim with a drive by of the detainee in an effort to identify the suspect. These identification procedures are important for the witness because they provided a comfortable setting in which can help them be as precise as possible in making an
Eyewitnesses are primarily used by the criminal justice system for investigating and prosecuting crimes, particularly in circumstances where it is the only evidence available (Wells & Olson, 2003). Their testimony is highly regarded as it allows for police, prosecutors, judges and juries to establi...
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 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.
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.
The process of using behavioral evidence left at a crime scene to make inferences about the offender, including inferences about personality characteristics and psychopathology is called criminal profiling. Around the country, several agencies rely on the minds of criminal psychologists to lead them in the right direction to finding the correct offender. Criminal profiling provides investigators with knowledge of the appearance and behavior of a potential criminal.
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.
McNamara, J. M. (2009). Sketchy Eyewitness-Identification Procedures:A Proposal to Draw up Legal Guidelines For The Use of Facial Composites in Criminal Investigations. Univesity of Wisconsin Law School, 764-799.