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Ronald Cotton Eyewitness Testimony

1047 Words5 Pages

Over the past few decades, hundreds of people have been falsely imprisoned. Many of their cases were founded on the account of one or more eyewitnesses. The criminal justice system often relies on eyewitness accounts to piece together a crime and identify the perpetrator. But studies showing the faultiness of our memories, particularly in stressful events, suggest that witnesses may not be as reliable of a source as we think. An often-cited example of when the memory of an eyewitness has failed to serve justice is the case of Ronald Cotton. In 1984, Jennifer Thompson-Cannino was the victim of breaking and entering and sexual assault. While being raped, Thompson-Cannino attempted to study her attacker’s face so that she could identify him in a police lineup. When she picked Cotton from the photo-lineup of six men, she said, “I think this is the guy” (Hughes 2014). When a detective asked her if she was sure, she said she was positive (Hughes 2014). Based on her identification of Cotton, he was sentenced to life in …show more content…

Unless observed from the onset of the investigation, studies show that the confidence level of the witness has a “poor relationship” with the accuracy of the identification (Stenzel 2017). Because memory can be easily altered and misleading, high levels of confidence do not indicate that the witness has correctly identified the suspect (Stenzel 2017). Initially, Thompson-Cannino identified Cotton, saying, “I think this is him,” but by the time she got to her second round of identifications, she said “Bingo! I did it right!” (Stenzel 2017). Studies show that confidence in the witness’ confidence in their memory increases with time (Hughes 2014). However, there is usually an extended period of time between when the crime took place and the trial, and therefore, the witness’ confidence statement should be given little to no weight in the

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1367 Words | 6 Pages

She was shown photographs which included Hay’s photograph (taken 18 months earlier) and she selected him as an 80% likeness. Three weeks later, she was shown a sequence of photographs which included one of Hay (taken hours after the murder) and she did not select any photograph. At a second identification process, Maillard didn’t select any photographs and, when shown the photograph of Hay she stated that he looked very different and that in his arrest photo, he did not have a gaunt face like that of the second gunman at the club. An article by Pezdek, Abed & Cormia (2021) explores the relationship between stress and eyewitness memory accuracy, as well as the relationship between stress and eyewitness confidence. They found that stress impairs the accuracy of eyewitness memory but not the confidence-accuracy relationship.

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879 Words | 4 Pages

This finding proved that while Jennifer swore it was Ronald based on his appearance, it is not. Additionally, there is the fact that there was suspect bias represented in Jennifer choosing Ronald and continuing to believe that it was Ronald behind the crime even when evidence proved otherwise. So, eliminating as much suspect bias would have made an exponential difference in identifying the correct person. There are issues with relying on eyewitness testimonies, especially when it comes to a traumatic event such as sexual violence. Specifically stated by Smith and Hattery (2011) is that almost all wrongful convictions from other studies were resulting from the lack of reliability with eyewitness testimonies.

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702 Words | 3 Pages

This week’s topic was very interesting to learn about how important eyewitnesses can be when a crime and accidents do occur. In the case that was presented in the 60-minute segment of Ronald Cotton and Jennifer Thompson is exactly how legal system can fail us when it comes to the eyewitnesses’ identification testimony and how a person’s perception and memory can be altered. The aspect of psychology and law research from this week’s course material is most relevant to the topic of perception and memory. The memory has different stages the first is encoding the process of entering perception into memory.

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1014 Words | 5 Pages

Introduction Context: Senior of Woodlawn High School, Adnan Syed, was convicted and charged with the first-degree murder of his ex-girlfriend Hae Min Lee. Not only is Adnan’s alibi inconclusive, but he also fails to recall any specific details or occurrences of January 13, 1999. His acquaintance, Jay Wilds, has served as the State’s key witness against Adnan. Thesis Statement:

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1194 Words | 5 Pages

My analysis will exemplify the unreliability of human memory due to impairment by intense emotions, misinformation, and the natural biases people have. In court, when a witness testifies, they will explain the details and setting of the crime and often don’t realize that this information has been impaired due to their emotions when witnessing the event. Memories are formed and stored in the hippocampus, located in the temporal lobe deep within the human brain. Memory development and recollection is a complex process and can be impaired during times of intense

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423 Words | 2 Pages

It is unlikely that social consequences of false memories can be avoided. Elizabeth Loftus was intrigued to study false memories, and is perhaps personally responsible for subsequent developments throughout the history of false memories. Some of this history addresses various theories aimed at isolating how or why false memories occur. These include Source Monitoring Framework, Activation Monitoring Theory, Fuzzy Trace Theory, and strategies for persuasion which can lead to the development of false memory. Such persuasion leads to the present discussion concerning how persuasion in the judicial system has created false confessions and wrongful eyewitness testimonies, due to the Misinformation Effect.

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467 Words | 2 Pages

Through her own traumatizing personal experiences, Jennifer Thompson has the profound experience to advocate against the strength of eyewitness testimony. As found in her case, the eyewitness testimony that she gave against Ronald Cotton, the accused rapist, was most likely the piece of evidence that put him behind bars. Thompson was a college student with a 4.0 GPA who studied the face of her attacker in order to identify him to the police. She prepared for the identification. She was the perfect eyewitness.

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1763 Words | 8 Pages

After investigators begun to suspect arson was in play, the testimonies turned into accusations and assumption of Willingham’s guilt. David Grann wrote, “Dozens of studies have shown that witnesses’ memories of events often change when they are supplied with new contextual information”, suggesting that after a certain period of time into an investigation, all testimonies should be taken with little confidence (Grann, “Trial by Fire”). If the witnesses and testimonies were taken from individuals who know nothing about the

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284 Words | 2 Pages

The innocence project has proposed to legislation to improve the accuracy of eyewitness ID’s. These proposals include recording the proof of identity technique so that the juries can regulate if it was accompanied properly, putting characters in the lineup

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1447 Words | 6 Pages

Part One is very informational and contains the bulk of the book’s research. The information was presented in a thesis format; Loftus stated a claim and then supported her ideas with research and quotations from experts in the field of law and memory. Part One is helpful for psychologists, attorneys, and interested law people. The major principles concerning the errors in eyewitness testimony are supported by research and are accepted by psychologists (Kassin, Ellsworth, & Smith, 1989). Part One will contribute to the future of psychology by showcasing how the memory works and the different ways it is manipulated and changed: this will allow jurors and lawyers to become more wary when dealing with a traumatized

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508 Words | 3 Pages

In the article,”Does Talking About Emotions Influence Eyewitness Memory?,” it discusses the way emotions can affect the memory of a witness of a crime. Having two witnesses of the same crime can result in different memories due to the person’s way of thinking. The different ways that you ask questions can affect the results of how the witness can recall a crime. The authors uses hypotheses experiments to come to an conclusion if emotions influence eyewitnesses memory. They show participants emotional video clips and interview them alone and as a group to see if their stories change.

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2197 Words | 9 Pages

In the eyes of the jurors, the rape victim is expected to be emotional and crying, excessive tears, emotionally distraught, a certain disconnect; and if she is unable to portray these expected emotions, her story is considered falsified or not as impactful (Jones). Because it is common to see that man victims who know the person who raped them, the “he said, she said” situation creates reasonable doubt for many to believe that it “was not really

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453 Words | 2 Pages

Witnesses to crimes are sometimes asked to view a police lineup to see if they can identify the culprit. Using experimentally created events, psychological researchers have long warned that eyewitness identification evidence is less reliable than people seem to believe. Corroborating the concerns of psychologists, since the advent of forensic DNA testing in the 1990s, 258 people convicted by juries in the United States have been freed based on exculpatory DNA tests, and 200 of these were cases of mistaken eyewitness identification (Innocence Project, 2010). Examination of the reasons for these mistaken identifications has provided rich avenues of investigation guided by cognitive and social perspectives. Here we focus on (a) variables that

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915 Words | 4 Pages

The debate over whether to trust eyewitness accounts or doers sic analyst in crime scenes is a long standing one. Although there have been great advances in technology which allow for greater analysts of crime scenes, in court, the side with primary sources, or people that witnessed the crime being committed, are more likely to gain the approval of the jury. This is because “seeing is believing”, so if there is a person that “saw” the crime, jury are more likely to be convinced than if there is just lab results and crime scene analyst. The reliance on eyewitness accounts over forensic evidence, results in the wrongful conviction of over 70% of the murder and rape suspects in America. The testimonies of eyewitnesses should not be used as

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1151 Words | 5 Pages

The oxford dictionary defines memory as “the act or fact of retaining and recalling impressions, facts, etc.; remembrance; recollection”, in short it is described as the act of using existing knowledge, but psychology questions the reliability of our memory, does the memory work as the tape recorder or does our mind make changes over time. The reliability of memory has been a topic of interest for long and psychology has contributed to the understanding remembrance in many fields of interest. One of them is the legal system, were eyewitnesses testimony is a very commonly used method, but as it is based on the memory, its reliability may easily be questioned. People like to view their memory as a very accurate record of facts, however researches

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