False Eye Witness Testimonies In Marvin's Long Term Memory

It is hard to believe that over seventy percent of convictions overturned through DNA testing were based on false eye witness testimonies. Due to conflict and hesitation in eye witness’s long term memory, testimonies from them are frequently inaccurate and give distorted information on the crime. The demanding process of encoding, storing, and later retrieving memory all takes place during a rather rapid and stressful period of events, making the procedure all the more tedious for the witness. For this reason, eye witness testimonies are now seen as unreliable for giving flawed results and have been slowly replaced with more modern means of finding evidence such as DNA testing.
On July 17th, 1982, a young woman was raped by a black man whom she said was a total stranger. The offender had held her captive in the woods close to the apartment

The victim would have every motivation to forget their dramatic episode leading to the possible reason Marvin was identified as her assailant. Her memories were clouded by fear, causing her to forget the perpetrators face and accuse the wrong person. Though both John and Marvin were black, they had very distinct facial differences, leading to the belief that Marvin was only accused because he was bought in by the police that day. Lincoln was not accused as a suspect and would not have been in the police line-up. Anderson’s face reoccurred to the subject as well. He appeared in a photo spread, a police line-up, an employment photo, and followed again in court. This interfered with the victim’s short term memory, causing her to recall his face when reminded of the attack. It is as if he was forced into her head. This caused the victim’s eye witness testimony to be inaccurate and defected. The mind of an individual cannot collectively encode memories while experiencing such trauma as