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What Is Eyewitness Testimony

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The basis of criminal defense and prosecution is often formed by eyewitness testimonies. If these testimonies are inaccurate it could lead to a wrongly formed criminal defense and prosecution. According to Loftus, “It is clearly of concern to the law, to police and insurance investigators, and to others to know something about the completeness, accuracy, and malleability of such memories." It is important to study the memory of an eyewitness because for the defense, prosecution, police, insurance investigators, and people involved in the crime or accident it is crucial to have accurate and reliable information.
I do not think the Loftus studies supports the use of eyewitness testimony as evidence because an eyewitness testimony is inaccurate.
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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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Innocence Project Report on the Case of Curtis Jasper Moore Tommy Warrick Drake University According to the Innocence Project one of the greatest causes of wrongful conviction is due to eyewitness misidentification. They state that 72% of cases where defendants have been exonerated eyewitness misidentification played a role. Even though eyewitness testimony has been proven inaccurate numerous times, it can still be the decisive evidence in a court of law. This is because the law views the human memory as a camcorder which can record and repeat whatever it sees.

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Her earliest studies of eyewitness testimony addressed several issues: when someone sees a crime or accident, how accurate is his or her memory? These studies led Loftus to ask what happens when witness are questioned by police officers, and what if those questions are suggestive (Loftus, 2003). For instance, when Loftus began showing people films of traffic accidents, she found that a question such as “How fast were the cars going when the smashed into each other?” led to higher estimates of speed than a more neutral question that used the verb “hit”. Moreover, the “smashed” question led more people to falsely remember seeing broken glass when there was none.

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A case where eyewitnesses was very important and helped the criminal prosecution was the trial against Charles Manson. To make the story short, Charles Manson was a man who got other people to murder for him. Charles Manson was a leader of a group called the Manson family, and the group contained young men and women who where lost in life and looked up to Mr. Manson as their leader and like a God. Charles Manson had pointed out several members of his family to brutally murder Sharon Tate, Abigail Folger, Wojciech Frykowski, Jason Sebring, Leno LaBianca and Rosemary LaBianca. The police officers working the Charles Manson case had evidence such as fingerprints and similar on the family members of the Manson family, but not much evidence proving

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Loftus and Palmer believe that there are only two kinds of information that form memories: information about the event and information after the event. This may be an incomplete account of the information that goes into creating memories, as they have not considered pre-event information, which may affect how individuals process the information of the event and the information after an event. The main strength of Loftus' argument is its wider implications. Based on evidence like that of Loftus's, the Devlin Report (1976) recommended that the trial judge is required to instruct the jury that it is not safe to convict on a single eyewitness testimony alone, except in exceptional circumstances or when there is substantial corroborative evidence.

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Historically, eyewitness accounts of a crime were a vital piece of evidence used in the prosecution of criminal offenses. Lineups were a method used where typically a group of individuals not involved in the crime along with the suspect whom is believed to be directly related to the crime are grouped together for the witness to review in the hopes to identify the suspect. This is accomplished in two ways, the first is simultaneous where several photos are grouped together at the same time (typically six) for the witness to review. This specific procedure raises the issue of certainty from the witness.

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60% of participants chose the bystander when that picture was included instead. The participant’s memory of all faces became integrated and so they were unable to tell the bystander from the perpetrator when recalling. Therefore positive identification in eyewitness testimonies could be a case of an incorrect integration of memory and not a fully accurate account of the events that occurred. As the witnesses are unaware of this transference this could lead them to be very confident in their recall and identification of the culprit, when in fact they are wrong. This has major implications in law and to the level of which eyewitness accounts can be

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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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Eyewitness identification is highly important in criminal trials without it it lets the defendant off a little easier, despite this different steps should be taken in order to avoid legal issues such as false eyewitness

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As supported in R. v. Vetrovec, it is said that juries must be told, and trial judges must remember, that it is dangerous to rely upon the unsupported evidence of an accomplice or other unsavoury witness, without more. You should look for some type of confirming evidence, although this is not a legal requirement. Courts look for inconsistencies between witnesses. Minor differences such as times, distances, speed, have a limited effect on reliability and can enhance, rather than detract from the credibility of a witness as too much similarity can suggest collusion between

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Do you think eyewitness is reliable? We as humans should not rely on eyewitness consistently. I have so many reasons to why I believe eyewitness is not as strong as DNA testing. In the article it stated the Innocence Project researchers have indicated that 73 percent of the 239 convictions overturned trough DNA testing it based on eyewitness proof. I believe that eyewitness can sometimes be helpful and reliable but other times it’s not as reliable.

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Significant Evidential Inconsistencies During the course of an investigation it may be necessary to ask a witness to explain a significant evidential inconsistency between what they have said during the interview and other material gathered during the course of the investigation. Such inconsistencies would, for example, include significant differences between the account provided by the witness during the interview and:  What the witness is reported to have said on a previous occasion;  The accounts of other witnesses;  Injuries sustained by either the alleged victim or the alleged offender. There are a number of reasons for significant evidential inconsistencies between what a witness says during an interview and other material gathered

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Furthermore, there can be several factors at play when a wrongful conviction occurs and each case is unique. Three of the more common and detrimental factors that will be explored in this essay are eyewitness error, the use of jailhouse informants and professional and institutional misconduct. Firstly, eyewitness testimony can be a major contributor to a conviction and is an important factor in wrongful conviction (Campbell & Denov, 2016, p. 227). Witness recall and, frankly, the human emory are not as reliable as previously thought. In fact there has been much research showing the problems with eyewitness testimony such as suggestive police interviewing, unconscious transference, and malleability of confidence (Campbell & Denov, 2016, p.227).

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This clearly sows that the memory is an active process and is expected to alter an opinion based on understanding society (Simple Psychology, 2014) .   
Eyewitness testimony is unethical as the evidence that is supplied can be provided by someone with stress or anxiety issues this can assist by distraught the image of the suspect. Wrongfully sending an innocent individual to prison. Bloods worth’s case displays it is unethical as there was no psychical evidence nor appearance matched that supported Bloodsworth was responsible for the murder and rape of the victim. Three eyewitnesses were able to identify the perpetrator out of the five and this was based from evidence that he was spotted with the young girl hours earlier before the crime was

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, (2003) study. Gabbert investigated the effect of post event discussion on the accuracy of eye witness testimony; where participants

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