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How accurate is eyewitness testimony
How accurate is eyewitness testimony
The credibility of eyewitness testimonies
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Troy Davis went to court and it only took them a few hours of to plead that he was guilty. While the police officers were interviewing the witnesses of crime scene. Dorothy Fara was one of the witnesses for Troy Davis she told them she really did not see what happens. The police officer was then pressuring her to say that she saw Troy Davis do it. The police officer were putting her under so much pressure on her she felt if she did not say what they wanted to hear she would not have been able to leave.
During the “West Memphis Three” trials however, no eye witnesses came forth to the judges and said that they saw the boys do it. In determining if the defendants should be counted guilty, eye witnesses play a huge part in it. During the “West Memphis Three” trials, Jason Baldwin
Trayvon Martin was assaulted and shot by George Zimmerman. During the trial visual evidence was used against George Zimmerman. Visual evidence is becoming more and more relevant in these recent trials. The increases use of visual evidence is a definite positive thing, however those who use such evidence should do so wisely. Those who improperly use visual evidence may mislead the jury, and convict/ not convict the right person.
Primarily, apart from the previously discussed issues regarding the evidence and technology used, the issues consisted of the fact that there was no body ever found, making it difficult to examine the exact circumstances of the crime and whether the crime occurred entirely, relying on a few bloodstains and unclear CCTV footage (as seen in Figure 3). In relation to this issue, another problem was the previously aforementioned heavy reliance on the eyewitness testimony of Joanne Lees. While crucial to the investigation, eyewitness testimonies may be subject to inconsistencies, memory lapses and potential bias, all of which were concerns during the trial. Finally, the high-profile nature of the case garnered widespread media attention. The extensive media coverage had the potential to influence public opinions which in turn may have impacted the trial
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.
In fact, much of the court case is based on onlookers who barely saw any of the incident. Much of what was said was falsified. “Questions were asked of the incident. Lies were given as answers (page 144).” The verdict was decided based on the untruths, and Madam got to choose a punishment for
The eyewitness was Kenny an inmate in prison with Ronald, who unfortunately choked on the stand when questioned about what he knew. So unfortunately for Ronald, Kenny wasn’t his key to being released from prison for the crime he hadn’t committed. Ronald got new lawyers in 1992 A man by the name or Mr. Rich, a professor at UNC-Chapel Hill, who was interested in looking into Ronald’s case, Ronald weighed the pros and cons and in the end agreed to let someone else taking a chance at handling his case. It wasn’t until 1994 that the most significant piece of evidence came into play. It was in 1994 that the OJ Simpson case started it was also one of the first instances of DNA being used as evidence in a case.
Jami Bull Mr. Mollenger Forensics Science 23 February 2018 Power of Proof The Innocence Project is a non-profit legal organization that helps people prove their innocence when wrongfully convicted through new DNA testing. 70% of eyewitnesses misidentified and 45% involved misapplication of forensic science. (“DNA Exonerations in the United States.”)
Richard miles was wrongfully convicted of murder and attempted murder in 1995 based on eyewitness testimony, false or misleading forensic evidence and official misconduct. The evidence presented at his trial that is useful for this particular research paper is the eyewitness testimony. Thurman the witness in this case identified Miles as the gunman from a photospread that police had given him. Several other witnesses were shown the same photospread but could not identify Miles. Miles was charged with murder and attempted murder.
In the book “Picking Cotton”, the former Burlington Police Chief Mike Gauldin, who was the lead detective on Jennifer’s case, was certainly sure that Ronald Cotton was the guy he was looking for after Jennifer picked him twice (Jennifer, Ronald, Erin 80); also, on the McCallum’s case, the polices also chose to trust eyewitnesses when they did not have enough physical evidences. Furthermore, judges can be wrong sometime. Wise and Safer, who are authors of the report “ what US judges know and believe about eyewitness testimony”, surveyed 160 U.S. judges to determine how much they know about eyewitness testimony on a small test( Wise, Safer, 427-432). However, the survey responds the average judges in the U.S. only 55% correct within 14 questions (Wise, Safer, 431-432). Moreover, most of the judges who were surveyed did not know key facts about eyewitness testimony.
Unfortunately, there are cases where some people went to jail and weren’t necessarily suppose to go to jail. But who truly knew if the officers or witness were telling the truth about the incident? That’s why body cameras should be mandatory for all police officers. It will force the suspects to not lie and enable the judge to have direct evidence in court, rather than comparing both stories and trying to put two and two together.
As Loftus explains, we are so willing to accept unreliable eyewitness accounts because we do not understand how memory actually works. Most people believe the "video camera" scenario instead of the "evolutionary" scenario. Because of this misconception we are very strongly inclined to believe eyewitness accounts. “Why is eyewitness testimony so powerful and convincing? Because people in general and jurors in particular believe that our memories stamp the facts of our experiences on a permanent, non-erasable tape, like a computer disk or videotape that is write-protected,” (p. 21).
Another piece of evidence is a woman who swears to have seen the young man stabbed the father through the last two windows of the train. The evidence says that she was asleep and when she woke up and turned to the window through the last two windows of the train, she was able to see how the young man stabbed his father. The only problem with this argument is that the woman wore bifocal glasses and nobody usually sleeps with glasses so it would be very difficult that without their lenses of such magnitude could see what actually
Eyewitness identification is ineffective and unjust. Studies have shown that 40% of eyewitness identifications are wrong (Vrij, 1998). Eyewitness identification has great importance in the legal system. This requires the best eyewitness testimony procedure. This essay examines the three main types of eyewitness line-ups; the showup, the sequential and the simultaneous line-up.
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).
