Causes Of Eyewitness Testimonies In The United States

Determining a false confession proves difficult due to the multitude of dimensions involved. According to Kassin and Wrightsman’s (1985) survey of the literature, there are three main types of false confessions—voluntary, coerced-compliant, and coerced-internalized. Unlike coerced false confessions, voluntary false confessions arise as a result of someone willingly turning themselves into the police with an account of their crime (McCann, 1998). Voluntary false confessions can result from multiple motives, including an internalized need for punishment or to save someone else’s face. In contrast, coerced false confessions directly result from police interrogations. While coerced-compliant confessions are made to avoid interrogation, escape the stressful situation, or achieve some other reward, coerced-internalized confessions emerge when a suspects begins to

However eyewitness misidentification leads to more wrongful convictions than any other evidence being that it plays a role in 70 percent of cases overturned through DNA testing (Grimsley, 2013). There are multiple factors as to why eyewitness identification is often inaccurate, one reason being that it relies heavily on memory which involves three processes: encoding, storage and retrieval, all of which are susceptible to errors (Costanzo and Krauss, 2014). There are other factors that can affect one's memory such as unconscious transference (e.g. when you unintentionally replace someone's face with what one you may have seen on television, etc.), suggestive or leading comments (i.e. administrators providing cues to eyewitness about which person to pick at a lineup), cross-race effect (cross-race bias) (i.e. we often misidentify others of a different race than our own race), and so forth (Costanzo and Krauss, 2014). Despite that eyewitness identification is often inaccurate, it is still commonly used within the criminal justice system. This has affected mostly Africans-Americans negatively being that they most often fall victim to eyewitness misidentification. This is shown in a study done by Scheck, Neufeld, and Dwyer (2000) where they studied eyewitness

With the number of DNA exonerations growing in the recent years, wrongful convictions reveal disturbing trends and fissures in the justice system. It shows how broken the system is, and why it needs urgent fixing. According to Huff (1996), over ten thousand people are convicted wrongfully for serious crimes each year. This study established that factors leading to wrongful convictions are false eyewitnesses, a prejudiced jury, incompetent prosecutors, and suspects’ ignorance. Where DNA evidence clears a suspect, array of reasons emerge; misconduct, mistakes, to race and class factors. It is important to make DNA data available to attorneys in order to enable them mount a strong

Every time an innocent person is exonerated based on DNA testing, law enforcement agencies look at what caused the wrongful convictions. There are many issues that contribute to putting guiltless lives behind bars including: eyewitness misidentification, false confessions, imperfect forensic science, and more (Gould and Leo 18). When a witness is taken into a police station to identify a suspect, it is easy for their memories to be blurred and their judgment influenced. This can lead the witness to identify a suspect who is actually innocent. Flawed forensic science practice also contributes to wrongful imprisonments. In the past, analysts have been inaccurate due to carelessness, testified in court presenting evidence that was not based

This anticipated effect is explicated by the own-race versus other-race effect, which has been adapted from theories of eyewitness misidentification. An investigation into exonerations found that eyewitness misidentification is the leading factor related to wrongful convictions (Gross & Shaffer, 2012). The majority of these cases involve white female victims who misidentify their African American male attacker, leading to an innocent man’s wrongful conviction. A number of psychological theories have surfaced to explain this error in judgment, one of which is called the other-race effect, which states that individuals are more likely to make mistakes when identifying a suspect belonging to their perceived out-group, or the other-race, versus when identifying someone belonging to their own-race (Wells & Olson,

In this article, Richard Leo examines false confession cases, investigating the wonder of false confessions, the effect of confessional proof, and the reasons for false confessions. Police interrogations can be intimidating to people who are in desperate situations. Some people are bullied into making false confessions and end up getting convicted, even though they are innocent. If the Court convicts someone using testimonies and confessions, the defendant didn’t get the right to a fair trial.

Over the past few years, a group of people have been exonerated through DNA testing and most of them have been wrongfully convicted partially due to eyewitness misidentification. The role that mistaken eyewitness identifications have played in such convictions has led to huge efforts to seek ways in reducing these errors (Wells, Steblay & Dysart, 2001).

Although Eyewitness and Scientific Identifications are important tools for the conviction of criminals, eyewitness testimony has proven to be persuasive evidence before a judge or jury but recent years of strong statistical research has proven that eyewitness identification is often unreliable. And can lead to atrocious acts such as wrongfully stripping an individual of his God given freedom for the majority of his or her life. Two prime examples of the detrimental impact that identifications have on individuals life are the cases of Ronald Cotton and Andre Hatchett who’s combined wrongful imprisonment reaches nearly half a century. According to the innocent project Eyewitness misidentification is the greatest contributing factor in wrongful convictions proven by DNA testing, playing a role in more than 70% of convictions overturned through DNA testing nationwide.

Persuaded false confessions is when a suspect during a police interview begins to doubt or second guess themselves and falsely confesses to a criminal act, despite having no memory of it. Interrogators have to be careful not to use suggestive interview techniques because they can cause or can generate false memories of committing crimes (Shaw & Porter, 2015). Over the course of my career, I’ve had numerous people make false confessions. That’s why interview schools are so

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.

Throughout the authors research, it is believed that there are multiple steps to having an individual confess in beliefs that they truly committed a crime, even though they did not. The steps include: a trigger, plausibility, acceptance, reconstruction and resolution all of which fall in line with the faulty interrogation techniques previously mentioned; coercive interviewing, lengthy solitary confinement, contamination, psychological vulnerabilities (both state and trait) and lack of independent support during questioning. Accordingly, the above mentioned methods could lead to a faulty memory and result in false confessions.

Once an innocent individual has been misclassified as guilty, they are usually thrown into an accusatorial interrogation. Interrogation was not meant to be a pleasant experience. It becomes more nerve-racking the more intense it gets and the longer it goes on. The detectives will use techniques that will destroy the suspect’s refusal to admit guilt. Back in the old days, techniques such as isolated interrogations, introduction to intense exhaustion and fatigue, and deprivation of sleep, food, water, or access to the bathroom were used. It is very unlikely for those techniques to be used today. Instead, suspects are given implicit assurances of mercy and threats of severe treatments through psychological coercive methods. Some suspects assume

This scenario often evolves into a strengthening of the subject’s tendencies toward compliance. This compliance, however, must be carefully evaluated as the interrogation continues. A comprehensive publication distributed by the American Psychological Association on the subject of false confessions found that isolation in and of itself does not normally produce a false confession, but coupling the tactic with other, more aggressive tactics (such as presenting the detainee with false evidence) can significantly increase the likelihood of false confession (Meissner, Russano and

In many cases, the reliability of a confession may not be the most prompt when suggesting the accused is guilty of a crime. Prosecutors as well as police officers often interrogate those believed are the suspect and obligate a confession. In a study done by Robert A. Nasha and Kimberley A. Wade, they conducted an experiment to suggest whether or not using technology to alter the video of the subject performing the task, will lead to a false confession or by simply mentioning that hey have evidence to demonstrate the subject being deceptive during the task will also lead to a false confession. The intriguing research indicates that memory distrust can lead to false confessions. Not being able to remember or having evidence that coincide with the crime and in this case, hearing that there is evidence to suggest the crime has been committed alters the accused own beliefs. This can eventually lead up to not only giving a false confession, but actually believing they committed the crime.

Intellectuals and experts alike share a common belief that the most significant cause of unjust convictions is due to inaccurate eyewitness testimonies. Scepticism of the validity of eye witness testimonies has increased dramatically; scientific credibility of forensic evidence has weakened its reliability. Thus, resulting in this being the dominant root of false convictions (Coolican, 1996). In 2007, The Innocence Project stated that over 75% of unjust convictions contained eye witness testimonies (Innocence Project, 2007). Further studies have also had comparable results, for example Brandon & Davies (1973). Is it feasible that an individual’s memory is so imprecise that it is unreliable in producing faultless memory recall? Furthermore, if memory is so undependable why is it still frequently used in the criminal justice system today if the consequence is innocent people being incarcerated?