Cognitive Science and the law

Research shows that the human mind is not like a tape recorder, we neither record events exactly as we see them, nor recall them like a tape that has been rewound. Instead, witness memory is like any other evidence at a crime scene; it must be preserved carefully, or it can be contaminated. A case I would like to mention is the Calvin Willis Case. One night in 1982, three young girls were sleeping alone in a Shreveport, Louisiana home when a man in cowboy boots came into the house and raped the oldest girl, who was Ten years old. When police started to investigate the rape, the three girls all remembered the attack differently. One police report said the Ten year old victim didn’t see her attacker’s face. Another report which wasn’t introduced at trial said she identified Calvin Willis, who lived in the neighbourhood. The girl’s mother testified at trial that neighbours had mentioned Willis’s name when discussing who might have committed the crime. The victim testified that she was shown photos and told to pick the man without a full beard. She testified that she didn’t pick anyone, police said she picked Willis. Willis was convicted by a jury and sentenced to life in prison. In 2003, DNA testing proved Willis’ innocence and he was released. He had served nearly Twenty Two years in prison for a crime he didn’t

The novel Unfair: the new science of criminal injustice, is a collection of short pieces addressing different situations in the criminal justice world where psychology plays a major role in determining outcomes. Chapter 6, "The Corruption of Memory”, addresses the problems with the process and using of an eyewitness testimony to convict someone (108-132). John Jerome White’s real-life example is used to demonstrate the problems with eyewitness testimony and how mistakes made during the process can ruin someone’s life. In the case of John Jerome White, he was misidentified as the man who raped and robbed a 74 year old women, by the victim herself (6 weeks later), which resulted in him spending 28 years in prison. To make it worse the actual guilty man, James Edward Parham, was in the lineup one person away from Mr. White and he was not caught again until he raped another victim. Many errors were made in how the case was handled and although they were not intentional they still magnify problems in the justice system and how we view our memories. From immediately after the crime to the point a suspect is put behind bars, the questioning, interrogation techniques, line up methods, and cross examinations can all effect the victims and witness’s recollection of events. Human memories are thought to be strong but with all the information that needs to be processed they are not as reliable as thought. However, this is not accounted for in the criminal justice system and it can greatly affect the outcomes of cases like John Jerome White’s. The point of the criminal justice system is to provide justice like it says in its name and although it happens more times than not, if there are possibilities of not providing justice they need to be fixed. Chapter 6, "The Corruption of Memory”, looks at what went wrong in order to wrongly convict an innocent man which ended up costing him half his life and how psychological principles could help prevent this from happening again.

Factors such as misinformation and eyewitness talk can easily affect the memory of eyewitnesses and therefore affect their testimony_. Evidence which is usually provided during eyewitness memory reports helps to determine the guilt or innocence of a perpetrator in a criminal proceeding_. With the help of many basic psychological and neuroscience studies, it has been indicated that because memory is a reconstructive process it is likely to be influenced and vulnerable to change and misinformation_. Due to memory being vulnerable, any minor memory misrepresentation can have severe consequences when used in the courtroom_. Memory errors when regarding the identification of a perpetrator of a specific crime has been focused on during research

On the morning of May 6, 2004 Attorney Brandon Mayfield was arrested by the FBI at his office in Portland Oregon for being suspected of involvement in the “March 11, 2004 bombings of four commuter trains in Madrid, Spain that killed 191 people and injured over 2,000 others” due to a fingerprint found on a plastic bag (Sherrer). Fingerprint analysis “has been used to identify criminals for more than one hundred years. The process begins with a deposited, or ‘latent,’ print found at the scene of the crime” (“Fingerprint Analysis”). If the print is detailed enough, fingerprint analysts can visually compare the print from the crime scene to the fingerprints of a suspect. They compare “qualities such as the general shape of the prints, the shape and depth of the ridges in the print, and the length of each ridge” (“Fingerprint Analysis”). It has been said time and time again that no two people’s fingerprints are exactly alike, and that if the latent print and the suspect’s print match, the print must be theirs. This assertion, however, “is not based on any studies, research, or analysis. In other words, there is no scientific basis for the belief that fingerprints are unique to each person” (“Fingerprint Analysis”). The main problem with fingerprint analysis, as with bite mark analysis, is its subjectivity. Instead of “relying on tested scientific methods, the process is mostly based on the subjective beliefs of the analyst” (“Fingerprint Analysis”). This basically means that “because of the lack of validity of the testing and retesting process” and the “overall subjectivity of the process indicates that the analyst is not truly absolutely certain of anything – except the fact that he or she truly believes a match” (“Fingerprint Analysis”). In Brandon Mayfield’s case, the print in question “had been positively identified as Mayfield’s by three highly qualified

This is because research has proven that memory is malleable. The impression that memory is always accurate and is resistant to bias is an “unfortunate misunderstanding of memory” (Lacy and Stark 2) which results in steep consequences in court. Fallibilities in eyewitness testimonies, caused by memory distortions, allow for many wrongful convictions of the criminal and therefore ruin innocent people’s lives while allowing the real felon to roam

In Canada, the leading cause of wrongful conviction is due to the factor of eyewitness account. It has been proven that individual’s minds are not like tape recorders because everyone cannot precisely and accurately remember the description of what another person or object looks like. The courts looks at eyewitness accounts as a great factor to nab perpetrators because they believe that the witness should know what they are taking about and seen what occurred on the crime scene. On the other hand, eyewitness accounts lead to a 70 percent chance of wrongful conviction, where witnesses would substantially change their description of a perpetrator.

In “Bloodlines,” Prentiss tells a crime survivor that she’s going to assist her to recall details by using a “cognitive interview.” This forensic technique focuses on the retrieval of information from memory. Its aim is to mentally reinstate the context of the incident in order to assist a witness to recall every possible detail in the right order (Cambell, John, and DeNevi, 2004). To start such an interview, the interview invites free recall with an open-ended question. When the witness is finished, the interviewer returns to

However, factors such as interactions with other witnesses and the influence of media outlets cannot be accounted for. In addition, the small sample size of 13 participants means the results are not as reliable and cannot be generalised to the population at large. One possible factor which may influence the results is that witnesses were within close proximity to the events which transpired which can influence memory as well as not being applicable to many crimes whereby the witnesses only see part of the crime or a shadow of the perpetrator. An alternative explanation would be that flashbulb memory was at work here.

The human mind is not like a tape recorder obviously, it does not record events exactly as seen in the moment of a crime, and neither can the events be recalled precisely like a tape that can rewind back in time. Therefore, making eyewitness identification inaccurate. For example, in the case of a

“Violence, stress, and the presence of a weapon at the time of a crime all may have detrimental effects on the ability of a witness to make an accurate identification” (Vallas, 2011). Stress distorts an eyewitness’s observations, and while it is understandable to focus on the weapon when faced with a situation in which the eyewitness is in danger, the focus on the weapon is not as important as the description of the perpetrator. Since it is not within the power of researchers studying the effects of violence and stress on witnesses to replicate the exact stress and violence of an actual crime, it has been difficult to determine the actual effect that these two factors have on witnesses (Vallas, 2011). However, many experiments conclude that an increase in the level of violence used in the crime results in a decrease in both the accuracy of the identification as well as the witness’s recall abilities (Vallas, 2011). Weapon focus is described as

Cochran et al (2016) provide a case study analysis of the temporal nature of memory in suspect lineups and crimes being investigated by law enforcement. The study involves a longitudinal evaluation of participants that are given evidence of a crime (through slideshows) that allows them to ascertain the criminal act or to choose a suspect in a lineup. At a later time, the participants are given altered information on the crime, which revealed a greatly distorted memory of the crimes that the participants did not remember. This misinformation was an attempt to trick the participants into affirming

a memory is not an accurate representation of the truth. In simpler terms, is that when people tried to recall who the murder was, they did not actually point to the right one, people

“When a witness perceives a complex event, a number of factors, such as the exposure time, or the salience of the event, or the witness’s prior expectations, will affect the accuracy of what is perceived and stored in memory” (Loftus, 1996). To Begin with, Loftus has explained how the duration between when the witness has to talk to the officials and the event can be such a crucial period. Humans usually forget rapidly after an event and time will make one forget more gradually. Moreover, one’s memory isn’t functioned in a way in which a video of events will stay in mind. A proof was made through Loftus’ experiment in 1975 where he showed the witnesses a film of a multiple-car accident then added in the questionnaire having a stop sign where they all agreed that there was one. Yet, statistics have shown that not mentioning the object would cause only 35% to claim there was one considering the accident lasted 4

Every time somebody touches something, they leave behind a unique signature that forever links them to that object. This link is their fingerprints, which are unique to every person, for no two people have the same set, not even family members or identical twins. Palms and toes also leave prints behind, but these are far less commonly found during crime scene investigations. Therefore, fingerprints provide an identification process that is applicable to background checks, biometric security, mass disaster identification, and most importantly, crime scene investigations. Fingerprints are so differentiated because they are made up of distinct patterns of ridges and furrows on the fingers. The ridges are the “raised” portions of the prints, and the furrows are the “recessed” portions. This perceived uniqueness has led some people to falsely accept fingerprint analysis as absolute scientific fact. Although overall fingerprints are reliable, there are definitely situations where their accuracy can come into question.

Eyewitness report or testimony refers to an account by people of an event they have witnessed. These are commonly used for criminal conviction by judges and jurors. It is a product of reconstructive memory where we piece together bits of stored information that seems real and accurate. The accuracy of an individual’s memory comes into question as it could lead to wrongful conviction. Some factors affecting accuracy of eyewitness reports include confirmation bias, misinformation effect and influence of violence and anxiety. The first part of the essay will explain these factors; the second part will discuss the ability to retrieve information from our long-term memory.