Cross-Race Eyewitness Memory Report

Eyewitness evidence has always been considering critical information when it comes to court trials and convictions. But how reliable are eyewitnesses? Scientific research has shown that eyewitness’s memories are often not accurate or reliable. Human memory is very malleable and is easily changed by suggestion. Relying on eyewitness evidence instead of scientific data often leads to wrongful convictions. Scientific evidence is much more reliable, and should be more important in court cases than eyewitness evidence.

The use of eyewitnesses as the sole source of evidence is one of the leading reasons for wrongful convictions. In some cases, authorities relied on only one eyewitness to convict a suspect. Such a witness could have a personal vendetta against the defendant. In the Darryl Hunt case, Sykes’ mother maintained she was convinced beyond reasonable doubt that Hunt was her daughter’s killer. If she had been the sole eyewitness, Hunt would probably have been incarcerated for life. Since eyewitness testimony is the ubiquitous factor, there is an urgent need for triangulation and collaboration of evidence to guarantee justice for all people suspected of committing any felony. The issue of race and class also needs attention. A jury may be prejudiced because of color or rank. Such cases erode the tenets upon which justice is based, and deny innocent people of their freedom.

Everyday, people are arrested for crimes they have committed. However, the justice system, in some cases, has failed to convict and arrest the right person. Innocent people have been sent to jail based upon the deliberate misidentification of suspects. Throughout U.S history, there have been several famous wrongful convictions such as the Scottsboro Boys and Ed Johnson (Grimsley). Their convictions were based on race due to the racial strife from the Jim Crow era. Base on David Love’s article, many convictions after the Jim Crow era were still being caused by misleading identification from eyewitness claims of the suspects being African Americans. Due to the advancement of forensic and DNA technology, lack of evidence from previous convictions

Eyewitness misidentification can pose a serious threat in forensic evidence. Eye witness testimony can easily be tampered with due to words or phrases used. Bias is a major issue in identification especially if the police officer uses suggestive tones to portray whom they believe is the suspect. Some witnesses will change their opinion when they hear new information of the suspect. A study has shown that words can play a major impact in the witness' mind and cause them to recall false information. False information can also stem from human memory, age, distance, and how long it took before a witness could recall the information. It has been shown that due to the confidence that a witness may have, it could impact the court systems' reliability on the witness; however, there are several solutions that can be done to prevent misidentification in the court of law. Some examples that can be done are blind administration, lineup composition, instructions, confidence statements, and

Racial biases present a detrimental flaw in the U.S Court system, providing the possibility of false convictions. A study conducted by Carnegie Mellon University finds all white juries convict African American defendants a significant 16% more often than white defendants (Anwar, p.2). The statistic above shows the factual effect of race in the justice system. In a study by University of California Irvine, it was found that an African American man convicted of sexual assault was three and-a-half more likely to be innocent than that of their caucasian counterparts.(Gross, p.12-13). As shown in the study above, racism in the jury pool leads to a faulty system and innocent people being convicted of heinous crimes they did not

The bias in the American criminal justice system is first reported in the first stages of the system, which includes the (act of asking questions and trying to find the truth about something) and arrest of the suspected people by police personnel (American Civil Liberties Union, 2013). These police personnel discriminately target the minorities as criminal suspects, which eventually skews the racial population of the people arrested, charged, put in jail or convicted (Cole, Smith, & DeJong, 2013). One of the key problems suffering (from sickness) the U.S. criminal justice system is (assuming certain races of people are more likely to commit crimes) (Cole, Smith, & DeJong, 2013). This involves the identification of criminal suspects on the basis race or (special way of speaking/mark that shows emphasis). According to Cole, Smith, & DeJong (2013), (assuming certain races of people are more likely to commit crimes) is widespread because the police agents enjoy a large amount of (ability to make wise decisions) as to who they think about/believe as a suspect. For example, in Baltimore, African-American car/truck drivers are discriminately stopped for minor traffic offenses because they are believed to be more likely tobe start/work at more serious criminal activity than whites (Saad, 2011). This results in a large percentage of innocent African-Americans and other minority drivers such as Puerto Ricans, Colombians and Cubans to be illegally subjected to the embarrassment (in

The main purpose of this article is to look at the possible link between race and exoneration, and how race and wrongful convictions lead to the exonerations. There were three reasons that the authors chose this topic to research. The first reason was the research previously done in the field show racial biased in the criminal justice system. This paper looks at how that effects wrongful conviction and the subsequent exoneration. The second reason is because if there is an innocent person in prison that means that the real culprit is still out there, and more than likely committing more crimes. The third reason is racial composition of the dyad, victim and

237). Race is looked at with these wrongful convictions. Of 350 high cases that was viewed about 40% of them involved African Americans that were wrongfully accused (Gabbidon & Greene, 2013). Misconduct from police and prosecutors is if they did not do their job correctly such as if they are racist which causes them not to do their job. The interrogations done by police of the accused should be taped to make sure things are done by the books(Gabbidon & Greene, 2012, ch7 ppt). Legal counsel should also be there when identification take place. When DNA came about it help release people that was wrongful convicted based on eyewitness error or mistaken identity and etc. There has been unequal numbers of African American and Hispanics that have been wrongly convicted. To help with mistaken identification and eyewitness error, Huff made a statement that qualified expert witnesses need to use to help with this issue (Gabbidon & Greene, 2012, ch7 ppt). There should be innocence commissions to handle these types of situation that could and have happen in

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,

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.

In the late 19th-century research on eyewitness, testimony memory began, psychologists had been studying memory, and the findings became useful for forensic psychology and law. A central issue with studying eyewitness memory and testimony is the ecological validity of lab studies. There are relatively few ‘real world’ eyewitness memory studies, and that causes problems for determining the generalizability of findings in eyewitness memory. Coined by Wells (1978) estimator variables are present at the time of a crime and cannot be changed (i.e. witness characteristics and the type of offence) and system variables are factors that can be manipulated to affect eyewitness accuracy (i.e. line-up procedures and interview types). The system variables

Eyewitnesses are critical to the criminal justice system, but there have been issues involving eyewitness testimonies, which occasionally cause them to be seen as unreliable. According to innocenceproject.org, 72% of DNA exoneration cases in the United States have resulted from eyewitness misidentification. This is concerning because in a study by Benton, Ross, Bradshaw, Thomas, and Bradshaw (2005), they examined jurors, judges and law enforcement’s knowledge about eyewitness issues. They found that those involved in the legal system are still very unaware of eyewitness memory research, and the reasons behind why eyewitnesses may or may not be considered reliable. There needs to be a way to increase reliability so that eyewitnesses are able to accurately recognize perpetrators and other important information to put the guilty people away, and to keep the innocent people free.

First, the human memory does not record all information like a video recorder. Mistaken eyewitness testimony is one of the major causes of wrong conviction. Events of crimes, will have so much stress or focus on a weapon, than the face of criminal (Wrongful Convictions , n.d.). The victim’s or eyewitness’s memory can be changed with an easy simple suggestion. Police procedure dealing with key witnesses by a “show up”. This is showing the suspect in a physical or a picture line up. The confidence of accuracy of identification and exhibited by the witness is a “crucial determinant of believability” by jurors (Furman, 2003). The best result of eyewitness testimony is taken identification immediately. The

Although there are some with varied findings, most studies has concluded that “jurors of one race tend to show bias against defendants who belong to another race” and that the difference in race “influenced both verdicts and sentencing” (Kang et al., 2012, p.1142/3). Judges, “both as citizens and as elected officials,” can also be prone to the general implicit bias in society and allow racial stereotypes to affect their decisions regarding the incarceration of an offender (Steffensmeier, 1998, p.768). It is therefore not surprising that research suggests that “in one hundred otherwise identical trials, eight more Black than White defendants would be found guilty” (Kang et al., 2012, p.1142/3) and receive longer sentences (Steffensmeier, 1998, p.775). Oliver (2003) notes

In adults, three variables were used to test the other-race effect on facial recognition: orientation, face type and ethnicity. Adults at least 18 years of age and older (N = 64) were asked to recognize upright and inverted adult and infant faces. Recognition was tested using a forced-choice procedure. 4 slides were shown during a trial to make sure participants understood the instructions. Next, participants viewed 48 slides with faces alternating between adult female and infant faces; first segment each face was upright, second segment faces were inverted. The results of the study found that there was no significance between race and facial recognition. Other research conducted has shown that race does in fact have a significant effect on facial recognition.