Essay On Eyewitness Testimony

According to “The Science Behind Eyewitness Identification Reform” there are two main variables that affect eyewitness testimonies “Estimator variables: are those that cannot be controlled by the criminal justice system. They include simple factors like the lighting when the crime took place or the distance from which the witness saw the perpetrator, and the degree of stress or trauma a witness experienced while seeing the perpetrator” and “System variables: are those that the criminal justice system can and should control. They include all of the ways that law enforcement agencies retrieve and record witness memory, such as lineups, photo arrays, and other identification procedures”. Eyewitness misidentification has led to 75% of false convictions that were overruled by modern DNA testing according to “The Innocence

There has been considerable interest and study in the accuracy or inaccuracy of the use of eyewitness testimonies in the current criminal justice system. Results collated by several studies add to the bulk of literature suggesting that the current usage of eyewitness testimony by the legal system is far from ideal. Currently, high emphasis is being placed on reviewing and reconsidering eyewitness accounts (Leinfelt, 2004). In particular, recent DNA exoneration cases have substantiated the warnings of eyewitness identification researchers by showing that mistaken eyewitness identification was the largest single factor contributing to the conviction of innocent people (Wells & Olson, 2003). In this essay, the use of eyewitness testimony in the criminal justice system will be explored, with a particular focus on the impreciseness of this practice.

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

Eyewitness identifications is a noteworthy topic. Victims see their attackers from time to time, but

Davis, D., Fowler, N. B., Laney, C., Loftus, E. F., Knowles, E. D., Nelson, K. J. (2011). Change blindness can cause mistaken eyewitness identification. Legal and Criminological Psychology, 16(1), 62-74.

There are many different factors that play a part in the increased chance of a witness correctly identifying a suspect. Such factors should be brought to the attention of the jury and the judge to help in properly assessing whether a witness is correctly identifying a suspect. A study by Magnussen, Melinder, Stridbeck, & Raja (2010) found that of the three different types of people: judge, jury, and general public, that for the most part all where fairly ill-informed on the reliability of eyewitness testimony with judges having the most. Judges only had about an 8% difference in knowledge when compared to jurors. With this information it is very clear that education on the reliability of eyewitness testimony needs to become more of a general knowledge information for the everyone, especially people who are involved in upholding the law. Another factor to look into when evaluating the accuracy eyewitness testimony is the role that memory plays. Memory is divided into three processes: perceiving, remembering, and recalling information (Simmonsen, 2013). There is plenty of room in all three of those stages to forget or falsely remember something. Some factors that play a part when a person perceives an event is the amount of time they are exposed to the event and the suspect. A study conducted by Horry, Halford, Brewer, Milne, & Bull. (2014) found that witnesses were increasingly more likely to correctly identify a suspect if they had been exposed to the suspect for sixty

“Wrongfully convicted at age 25, Calvin Johnson received a life sentence for the rape of a Georgia woman after four different women identified him. Exonerated in 1999, he walked out of prison a 41-year old man. The true rapist has never been found, (The Justice Project).” Eyewitness testimony is highly relied on by judges, but it can not always be trusted. Approximately 48% of wrong convictions are because of mistaken identity by eyewitnesses (The Psychology of Eyewitness Testimony). After we discovered this information, we became curious as to whether in a testimony, the eyewitness’ memory is more reliable after a short period of time or after a longer period of time? According to previous experiments, eyewitness testimony is unreliable. Likely, we want to know if a testimony that is given two to three hours after a crime has taken place is more reliable than a testimony given after a longer period of time.

In this paper I’m going to discuss the psychological issues that are used in prosecutors cases such as eyewitness identification, issues that have led to the wrongful convictions of defendants, and what is done to overturn these wrongful convictions. I will also start by defining eyewitness identification. Eyewitness identification is a person whose identification by sight of another person may be relevant in a criminal proceeding. (GS_15A-284.52.)

A lawyer may use the research that shows eye witness’s memory for details of crimes contains significant errors when evaluating their testimonies to show that they may be confused or lying. Eye witnesses are unreliable because when they are held under pressure they tend to forget the important details. “When a criminal perpetrator displays a knife or gun, a witness pays less attention to other details of the crime making them less likely to recall what actually occurred.” (pg. 223) This means the lawyer could state that the eye witness was too distracted by the danger of their life rather than watching what actually happened. “One reason eyewitnesses are prone to memory-related errors is that the specific wording of question posed to them by

As “Articulate a Question Your Research Will Answer” states, “A good research question should be simple, be focused, and require more than a simple 'yes' or 'no' answer” (334). For this reason, I've decided to change my topic to the issue of memory malleability, and propose the research question, under what circumstances is eyewitness testimony hearsay?

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.

Change blindness and inattentional blindness are very closely related because they correspond to an individual’s ability to perceive a change or an obvious and unexpected stimulus that is in plain sight. Change blindness refers to a perceptual phenomenon where

In the following essay an attempt will be made to look at the different perceptual disorders that can disrupt visual perception. Efforts will be made to compare (which by definition is the pointing out of differences and similarities) and it will also attempt to contrast (by pointing out the differences) in a logical and factual way. To do this, it is important to first define what is (a) meant by ‘Visual perception’ and what it is thought to (B)encompass, and the (c) different perceptual disorders that may consequently lead to a disruption in this visual perception. The following account will culminate in a factual recording of the effect these disorders may have on the individual and the resulting disruptions that may occur within visual perception.

Eye witness testimony is an unreliable way of testifying because age differences can be easily influenced and gender roles has an impact in the accuracy for memory recalling. A study conducted of one hundred and ninety-six individuals living in Madrid at the time of the terrorist attack demonstrated that age differences affects the accuracy of eye witness testimonies (Vallet, Manzanero, Arótegui, Garcia, 2017). Adolescents and children are both influenced differently by emotions and the quality of their memory. With that being said, adults performed better on recalling much accurate details such as sound, odor, central information, visuals, and feelings (Vallet, et al., 2017).

Research has proposed a visual phenomenon that implies that everyone has a visual ‘blind spot’- a small region in each eye that cannot see our surroundings. This phenomenon brings about the theory of inattentional blindness; that we sometimes miss opportunities or events because we are focusing on something else. The concept rose from Harvard psychologists Daniel J Simons and Christopher F Chabris’ 1999 ‘Gorillas in our midst’ study. Their aim was to study the psychology of vision, doing so by creating four 75- seconds films involving two team of 3 players, one team wearing white tops and the other wearing black, moving around passing 2 balls continuously. Two conditions were used; after 44-48 s either a woman holding an umbrella would appear in the film or a woman in a gorilla costume would appear. Participants were asked to watch and observe the videos and monitor the balls being passed back and forth. At the end of the study they were then questioned about the 2 conditions and what they saw. The study’s findings supported the idea of inattentional blindness for dynamic events.