Eye Witness Testimony: Impact Of Eyewitness On The Court Decision

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

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

The impact of eyewitness testimony upon the members of a jury has been the subject of various research projects and has guided the policies formed by the federal government regarding its competent use in criminal matters (Wells, Malpass, Lindsay, Fisher, Turtle, & Fulero, 2000). Therefore, eyewitness studies are important to understand how

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.

According to Scheck, Neufeld, and Dwyer (2003), the majority of convictions overturned by DNA evidence involved mistaken eyewitness testimony. The Innocence Project estimates that around 70% of the convictions due to eyewitness misidentification have been overturned by DNA evidence (2015). A main factor in this occurrence is that eyewitness memory is unreliable (Wright, 2007). Eyewitness identification in a line-up is an important tool in criminal investigations. The eyewitness evidence that results from these line-ups has an impact on the subsequent investigation and prosecution procedures (Wells, 1984). Furthermore, according to Wright, it is not just about witnesses making errors when identifying, misidentifying, or not identifying, a suspect

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

Perception, Attention, and Memory in Relation to Eyewitness Testimony It has usually been accepted that our memories are accurate representation of the event that took place. In the criminal justice field, this has been the core reason for allowing people to be convicted on the recounted memories of eyewitnesses. The actual lack of reliability and accuracy of our memories can be understood by looking at how our memory actually functions. In this paper, I will show how perception, attention and memory are related, how they can affect the accuracy memories, and how they can affect the reliability of eyewitness testimony.

The first and greatest cause of false convictions is eyewitness identification according to the innocence project website almost 75% of cases later overturned were due to wrongful eyewitness identification. One of the main issues as we learned in class is that our minds do not keep a perfect recording of events in our memory they are often impacted by additional information given after the fact. Information about a suspect given afterwards such as suggesting their hair color, height, weight, or other attributes about them could influence our memories. Another issue found is using things like “show ups” for victims and witnesses; this is discussed on the innocence project page and was in class. Show ups tend to lead to wrongful identification because there is only one person instead of several potential suspects like a lineup. The Innocence project website discusses two variables that affect wrongful eyewitness identification Estimator and System variables. Estimator variables are things the justice system cannot influence such as the lighting, distance used when the victim or witness saw the suspect, the amount of stress or anxiety the victim is under, and research shows that it is hard for witnesses to identify someone of a different race than they are. The 2nd group of variables discussed are the system variables, these are things that the system can impact such as the type of lineup like line up or show up, how they administer lineups such as how similar the suspects

Quick! Look over there something suspicious is happening! Just a little later, you’re being called into court to testify on the event. But, what can you remember and what is your mind playing tricks? Based on the facts below, one can come to the conclusion that, eyewitnesses should not be allowed to testify in court because witness often can’t correctly remember the event and, there is no way to test the validity of statements. This can throw off the whole trial. One can come to this conclusion because; witnesses can’t remember, there is no way to test validity, the human brain shifts things around, witnesses often put personal input, witnesses statements have a lot of weight, outside influences affect testimonies, and innocent people are often

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.

Eyewitness testimony has long been viewed as important evidence in court cases. The general population believes eyewitness identification more than any other evidence, even if the witness account is conflicting with the other evidence presented. Studies show that eyewitness testimony is unreliable, and yet it is still considered the most important form of evidence. People think that if a person says they saw something then it must have happened. Currently there are no universal guidelines on how to obtain and present such evidence. The purpose of this paper is to explain why eyewitness testimony is unreliable, and discuss the proposed guidelines on how law enforcement agencies should gather identifications, as well how

Memories do contain distortion, but the distortion is not caused by the act of forming a memory. My personal experience of trying to remember my surgeons name under stress was made extremely difficult because of distortion caused by my emotions. The students referenced in "The Problem with Eyewitness Testimony: Commentary on a talk by George Fisher and Barbara Tversky" used recognition, remembering something with the help of a stimulus or related aid, based on bias and expectation rather than distortion in the memory being formed. When a group of students in my graduating class were asked to recall, remember an event with no prompts to assist in remembering, the events of our graduation there were many different stories told that

Some people argue that eyewitness testimonies are the key to solving a crime. These testimonies help investigators find out what truly happened when the crime was committed. “This helps the jury and the lawyers better understand everything about the case as the eyewitness testimony explains how the crime was committed, who was involved and where it happened. As a result, a motive could be established based on the witness’ account of the story. Consequently, it will help the judge come up with the best decision in the end”(8 Predominant). This supports the idea that these testimonies

An eyewitness is a person who witnessed a particular crime or situation. AlleyDog.com defines an eyewitness testimony as “a situational account of a witness of what is typically a crime or an accident. It is a legal term that essentially describes when a witness or victim is recounting their firsthand experience to another person or to a court.” Research has shown that a testimony can be incorrect due factors such as stress, outside peers, misleading question and loss of memory (1998-2017). These things must be taken into account so that a jury does not put an innocent person in prison. A reliable witness should have the main characteristics; adequate perception, have a good memory and report it well, must able and willing to tell the truth

Law enforcements or courts should adress the the weakness in eye witness memory issues by otaining the witness statment as soon after the event happens before the memories get altered by emotions. Also the creation of the DNA testing is a big soultion for the court room because it shows acually evidence rather than word of mouth.