Eyewitness Evidence Analysis

The traditional procedure in identifying criminals involve a simultaneous (SIM) lineup procedure whereby all the suspects are presented simultaneously to the eyewitness and asked to identify which one closely resembles the perpetrator (Steblay, Dysart, Fulero & Lindsay, 2001). This type of procedure however has led to many wrongfully convicted innocent suspects (McQuiston-Surrett, Malpass & Tredoux, 2006), suggesting that an alternative procedure is needed. In 1985, Lindsay and Wells devised the sequential (SEQ) lineup

According to the New York Times (2011), the police line-ups have changed due to so many wrongful convictions based on this identification process for suspects. Some studies as far back as 2006 show that the sequential line-up process is more efficient by presenting one photo at a time to the witness. Even more studies support the double-blind line-up process because it reduced mistaken identifications in the field.

A conventional method for lineups, show-ups, and photographic arrays when watching a television show such as Law and Order have witness view several people through a one-way glass to identify the person they saw commit the crime. “According to the Innocence Project, eyewitness misidentification is the greatest cause of wrongful convictions, with nearly 75% of overturned convictions resulting from misidentification” (Naito, 2014). However, since I have been working as a law enforcement officer I have never actually seen a lineup performed; nevertheless, I have completed a show-up and witnessed a photographic identification arrays during a criminal investigation. Law enforcement agencies from my knowledge still use lineups, show-ups, and

Although it is difficult to distinguish between a correct and mistaken identification, the risk of a wrongful conviction appears fallible. With the aid of forensic science, improvements in training procedures and education on law are proven to decrease the chances for misidentification. Along with the reliance on eyewitness evidence, attorneys should consider all possible factors of reducing wrongful convictions, even if it requires the opinions

The sole purpose of this experiment was to test the accuracy of eyewitness accounts. It was hypothesized that more than 50% of the questions asked would be incorrect. The results fully support the hypothesis. Out of the five questions that were asked, only one was answered correctly by both participants. One of the major factors affecting the reliability of eyewitness testimony is reconstructive memory. Reconstructive memory refers to the idea that the retrieval of memories does not occur in the accurate form but rather as a recollection of memories involving a process of trying to reconstruct past events, This idea was first produced by Sir Fredrick Bartlett where he suggested that certain pieces of information is stored and when it time to recall it, the pieces are then reconstructed based on personal interpretation. (McLeod, 2009) It is also believed that if new information is introduced after the event but before the actual recalling of the event, then the newly introduced information would have tremendous influence on what the person actually recalls. Therefore, memory can be regarded as flexible in nature.

This paper examines six research articles that include research conducted on both eyewitness testimony and plea bargaining, while also reviewing a dataset from a study conducted on both issues. The main questions addressed here are whether or not eyewitness testimony affects court proceedings as a whole and how eyewitness testimony affects the outcome of the plea bargaining process. Each article covered presents different opinions and ideas on this topic, offering a non-biased overview on the matter at hand. While these articles may present different ideas the general definitions as to what eyewitness testimony consists of, along with what a plea bargain is remains consistent. The dataset that is reviewed was pulled from Pezdek’s study, “Influence

In an attempt to decrease the number of wrongful convictions and free wrongfully convicted people, police departments have started conducting blind and sequential photo lineups. A blind photo lineup is when a police officer who does not know who the alleged suspect is shows photographs to the witness. This method can help prevent errors and bias. If the police officer showing the photos to the witness knows who the suspect is, this can possibly lead to them persuading the witness that this is the actual criminal when in fact it may be someone else. In addition to blind lineups, police departments are also doing sequential lineups. A sequential lineup is when witnesses see suspects or photos of suspects one by one instead of in a group. By

In the end of a court case, there is guilty and innocent. Sometimes the guilty is judged accordingly, other times the innocent is judged guilty. Eyewitness testimony gives details about what happened, identification of perpetrators. Eyewitness can be the central focus of the whole investigation, and is also heavily focused on and powerful in the courtroom. Hence, eyewitness testimony is largely one of the reasons as to why innocent individuals are thrown in prison. Although generally without a doubt, eyewitness testimony is helpful to the court and investigation, but memory alone is not always reliable. That previous statement was not meaning to convict all eyewitness testimony, but it is just common sense to understand that not all eyewitness testimony is accurate or true. Eyewitness testimony must be evaluated before allowing witnesses to be put into a courtroom because there are many aspects as to why eyewitness testimony is not sincere or reliable.

Eyewitness testimonies and identifications are often considered controversial and unreliable sources of information due to the many misinformation effects that may pose a threat to the recall of a person’s original memory. The discrepancies between original memories and later recalled memories—sometimes referred to as errors of commission, may be the result of a variety of psychological phenomena. Past research points to the possibility that these discrepancies may be caused by cognitive errors known as memory impairment, misinformation acceptance, misinformation interference, or the idea that the original memory was never encoded, and thus cannot be recalled. Although there is no single explanation to prove why false memories are sometimes

In an eye witness testimony, your judgement and what you saw in a crime scene will effect the rest of the accused person’s life. This made me question if we can really trust our senses enough to define someone’s destiny, and if so to what extent is our sense perception a reliable way of knowing? That is why we can focus on the human sciences area of knowledge and use the reliability assessment criteria to judge the eye witness testimony. There are different ways of knowing and one way is through sense perception. Something that I asked myself was what shapes our perception? And there are many things that shape our perception such as our culture, our acquired knowledge and maturity, our personal knowledge, our emotions as well as physical flaws in how our physiological systems analyse information input. All these supposed factors influence the ways

Eyewitness is the most important aspect for a criminal event that has occurred. Through eyewitness police or relevant forces might be able to get one step closer to catching the criminals. There is no age limit to provide testimony but in recent years, children’s testimonies are also acceptable in courtroom. This will be typically involving rape incident, abuse incident, and robbery incident and so on. There are more procedures involved in extracting information from affected children compared to an adult as children are more sensitive, also their mental state is still fragile. Studies have talked about the accuracy of statement given by children who witnesses the crime. In a nut shell researchers theorize that the pattern of questions asked to the eyewitness may affect the performance throughout the age group. A study done by Lipton, 1977 said that the type of

John Book and Rachel Lapp could never have a successful permanent relationship. Do you agree?

Cases across America have been solved using the art of Eyewitness and a simple line up of potential suspects. When human beings rely on memory to solve cases, often times the people on the other side end up being wrongly convicted. In the video, we take

In addition to eyewitness identification, line ups and showups are used to identify a witness or a suspect. Lineups are an identification procedure, in which the witness or the victim of the crime is able to observe and pick out any possible suspects related to the crime. As for a showup, the witness of the crime is able to view the suspect alone, without other possible suspects. For example, when a suspect is apprehended, a police officer could rely on a showup procedure and present the victim of the crime with a drive by of the detainee in an effort to identify the suspect. These identification procedures are important for the witness because they provided a comfortable setting in which can help them be as precise as possible in making a identification.

A victim who police have taken hekto police station gives testimony. She looks at a man in a police lineup and says, "That's the person which saw in my car." During the trial, the woman gives her testimony in front of the jury, and the jury makes a decision. Soon, the man goes to jail. However, it is possible the woman whose her testimony was used is wrong. Researchers that now claim that the eyewitness stories what courts often rely on are not always reliable. which Psychologists have conducted experiments who revealed some surprising results. They played a crime scene video for participants and then asked the participants to remember details. Results showed that participants often described events, which they knew nothing about and had not