Eyewitness Identification

In the past decade, eyewitness testimonies have cast a shadow on what is wrong with the justice system in today’s society. Before we had the advanced technology, we have today, eyewitness testimonies were solid cold-hard facts when it came to proving the defendant was guilty. However, time has changed and eyewitness testimonies have proven to be the leading causes of wrongful convictions due to misidentification. The Thompson and Cotton case is a perfect example of how eyewitness testimonies can put an innocent man behind bars.

However eyewitness misidentification leads to more wrongful convictions than any other evidence being that it plays a role in 70 percent of cases overturned through DNA testing (Grimsley, 2013). There are multiple factors as to why eyewitness identification is often inaccurate, one reason being that it relies heavily on memory which involves three processes: encoding, storage and retrieval, all of which are susceptible to errors (Costanzo and Krauss, 2014). There are other factors that can affect one's memory such as unconscious transference (e.g. when you unintentionally replace someone's face with what one you may have seen on television, etc.), suggestive or leading comments (i.e. administrators providing cues to eyewitness about which person to pick at a lineup), cross-race effect (cross-race bias) (i.e. we often misidentify others of a different race than our own race), and so forth (Costanzo and Krauss, 2014). Despite that eyewitness identification is often inaccurate, it is still commonly used within the criminal justice system. This has affected mostly Africans-Americans negatively being that they most often fall victim to eyewitness misidentification. This is shown in a study done by Scheck, Neufeld, and Dwyer (2000) where they studied eyewitness

B. A non-expert who is familiar with a person’s handwriting and did not gain knowledge of the handwriting for purpose of the litigation, such as a spouse or roommate.

A witness or victim can make an identification through a prospective suspect by the use of a collection of photographs. Photograph sessions are usually used more than lineups. A defendant does not have a right to counsel at a photograph identification session. This reasoning was determined by the “Supreme Court”, and any time during the course of the trial (Hall, 2015). As stated by Hall (2015), “In Stovall v. Denno, 388 U.S. 293 (1967), the Supreme Court found that the Due Process clauses of

In general, the police can conduct three types of identification procedures: line-ups, show-ups and photographic arrays. In order to conduct a line-up, the suspect must be presented to the witness with five other people with similar physical characteristics, clothing worn, and race; the victim or witness then identifies the suspect. The show-up identification procedure is usually conducted when the suspect is detained a short time after they committed the crime; they are then brought to the victim or witness for identification. It is also conducted when the victim or witness is immobile and unable to attend a line up. The photographic array procedure requires the picture of the suspect and five other people with similar physical

Officers that are conducting a show-up should follow the general rule that the witness should be brought to the suspect unless there is no reasonable alternative to transporting the suspect to the witness. (Wasberg, 2009) A show-up is conducted immediately after the witnessed event. A “photo array” is a head-and-shoulders (mug shot) of the suspect and other mug shot pictures of people of similar age, race, and description, which a witness or victim attempts to pick the perpetrator. (Wasberg, 2009) These types of identification procedures in case law may affect juror consideration of such testimony nowadays; therefore, photo arrays are more common than lineups because investigators do not want to take a chance on suspects, witnesses, and victims encountering one another. “The Supreme Court has determined that there is no right to counsel at a photo identification session, either before initiation of the adversary judicial proceeding or thereafter” (Hall, 2014, p. 509).

The pretrial identification is vital in gathering evidence from a witness. In any criminal case lineups, showups, and array photo are inadmissible when conducted without a counsel present, in which the suspect due process right are denied. Nevertheless, unnecessarily suggestive are present during identification procedure. In doing so, misidentification decision has occurred, then the court will conduct an investigation to examine the circumstance. For example, during lineups, an individual must be presented among another suspect without shedding light upon the defendant. The pretrial identification is too suggestive to guilt when the witness automatically acknowledges the defendant during lineups because of the attire that was worn that fix

Very interesting post. Misidentification of citizens is the most troubling mode of identification of a possible suspect. For an example, an incident occurred in Richmond, Va, is an example of police lineups going wrong. Michael Kenneth McAlister, 58 was convicted of the February 1986, abduction and attempted rape of a woman who was dragged at knifepoint from an apartment complex laundry room in Richmond.

in High Point, NC” (Wells 4). This software was designed, with input from detectives at the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department, to randomize the photo lineups and ensure that nobody administering the lineups knew which photo was of the suspect. The procedure dictated that the detectives from the four different police departments be trained to use the software and select the fillers by their usual criteria. While the lineup would be administered by another detective, that did not know which photo was of the suspect. During the lineup administration “the lineup administrator also asked cued questions and documented the witness’s verbal responses” (Wells 5). The instructions that were given to the witness were computer generated, “in both written form and via a prerecorded audio using a female speaker” (Wells). The instructions required acknowledgment of understanding before proceeding to the next step, “Instructions followed recommendations by the NIJ Guide” (Wells

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

Furthermore, eyewitness testimony is an important area of research in cognitive psychology and human memory. Juries tend to pay close attention to eyewitness testimony and generally find it a reliable source of information (Simply Psychology, 2009). However, research into this area has found that eyewitness testimony can be affected by many psychological factors like emotional retelling, emotional content and self-relevancy, and sleep quality, which in fact can cause error within the testimony. According to the American Psychological Association, one in three eyewitnesses make erroneous identification. Accordingly, information that’s retaliated post the event, supplied by the police, prosecutors, media, other eyewitnesses, family, and friends can alter not only an eyewitness’s memory of the crime but also the eyewitness’s memory of

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.

Eyewitness testimony is the account a bystander gives in the courtroom, describing what that person observed that occurred during the specific incident under investigation. Ideally this recollection of events is detailed and accurate, this is not always the case. Juries tend to pay close attention to eyewitness testimony and generally find it a reliable source of information. The criminal justice system relies heavily on eyewitness identification for investigating and prosecuting crimes. While there may be a variety of factors that can affect the ability of an eyewitness to identify the someone at a later time such as; the amount of time the culprit is in view, the lighting conditions, whether the culprit wears a disguise, the distinctiveness of the culprit’s appearance, the presence or absence of a weapon, and the timing of knowledge that one is witnessing a crime (Wells, 2003). However, research into this area has found that eyewitness testimony can be affected by many psychological factors such as inattentional blindness and change blindness.

understood as they should be. In the criminal justice system, eyewitness identifications can play a

It is without doubt that eyewitnesses to a crime are one of the most important people to the police when trying to get a conviction but we must remember that sometimes