Eyewitness Misidentification In The Criminal Justice System

There are many research findings that support the “tips” of ways of improving eyewitness accuracy. One of this tips include avoiding post- feedback. In a research conducted by Wells and Bradfield (1998), 352 individuals watched a video of a gunman who committed a murder. After the video, the participants were then asked to choose the correct criminal from a line up. After they made their choice, they were randomly chosen to either receive a positive feedback, or a negative feedback. The only trick in this study is that the picture of the actual criminal was not in the lineup. The individuals who got a positive feedback were more confident in their choice and more confident to testify. The outcome of this study really makes us see how post

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.

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.

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.

Eyewitness identification, for the most part, is considered reliable eyewitness identification by the courts as excellent evidence to proof crimes at trial. Yet, Bennett Barbour’s arrest revealed these inaccuracies as he was wrongly arrested due to an over-reliance on eyewitness identification. Barbour’s physique, specifically his

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

Lindsay and Wells (1985) devised an alternative line-up presentation procedure to reduce the tendency of eyewitnesses to rely on relative judgment. A Sequential Line-Up (SEQ) presents the eyewitness with only one suspect at a time and they respond to each suspect with either a positive identification or none (Wells & Olson, 2003). It was proposed that reasoned that this procedure may raise participants’ response criterion and evoke a more "absolute" criterion (i.e., Is this the perpetrator or not?) rather than the similarity based relative-judgment criterion, thereby alleviating the simultaneous bias (Ebbesen & Flowe, 2002; Lindsay & Wells, 1985). To compare the SEQ and SIM line-ups Lindsay and Wells (1985) used two conditions; a target-absent line-up, in which one an innocent suspect is embedded among fillers, and a target-present line-up in which the guilty suspect is embedded among fillers. This data found that the SIM and SEQ procedures produced nearly identical correct identification rates in the target-present trial whereas in the target-absent condition the rate of mistaken identifications the rate was 43% with the SIM procedure and only 17% with the SEQ method (Lindsay et al., 1991). Compared to SIM presentation, SEQ line-up presentation did not significantly influence the correct identification rate but

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

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

Individuals of all ages are involved in the criminal justice system as eye witnesses. So, it is important to understand how witness skills and limitations may be affected by age. Past research clearly shows that older adults are poorer at lineup identification than young people, showing a tendency toward more false alarms (Memon, Gabbert, & Hope, 2004). Extensive research has also shown that older adult witnesses are viewed as less believable than younger witnesses (Allison, Brimacombe, Hunter, & Kadlec, 2006). But the research on aging is mixed with respect to the impact of misinformation at different ages (cf. Dodson & Krueger, 2006; Roediger & Geraci, 2007). It “remains unclear if older witnesses are generally more vulnerable to suggestions

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.

Convictions prior to the advancement of DNA testing in the criminal justice system were commonly found to be later wrongful and due to eyewitness misidentification (Scheck & Neufeld, 2001). Hence, there has been increasing research by psychologists in eyewitness memory and particularly in line up practices. In criminal identification, a simultaneous line up (SIM) is typically used and involves presenting the witness with all line-up suspects at once with the offender (target) placed amongst other innocent suspects (foils) that resemble the offender (Wells & Olsen, 2003). With these conditions, witnesses have a tendency to compare suspects with each other in order to determine the one that have the closest resemblance with the offender, a process called relative judgement (Steblay, Dysart, Fulero & Lindsay, 2001). In the simultaneous line-ups with target present, there are more hits as the closest resemblance is the perpetrator but while in target absent conditions, the closest matching foil is often picked and resulting in more false alarms (Steblay, Dysart, Fulero & Lindsay, 2001). Therefore, to prevent the potential of misidentification, alternative line-up presentations have been developed to inhibit relative judgement processes such as sequential line-up in Lindsay and Wells (1985).

The witness is not visible to those in the lineup. The witness is asked to identify which, if any, of the individuals committed the crime. A lineup places greater demands on the memory of the witness than does a viewing of a single suspect, and is believed to reduce the chances of a false identification. For example, assume a witness saw a man with a beard and a cap run across an alley near a crime scene. If the police show this witness one man who has a beard and a cap, the witness might make a positive identification. If they instead show the witness several men with a beard and a cap, the witness must make a more detailed identification and may not identify the same man. Identification procedure have challenges on four primary grounds ,

References California Criminal Jury Instructions (2010). Volume 1, Series 300, Evidence (Eye Witness Testimony). Clark, S., & Godfrey, R.. (2009). Eyewitness identification evidence and innocence risk. Psychonomic Bulletin & Review, 16(1), 22-42.

Eyewitness misidentification are the leading errors to a wrongful conviction. Although there is such a high risk for errors, it is still the most powerful testimony or piece of evidence during a trial. With the value an eyewitness is given, there are many risks a prosecutor takes when using them as their most important piece of evidence. Throughout the process, starting from the crime and going until the conviction, eyewitnesses are placed under stress and anxiety. There is also the flaw that the human brain tends to overlook specific details. According to the California Innocence Project, “details like a stranger’s height, weight, age, and hair are often overlooked”. (“Eyewitness Identification Problems and Procedures. . .”). And therefore leads to witnesses filling in the missing pieces based off of their inference and what they feel like the suspect is supposed to look like. Through this process the brain is trying to come up with a clear picture of the event, and does so by imaging details. Even if a witness does observe either the weapon or the offender with detail, the other is often overlooked and leads to little information about the event as a