Eyewitness Testimony Sociology

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 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

As once said by Ben Whishaw, “the criminal justice system, like any system designed by human beings, clearly has its flaws.” This quote is incredibly true for the United States justice system. However, the Innocence Project is dedicated to reforming this clearly flawed system that has wrongfully convicted thousands of individuals. Furthermore, too much weight is placed on eyewitnesses, misidentification, false confessions, and informants. The most flawed evidence used in a trial to convict an individual is eyewitness testimony.

Throughout all of its history, San Francisco has been one the most emblematic cities recognized around the world, as well as one that has seen many tragic events such as the earthquake of 1906, whose devastating aftermath ultimately destroyed the “Golden City” and menaced its citizenry. However, in “Story of an Eyewitness,” Jack London offers the audience a particular account of the event through the use of rhetorical devices and an extended metaphor of San Francisco’s seemingly “doomed fate,” painting a vivid and dramatic image of the tragedy that transcends the geographical and material destruction of the city in order to reveal the innermost loss and significance of San Francisco: its populace’s hope and virtue.

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

Eyewitness testimonies are based on a person’s ability to recall what took place accurately. Memory research has proven that a person’s memory is not a recording but it is reconstructive. Loftus and Palmer’s study set out to prove that the memory could be reconstructed through the use of language.

The Corruption of Eyewitness Testimonies In 1993, three young boys from in West Memphis, Arkansas, were brutally murdered and mutilated. As a result of the town being in shock, they were quick to point fingers and falsely accuse “outcast” civilians as suspect. Damien Echols was sentenced to death, Jessie Misskelly Jr. was sentenced to life imprisonment plus two 20-year sentences, and lastly, Jason Baldwin was also sentenced to life imprisonment. It is not only utterly horrifying that three young boys were brutally murdered, but also horrifying that three young men were wrongfully incarcerated for a crime which they did not commit.

The Reliability of Eyewitness Testimony Part 1 - How reliable is Eyewitness testimony? The Reconstructive nature of memory - Schemas and Stereotypes The reconstructive nature of memory is related to the schema theory. A schema is a package of memory that is organized and developed throughout our lives.

The reliability if an eyewitness testimony is questionable. The witness may be so certain that the person that thy are pointing out is one hundred per cent the suspect or they could be so certain when it comes to retelling the incident, although these people are so sure on what it is they are doing, their testimony cannot always accurate. Due to the lack of accuracy with eyewitness

However, is there a certain type of crime where the presumption of guilt would make more sense? In my opinion, no, there are no types of crimes where the presumption of guilt makes sense. No mater how despicable a crime, the defendant should not have to prove his innocence. Even in a case where it might be emotionally damaging for a witness to take the stand and testify, such as in a child molestation case. There is a duty to expose all evidence, even if it is tainted by error such as previously discussed. Therefore, no, there should never be a time where a presumption of guilt would be

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.

Being wrongly convicted is a problem in the United States and its causes are two-fold. First, the criminal justice system in America has been flawed to believe eyewitness testimonies as a primary source of incarceration. Although research has shown that eyewitness identification is often unreliable, it is also some of the most convincing evidence that is presented to a judge or a jury. Christian A. Meissner from the University of Texas finds that this makes up 75 percent of post-conviction DNA exoneration cases in the U.S., making it the leading cause of these wrongful convictions. And even more so, at least 40 percent of these eyewitness identifications involved a cross racial identification. Meissner finds that people are less able to recognize faces of a different race than their own. 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. In eyewitness identifications, witness memory is impacted by a variety of factors that occur from the time of the crime onwards, and their memories can be easily contaminated.

In the 1960’s and 1970’s, the Supreme Court began to recognize the issues of faulty eyewitness testimony and began to establish limited safeguards. Some of the safeguards introduced by the Supreme Court include allowing the defendant to have an attorney present at a lineup, allowing defendants to challenge identifications resulting from questionable police procedures, and establishing model jury instructions (Jost 862-863).

There three memory process involves encoding which is when information is converted for storage which allows the information to be kept in memory for later use and also we have retrieval when information is recovered from memory into conscious awareness. November 28, 1976, Randal Dale was an American former prison inmate, who was wrongfully convicted of the death of a Texas police officer Robert W. Wood. He was then sentenced to death. His conviction was overturned in 1989.The crime started when Adam was walking along the Dallas street after his car had run out of gasoline. Harris, a long-time friend, was driving a stolen car.

This study examined age differences in eyewitness testimony. Children, three and six years of age, and adults interacted with an unfamiliar man for 5 minutes. Four or five days later, the witnesses answered objective and suggestive questions, recalled what happened, and tried to identify the confederate from a target-present photo line-up. The adults and 6-year-olds did not differ in their ability to answer objective questions or identify the confederate, but 6-year-olds were more suggestible than adults and recalled less about the event. Compared to the older age groups, the 3-year-olds answered fewer