Faulty Eye Witnesses

The use of eyewitnesses as the sole source of evidence is one of the leading reasons for wrongful convictions. In some cases, authorities relied on only one eyewitness to convict a suspect. Such a witness could have a personal vendetta against the defendant. In the Darryl Hunt case, Sykes’ mother maintained she was convinced beyond reasonable doubt that Hunt was her daughter’s killer. If she had been the sole eyewitness, Hunt would probably have been incarcerated for life. Since eyewitness testimony is the ubiquitous factor, there is an urgent need for triangulation and collaboration of evidence to guarantee justice for all people suspected of committing any felony. The issue of race and class also needs attention. A jury may be prejudiced because of color or rank. Such cases erode the tenets upon which justice is based, and deny innocent people of their freedom.

Despite the efforts of the courts and law enforcement agencies to improve the handling of eyewitness testimony, misidentifications continue to be a major contributing factor to false convictions. The Innocence Project is a national litigation and public policy organization that has been dedicated to exonerating wrongfully convicted people through DNA testing. Since their inception in 1992, they have helped overturn 311 wrongful convictions in the United States, as of the date of this paper. Of those 311 cases, they have determined that misidentification has contributed to approximately 73% of those wrongful convictions ("The Innocence Project"). That is an extremely high percentage, and something needs to be done about this.

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.

“Wrongful convictions happen every week in every state in this country. And they happen for all the same reasons. Sloppy police work. Eyewitness identification is the most- is the worst type almost. Because it is wrong about half the time. Think about that.” (Grisham). Wrongful convictions can happen to anyone, at anytime. Grisham implies wrongful convictions happen for the same reasons, careless police work as well as eyewitness identification. An eyewitness identification is a crucial aspect in detective work because it essentially locates the person at the crime scene. This is the worst cause of wrongful convictions because it is wrong half the time.

With the number of DNA exonerations growing in the recent years, wrongful convictions reveal disturbing trends and fissures in the justice system. It shows how broken the system is, and why it needs urgent fixing. According to Huff (1996), over ten thousand people are convicted wrongfully for serious crimes each year. This study established that factors leading to wrongful convictions are false eyewitnesses, a prejudiced jury, incompetent prosecutors, and suspects’ ignorance. Where DNA evidence clears a suspect, array of reasons emerge; misconduct, mistakes, to race and class factors. It is important to make DNA data available to attorneys in order to enable them mount a strong

For example, on June 25, the California Innocence Project announced that DNA testing recently exonerated a San Diego resident who was wrongfully convicted of rape. The victim in the case misidentified him as her perpetrator. Studies show that this type of mistake is common in criminal cases. When witnesses are shown a photo lineup of possible suspects, they tend to choose the one who most closely resembles the person they saw. When they look at a live police lineup, they tend to choose the person they identified in the photo lineup. During the trial, they see the

Abstract: Over the past twenty years, advancement in DNA technology has directly led to the exoneration of nearly 300 people in the United States. In addition to these scientific advancements, a growing body of literature has focused on the significant roles eyewitness misidentification, so-called “jailhouse snitches,” and false confessions have played in contributing to wrongful convictions in U.S. courts. The aim of this paper is to examine the occurrence of wrongful conviction in criminal trials and the effect of DNA testing on bringing attention to the alarming frequency of these unjust judicial outcomes. Through an examination of previous wrongful conviction research and appellate court rulings, this paper will also explore the extent to which permitting wrongful convictions to be upheld constitutes a violation of civil liberties. Finally, this paper will discuss an important contradiction that advancements in science have exposed within our criminal justice system; while DNA technology and other advanced forensic techniques are increasingly being relied upon to secure criminal convictions, the justice system seems to be correspondingly reluctant to consider these forms of evidence for the

Every time an innocent person is exonerated based on DNA testing, law enforcement agencies look at what caused the wrongful convictions. There are many issues that contribute to putting guiltless lives behind bars including: eyewitness misidentification, false confessions, imperfect forensic science, and more (Gould and Leo 18). When a witness is taken into a police station to identify a suspect, it is easy for their memories to be blurred and their judgment influenced. This can lead the witness to identify a suspect who is actually innocent. Flawed forensic science practice also contributes to wrongful imprisonments. In the past, analysts have been inaccurate due to carelessness, testified in court presenting evidence that was not based

People have been wrongfully accused and convicted of crimes all throughout history. However, wrongful convictions are still a problem in our society and since the start of the Innocence Project in 1992, the issue of wrongful convictions has become a topic that has resurfaced (Misapplication of forensic science, 2017). Thus far, the Innocence Project has been able to exonerate more than 300 people who were wrongfully convicted (Misapplication of forensic science, 2017). In more than 70% of the overturned cases, the individuals were initially arrested due to eyewitness misidentification (Eyewitness misidentification, 2017). Additionally, the misapplication of forensic science is the second most common contributing factor related to wrongful convictions affecting nearly half (46%) of the cases (Misapplication of forensic science, 2017).

A few leading causes of wrongful convictions are eyewitness misidentification, false confessions, flawed forensics, and inadequate defense counsel. As identified by The Innocence Project, eyewitness misidentification has remained the leading cause of wrongful convictions, followed by flawed forensics and false confessions. Eyewitness misidentification oftentimes relies on a person 's memory, however, many cases of eyewitness misidentification have been proved to be the result of insinuation or coercion by police. Many times during photo arrays, or line-ups, a police officer may "mark their primary rape suspect with an “R”

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

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

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.

Eye-witnessed evidence is a stellar tool to solve the crime issues and also to be able to find out unknown historical events by someone’s testimony. Therefore, we were gaining huge benefit through the eye-witnessed evidence. For example, there was one flagrant trickster in South Korea who deceived 20 million middle class people in order to take 4 billion Korean won in 2008. After he perceived that Korean policeman is trying to round up him for deceiving many people, so he stows away to China. Many Chinese policemen was trying to capture him but couldn’t catch him until now because China is such a huge country to look for him. But one day, South Korean reporter uploaded this issue in the ‘Weibo’