Juror's Eyewitness Testimony

Eyewitness testimony is a hot button issue in not only the criminal justice field but also the psychology field as well. It continues to be argued that this type of “evidence” is far too unreliable for the court room and can ultimately end up punishing the wrong person for a crime they did not commit. The influence of an eyewitness testimony cannot be denied as research has showed that, “adding a single prosecution eyewitness to a murder trial summary increased the percentage of mock jurors’ guilty verdicts from 18 to 72” (Leippe, Manion, & Romanczyk, p. 182, 1992). In the article discussed here, researchers will look into various age groups to see if age has an effect on the credibility of eyewitness testimonies while attempting to discern what certain cues build upon such credibility.

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

An eyewitness testimony is unreliable because of many different things. Sometimes when witnesses see something they don’t see the whole crime, but only parts which could cause the wrong people to be in trouble. When it’s a serious crime the trial could take years and when asked to stand trial against the perpetrator the witness’s memory could not be fully correct anymore. You could forget important things or get mixed up with things you’ve seen somewhere else, like in a movie. Another reason they are unreliable is Because individuals with certain psychological disorders, like antisocial personality disorder and substance dependence, are at high risk for criminal involvement, they are also at high risk for false identifications by eyewitnesses.

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.

It has been shown that eyewitness misidentification is one of the biggest factors in wrongful convictions, which has been overturned due to DNA (Innocence). Forensic evidence is one of the factors used to determine ones’ guilt or innocence in the court of law; however, some of the evidence used can pose a problem in court. Eye witness testimony has caused a lot of faults in court cases because it is portrayed as a strong factor of evidence. Eye witness testimony should not be used as primary evidence because of how unreliable, misidentified, and the impact it can have in the court of law. Eyewitness identification should have different alternatives in how it should be presented to the witness so that bias is not present.

Race is one of the most controversial topics when speaking of bias, and still to this day race is occasionally believed to sway the judicial system’s decisions. A recent statistic proved that less than 5 years ago in North Carolina more than 52% of potential black jurors were cut, or peremptory challenged, meaning they removed from a case without reason (S.M.). Not only do jurors experience discrimination but suspects on trial have also suffered for decades. Evidence shows judges sentence black convicts to 20%

Biggers (1972) instructions were given to the jury that said ‘witness confidence should be used to assess witness accuracy.’ This statement was highly controversial at the time because there was only a minor positive correlation between confidence and accuracy – far from enough to say it was a significant correlation. The U.S. Supreme Court outlined five criteria that should be used in the future for evaluating the accuracy of eyewitness testimony. Preferable methods for evaluating the accuracy include assessing the suggestiveness of the identification procedure, assessing the instructions given to the witness, examine the structure of the photo or live lineup and ensure there was no suggestibility or coercive methods. One criticism of the Biggers criteria is the lack of system variables. Most variables within the Biggers criteria are estimator variables; which the justice system has no control over.

The results yielded contradicting evidence to previous research. In previous research, eyewitness testimony credible or not has shown to influence a juror’s decision (Pozzulo & Dempsey, 2009; Whitley, 2001). In this case, we only compared discredited and credible witness. From each other, they did not show a difference on juror’s decision. In addition, black defendants are convicted more and receiver harsher punishments than white defendants (Demuth & Steffensmeier, 2004). On the other hand, a review by Sommers’s (2007) indicated the degree to which race plays a role still needs to be studied more. Although, his conclusion was that race does play some type of role in a juror’s decision. The current study supports Sommers’s review in that more research does need be conducted because of the contradicting

Eyewitnesses are critical to the criminal justice system, but there have been issues involving eyewitness testimonies, which occasionally cause them to be seen as unreliable. According to innocenceproject.org, 72% of DNA exoneration cases in the United States have resulted from eyewitness misidentification. This is concerning because in a study by Benton, Ross, Bradshaw, Thomas, and Bradshaw (2005), they examined jurors, judges and law enforcement’s knowledge about eyewitness issues. They found that those involved in the legal system are still very unaware of eyewitness memory research, and the reasons behind why eyewitnesses may or may not be considered reliable. There needs to be a way to increase reliability so that eyewitnesses are able to accurately recognize perpetrators and other important information to put the guilty people away, and to keep the innocent people free.

Research studies in relation to eyewitness testimony have been going on for hundreds of years. A study done in 1999 by Marcus D. Durham and Francis C. Dane at Mercer University, looked at ways to assess prospective jurors’ knowledge of the factors that may influence eyewitness behavior. Those factors include topics such as race, memory processes, age, and stress. In addition, the researchers “compared students’

An eye witness is a person who has personally seen something happen and so can give a first hand description of it. Every year, more than 75,000 eyewitnesses recognize criminal suspects in the U.S., and studies propose that as many as a third of them are wrong. Mistaken eyewitnesses helped convict three quarters of the people who have been freed from U.S. prisons base on DNA evidence presented by the Innocence Project. The Innocence Project is a nonprofit legal organization that challenges uncertain prosecutions. The California Innocence Project says that they are numerous reasons why eyewitness are mostly wrong. They are High Stress Environment and Trauma, Human Memory, and Suggestive Identification and etc. There are all these reasons that eyewitnesses have a high rate of error but, are still considered some of the most powerful evidence against a suspect. After a comprehensive two-year study of eyewitness testimonies, the New Jersey Supreme Court concluded that they often leads to fictional or false identifications. Thus, recently ordered that new rules on how such testimonies are treated in the courtroom. This is

According to Scheck, Neufeld, and Dwyer (2003), the majority of convictions overturned by DNA evidence involved mistaken eyewitness testimony. The Innocence Project estimates that around 70% of the convictions due to eyewitness misidentification have been overturned by DNA evidence (2015). A main factor in this occurrence is that eyewitness memory is unreliable (Wright, 2007). Eyewitness identification in a line-up is an important tool in criminal investigations. The eyewitness evidence that results from these line-ups has an impact on the subsequent investigation and prosecution procedures (Wells, 1984). Furthermore, according to Wright, it is not just about witnesses making errors when identifying, misidentifying, or not identifying, a suspect

First, the human memory does not record all information like a video recorder. Mistaken eyewitness testimony is one of the major causes of wrong conviction. Events of crimes, will have so much stress or focus on a weapon, than the face of criminal (Wrongful Convictions , n.d.). The victim’s or eyewitness’s memory can be changed with an easy simple suggestion. Police procedure dealing with key witnesses by a “show up”. This is showing the suspect in a physical or a picture line up. The confidence of accuracy of identification and exhibited by the witness is a “crucial determinant of believability” by jurors (Furman, 2003). The best result of eyewitness testimony is taken identification immediately. The

Have you ever been a witness to a crime? Would you feel comfortable if prosecutors relied on your eye witness testimony alone for a conviction? According to “The Magic of the Mind”, eyewitness testimony which relies on the accuracy of human memory, has an enormous impact on the outcome of a trial. Eyewitness testimony is a legal term. During an eyewitness testimony, the witness usually goes into an account of the crime he or she has witnessed. This can include details of the crime or identification of perpetrators. Eyewitness testimony is an important area of research in cognitive psychology and human memory (simplypsychology.com). Eyewitness testimony can be affected by many psychological factors such as:

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.