Eyewitness Identification Essay

Eyewitness evidence has always been considering critical information when it comes to court trials and convictions. But how reliable are eyewitnesses? Scientific research has shown that eyewitness’s memories are often not accurate or reliable. Human memory is very malleable and is easily changed by suggestion. Relying on eyewitness evidence instead of scientific data often leads to wrongful convictions. Scientific evidence is much more reliable, and should be more important in court cases than eyewitness evidence.

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

The first and greatest cause of false convictions is eyewitness identification according to the innocence project website almost 75% of cases later overturned were due to wrongful eyewitness identification. One of the main issues as we learned in class is that our minds do not keep a perfect recording of events in our memory they are often impacted by additional information given after the fact. Information about a suspect given afterwards such as suggesting their hair color, height, weight, or other attributes about them could influence our memories. Another issue found is using things like “show ups” for victims and witnesses; this is discussed on the innocence project page and was in class. Show ups tend to lead to wrongful identification because there is only one person instead of several potential suspects like a lineup. The Innocence project website discusses two variables that affect wrongful eyewitness identification Estimator and System variables. Estimator variables are things the justice system cannot influence such as the lighting, distance used when the victim or witness saw the suspect, the amount of stress or anxiety the victim is under, and research shows that it is hard for witnesses to identify someone of a different race than they are. The 2nd group of variables discussed are the system variables, these are things that the system can impact such as the type of lineup like line up or show up, how they administer lineups such as how similar the suspects

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.

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

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

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

Since the late 1980s, there have been thousands of cases in which prime suspects have been wrongfully convicted, the most common causes being eyewitness misidentification, incriminating statements, and statements from informants. According to The Innocence Project, there have been almost four hundred post-conviction DNA exoneration cases in our country, and they are working to investigate even more wrongful conviction cases. This life changing program, along with their six attorneys, gather information about thousands of cases and determine whether or not DNA evidence can be reevaluated. Kenneth Ireland’s case was submitted for litigation after they found that the court relied heavily on false statements from witnesses. Researchers working

According to the Innocence Project, the misidentification of eyewitness is the most common causes of wrongful conviction in which approximately 75% of the cases has been overturned because of this case. There are several causes of eyewitness misidentification, which includes the types of lineup, post-identification feedback effect, and does the instructions given. The lineup is a process which the suspect is identified by the witness as the perpetrator. The main reason that the

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

Professor Farris, eyewitness evidence is not perfect; however, law enforcement agencies still use lineups, show-ups, and photographic arrays today. The professionals have taken a closer look at eyewitness evidence, precisely at the effectiveness of identifying suspects from lineups and photographic arrays. Law enforcement officers in the United States investigate millions of crimes per year; considering, a percentage of law enforcement agencies investigate crimes that involve the use of police arranged identification procedures. "The National Institute of Justice (NIJ) has initiated a multisite field experiment of eyewitness evidence to examine the effectiveness and the accuracy of the crucial and influential component of the Nation's Criminal

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.

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