Ronald Cotton Misidentifications

After Jennifer Thompson-Cannino was raped in 1984, she identified a man in a police lineup and in court as her attacker. The detective conducting the lineup told Jennifer that she had done great, confirming that she had chosen the suspect. Eleven years later, DNA evidence proved that the suspect, Ronald Cotton, had been wrongfully convicted of the rape. A man named Bobby Poole, who Thompson testified she had never seen before, was the man who actually raped her. Ronald and Jennifer's book, picking cotton, portrays common factors that contribute to erroneous convictions. Although it addresses a variety of important issues, the most crucial is how subtle factors like eyewitness misidentification, confirmation bias and nature of a defendant can

On the other hand, there are many situations where criminals go free because eyewitnesses were unable to identify them. With Dr. Brewer he had a different idea knowing that strong memory traces are easier to access than weak and mistaken ones, which is why he only gives his witnesses two seconds to make up their minds. Once they make up their mind he also asks them to estimate how confident they are about the suspects they identified, rather than insisting on a simple yes or no answer. With this version of the lineup he had a large boost in accuracy and the eyewitness performance ranged from 21%-66%. Dr. brewer learned that when it comes to the human mind that more discussion is often dangerous. Instead of simply evaluating our familiarity with a suspect’s face, we begin searching for clues and guidance. Sometimes this involves picking the person who looks the most suspicious, even if we’ve never seen him before, or being persuaded by the indirect hints of police officers and lawyers. As a result, we talk ourselves into having a memory that doesn’t actually exist. (Jonah Lehrer

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.

Everyday, people are arrested for crimes they have committed. However, the justice system, in some cases, has failed to convict and arrest the right person. Innocent people have been sent to jail based upon the deliberate misidentification of suspects. Throughout U.S history, there have been several famous wrongful convictions such as the Scottsboro Boys and Ed Johnson (Grimsley). Their convictions were based on race due to the racial strife from the Jim Crow era. Base on David Love’s article, many convictions after the Jim Crow era were still being caused by misleading identification from eyewitness claims of the suspects being African Americans. Due to the advancement of forensic and DNA technology, lack of evidence from previous convictions

The United States prides itself on having robust, deeply entrenched measures implemented across its core agencies, including the police and criminal justice system, to safeguard against wrongfully convicting people who, after further reflection, are factually found to be innocent. As citizens, we have been educated to trust, among other things, that our systems protect the notions that one is innocent until proven guilty and that prosecution must prove any charges beyond a reasonable doubt. Yet, wrongful convictions are more prevalent than we might think. In particular, the publicity of hundreds of cases over the last few decades has put a spotlight on this indisputable

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

Many of these mistakes were based around DNA. DNA testing wasn’t a thing in the past so there was not the sureness of innocence or guilt (Lindell). This shows that we had to rely more on witnesses and confessions then we did science so a wrongful conviction wasn’t to hard to get. We developed the technology to test DNA a little bit after Morton was convicted. The DNA proved that he was innocent of the murder (Lindell). If we would have haven DNA testing the judicial system probably never would have given Morton a guilty verdict. We can’t just blame the fact that there was no DNA testing we also have to look at the prosecutor of the case. The prosecutor, Anderson, was an amazing attorney and award winning for 16 years, but even he made a mistake (Lindell). Even though he was suppose to be this amazing prosecutor who doesn’t mess up, he still ended up messing up. Everyone can make mistakes, it happens but his changed the life of a man and how much of his mistakes weren’t accidental? Anderson was supposedly withholding evidence and ignoring witness statements lead to the wrongful conviction of Michael Morton (Silver). This shows that the prosecutors arrogance of thinking he had the right man lead to him being dramatically wrong at the expense of a man's life. His mistakes may come back to hurt him though. Anderson is being questioned on

“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.

One hundred and sixty-six exonerations took place in 2016, according to the National Registry of Exonerations, setting a new record (“Exonerations 2016” 3). Indeed, misconvictions are now seen as part of the normal judicial process(“Exonerations 2016” 17). However, why are there so many mistakes in convicting individuals? One of the largest causes may be biases within the courts. Implicit bias in the American judicial system may seriously impact the underprivileged in receiving impartial verdicts in the legal system and access to quality lawyers.

It has been reported that millions of crimes is committed in the United States of America which violates and harms the individual rights, properties, and freedoms that are not only guaranteed to American citizens of this country. It has been highlighted that justice is dealt with according to the crimes committed based on the findings and principles of our country, which derived from the Constitution of the United States. While it has been argued justice may not always be fair due to certain rights given to those who may be charged with crime sometimes an error is made. A simple mistake, a missing or broken link in the chain that represents the investigation and trial processes causes an innocent bystander to become caught up in an investigation. More importantly, in many cases can result in a wrongful conviction. This error can rise from many forms like a mistaken eyewitness identification, a false confession, misconduct of the governing authorities, improper forensic investigation, or including staff that neglect to make efforts or unskilled litigation by the defense attorneys. Those whom are affected endure years in prison, deal with lost wages, isolation from friends and family, scrutiny from potential employers, and isolation from their community.

237). Race is looked at with these wrongful convictions. Of 350 high cases that was viewed about 40% of them involved African Americans that were wrongfully accused (Gabbidon & Greene, 2013). Misconduct from police and prosecutors is if they did not do their job correctly such as if they are racist which causes them not to do their job. The interrogations done by police of the accused should be taped to make sure things are done by the books(Gabbidon & Greene, 2012, ch7 ppt). Legal counsel should also be there when identification take place. When DNA came about it help release people that was wrongful convicted based on eyewitness error or mistaken identity and etc. There has been unequal numbers of African American and Hispanics that have been wrongly convicted. To help with mistaken identification and eyewitness error, Huff made a statement that qualified expert witnesses need to use to help with this issue (Gabbidon & Greene, 2012, ch7 ppt). There should be innocence commissions to handle these types of situation that could and have happen in

Maryland readers would like to believe the criminal justice system is always fair. However, studies show that eyewitness misidentification commonly leads to wrongful convictions.

This anticipated effect is explicated by the own-race versus other-race effect, which has been adapted from theories of eyewitness misidentification. An investigation into exonerations found that eyewitness misidentification is the leading factor related to wrongful convictions (Gross & Shaffer, 2012). The majority of these cases involve white female victims who misidentify their African American male attacker, leading to an innocent man’s wrongful conviction. A number of psychological theories have surfaced to explain this error in judgment, one of which is called the other-race effect, which states that individuals are more likely to make mistakes when identifying a suspect belonging to their perceived out-group, or the other-race, versus when identifying someone belonging to their own-race (Wells & Olson,

Since 1923, when Judge Learned Hand said that the American judicial system “has always been haunted by the ghost of the innocent man convicted,” the issue of wrongful conviction has been acknowledged to man (Halstead, 1992; Huff, Rattner, Sagarin, & MacNamara, 1986). After the judge made his innocuous statements, serious study of this phenomenon began. Contrary to the statement the judge made, time and technology have revealed that an unquantifiable number of wrongfully convicted persons have served prison terms and even been executed for crimes they did not commit and some that did not even occur. Research into wrongful conviction was virtually nonexistent until Professor Edward Brochard of Yale University published his book Convicting the Innocent in 1932. This book documented 65 such cases, addressed the legal causes of miscarriage, and offered suggestions to reform. Subsequently, numerous other researchers began conducting case studies and publishing findings that affirmed that wrongful conviction represents a systematic problem within the American judicial process (Huff, 2002).

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