Should We Trust Eye-Witnessed Evidence

e Report, for Resource Utilisation, Witness Accuracy and Psychological Methods for Detection and Successful Prosecution.

Overall, Dr. Fraser’s argument is organized, well structured, and concise, using all three tools of appeal, logos, pathos, and ethos persuading his audience that eyewitness testimony can be seen as invalid. He expresses his argument though story telling, playing a huge role on the logical reasoning, or logos, as well as reasoning abilities. His argument was very effective in getting the audience engaged immediately, using descriptions and visual aids to make it easily understandable to those who are well knowledgeable about the criminal trial process. Dr. Fraser presented his argument in a way that the audience could follow and feel personally involved in. As he states the facts as he became aware of them in the criminal case, Dr. Fraser is in turn, building up to the conclusion of the argument; that eye witness testimony is, at best,

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

There is many things that should be taken into account that requires certain questions to be asked. The first factor would be to what extent was the eyewitness paying attention to the crime taking place. It is important to that witness ability to recall what happened accurately (Schwartz, 2015, p. 13). The next factor would be duration, how long did that crime go on for? The duration comes into plays because the longer the event was going on the longer opportunity the witness has to encode that information for stronger recall (Schwartz, 2015, p. 14). Also, lighting and distance is important because it plays a direct effect on the quality of the memory and encoding. The better the view is for the witness, the better chance the witness has retracing

Eyewitness identification, for the most part, is considered reliable eyewitness identification by the courts as excellent evidence to proof crimes at trial. Yet, Bennett Barbour’s arrest revealed these inaccuracies as he was wrongly arrested due to an over-reliance on eyewitness identification. Barbour’s physique, specifically his

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

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.

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.

What makes video evidence “uniquely compelling” is that unlike eyewitnesses, video doesn’t make mistakes, and, unlike unscrupulous officers or suspects, it doesn’t lie.

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

The jury was able to see that each witness had indeed seen the same vehicle at the scene of the crime. On the other hand, the defense lawyer Vinny Gambini, was able to wield demonstrative evidence against one of the witnesses who had claimed to witness the crime from inside his home. Mr. Gambini was able to place himself at the witness’s point of view during the crime. He took multiple photos of the witness perspective.

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.

Now a day’s evidence can change a person’s life in the blink of an eye. “People were often punished for crimes based on the word of one or two individuals, with little concern given to sorting out the truth of the affair” (Hunter 12). But today a person must be tried and some physical evidence is needed in order for a person to be convicted of a crime.

Above all, physical or real evidence is the most important evidence because it can be used to eliminate other possibilities separate of eyewitnesses. As a result, the eyewitnesses testimony can be compared with unquestionable physical evidence to measure the truth and certainty of the eyewitnesses' understanding of this event. More importantly, physical evidence is crucial because it does not have bias. In fact, physical evidence remains independent of anyone's expectation's or desires, which is why it is crucial for physical evidence to be discovered, properly examined, and not contaminated (McShane,

Eyewitness testimony has long been viewed as important evidence in court cases. The general population believes eyewitness identification more than any other evidence, even if the witness account is conflicting with the other evidence presented. Studies show that eyewitness testimony is unreliable, and yet it is still considered the most important form of evidence. People think that if a person says they saw something then it must have happened. Currently there are no universal guidelines on how to obtain and present such evidence. The purpose of this paper is to explain why eyewitness testimony is unreliable, and discuss the proposed guidelines on how law enforcement agencies should gather identifications, as well how