Summary: The Science Behind Eyewitness Identification Reform

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.

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

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

The murder of a newlywed couple became known as the Ford Heights Four case. On May 11, 1978 Lawrence Lionberg and his wife Carol Schmal were abducted from a gas station in the suburbs of Homewood, Illinois. The bodies of the married couple were found the next day in an abandoned townhouse located in

The most vicious cause of wrongful conviction is eyewitness misidentification. According to the Innocence Project, 72% of overturned wrongful convictions through DNA testing were due to eyewitness misidentification1. As this statistics implies, eyewitness identification (Eye-ID) is untrustworthy information. The main reason why Eye-ID lacks accuracy is due to malleability of memories. The Innocence Project asserts there are two variables greatly influence memory and also Eye-ID. One type of variables is “estimator variables” which are incontrollable factors by the criminal justice system. Examples of estimator variables are environmental factors (e.g., lighting and distance) when the crime occurred, racial factors, and psychological factors (e.g., severity of trauma)1. The other type of variable is “system variables” which is controllable by the criminal justice system. These variables are within the procedure of attaining evidences. For instance, post-identification feedback (e.g., confirming feedback that an eyewitness receives), biased lineup/ photo array composition, biased administrators of lineup can negatively influences Eye-ID.

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 shown that mistaken eyewitness identification was one of the largest factors contributing to the sentence of innocent people (Wells & Olson, 2003). For example, 75% of the first 271 cases of DNA exoneration in the US resulted in eyewitness testimony error (Brewer & Wells cited

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.

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.

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

The article discuss how someone by the name of Johnnie O'neal was tending to his own business when he was charged with rape and robbery. A 21 year old woman was robbed and raped at knifepoint. When she told the story, O'Neal was identified as the suspect. He was convicted and his sentence was ten to twenty years in prison. O'Neal states, “I didn't see any hope for me” (O'Neal). He didn't see himself trying to get his name cleared on his own. Once the lawyers from the Legal Aid Society re-investigated O'neal's case, they realized that something was not right. They saw that the story did not match up, so O'Neal name was able to be cleared.

Eyewitness identification is a major issue in today’s society. Eyewitness identification has become a very faulty issue because of different estimator variables such as; weapons focus, suggestive identification, and human memory. Most times when crimes are committed suspects tend to use a weapon such as a bat, knife or gun. When weapons are used victims focus their attention more on the weapon than the actual suspect. Due to weapons focus victims never really get a chance to take a good look at the perpetrator face.

When eyewitness identification evidence is presented, defense lawyers can cross examine the ID witnesses, and can argue in summation as to factors causing doubts in the precision of the identification. It is important that investigating officers have the witnesses give them a thorough detailed description of the offender as possible, as well as, having the description as soon as it is available after the crime is reported. In the cause, Neil v. Biggers case, the respondent was convicted of rape on evidence from the victim’s visual and voice identification of the respondent at a station house show up that occurred seven months after the rape. The victim, who has been in the presence of her assailant a considerable amount of time and had directly observed him indoors and under a full moon outdoors, testified that she had absolutely no doubt the respondent was her attacker. Before the show up where the victim identified her assailant, she had not made any identification of others present in previous show ups, lineups, or through pictures. The court held that the fact that the show up was considered suggestive and did not make the identification inadmissible under the due process clause. Therefore, her testimony was considered reliable. I personally agree with determining her testimony reliable but, I must also say this is based mostly on bias and not an evidential opinion. I believe that when a person

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.

Scholars have revealed that wrongful convictions are more often based on inaccurate eyewitness identifications that on other types of evidence (Vandenberg, 2014). Researchers also estimated that between 50% and 90% of wrongfully convicted individuals who were later exonerated by DNA evidence were initially found guilty and sentenced on the basis of eyewitness testimony (Vandenberg, 2014). If eyewitness testimony can be unreliable, why then keep using it for convictions? Steps can be taken to increase the accuracy of eyewitness recollections. For example, there is a guide called Eyewitness Evidence that was developed by psychology researchers, law enforcement personnel, prosecutors, and defense attorneys. The guide lays out standardized protocols for retrieving eyewitness accounts (Vandenberg, 2014). These guidelines help ensure the investigator that the testimony they obtain will be as accurate and as reliable as possible (Vandenberg, 2014).

The lawyer would use their specific tactics of negotiation and sometimes fear to get into the mind of the eyewitness, therefore causing the eyewitness to experience errors in their memory while on the stand during a heavy trial. Moveover, the significant errors that can occur during these important moments that the eyewitness tries to recall the memories of their horrific and/or pleasant memories can be either forgotten or interpreted in an entirely different way or tone. Therefore giving the lawyer an opportunity to attack with questions of curiosity and the need for justice. The problem with eyewitnesses in court can be sometimes the person is not being fully trustworthy and honest, while being questioned on the stand, and their memory can