The Problem With Eyewitnesses In Court

Eye witness testimonies are the evidence given in court or in police investigation by someone who has witnessed a crime or an accident. Eye witness testimonies are affected by a number of factors, but the one that I am going to focus on is anxiety. Laboratory studies and some ‘real life’ studies have generally shown impaired recall in people who have witnessed particularly distressing or anxiety induced situations.

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

Also they could lie for the perpetrator so then when they get out of jail or prison they don’t come after the witness, like in a domestic abuse case, or a rape case. Many people believe that the human memory works like a video recorder like the mind records events and then, on cue, plays back an exact replica of them. Psychologists have found that the memories are reconstructed rather then played back each time we recall them. On this website (https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/do-the-eyes-have-it/ paragraph 4) they state that “The act of remembering, says eminent memory researcher and psychologist Elizabeth F. Loftus of the University of California, Irvine, is ‘more akin to putting puzzle pieces together than retrieving a video recording.’ Even questioning by a lawyer can alter the witness’s testimony because fragments of the memory may unknowingly be combined with information provided by the questioner, leading to inaccurate recall.” The more violent the event, the least likely it is that the witness or victim will remember the event with accuracy.

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.

Eyewitness misidentification can pose a serious threat in forensic evidence. Eye witness testimony can easily be tampered with due to words or phrases used. Bias is a major issue in identification especially if the police officer uses suggestive tones to portray whom they believe is the suspect. Some witnesses will change their opinion when they hear new information of the suspect. A study has shown that words can play a major impact in the witness' mind and cause them to recall false information. False information can also stem from human memory, age, distance, and how long it took before a witness could recall the information. It has been shown that due to the confidence that a witness may have, it could impact the court systems' reliability on the witness; however, there are several solutions that can be done to prevent misidentification in the court of law. Some examples that can be done are blind administration, lineup composition, instructions, confidence statements, and

Factors such as misinformation and eyewitness talk can easily affect the memory of eyewitnesses and therefore affect their testimony_. Evidence which is usually provided during eyewitness memory reports helps to determine the guilt or innocence of a perpetrator in a criminal proceeding_. With the help of many basic psychological and neuroscience studies, it has been indicated that because memory is a reconstructive process it is likely to be influenced and vulnerable to change and misinformation_. Due to memory being vulnerable, any minor memory misrepresentation can have severe consequences when used in the courtroom_. Memory errors when regarding the identification of a perpetrator of a specific crime has been focused on during research

An eyewitness testimony is a proceeding whereby the witness of a crime will stand in court and recall the events which they perceived and is involved in the identification of the perpetrator (Laney & Loftus, n.d.). Eyewitnesses testimonies have become a staple for many legal proceedings and is often taken as hard evidence for a crime which someone has committed. However, there has been a staggering number of innocent people who have been convicted of a crime based on eyewitness testimonies. This is what led to the creation of the Innocence Project whose mission is to use DNA evidence to free wrongly convicted individuals ("About - Innocence Project," n.d.). This essay will explore some of the reasons behind mistaken eyewitness testimonies,

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

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

The memory of an eyewitness has always been an endless dispute throughout the narration of its existence. The word of an individual holds the most substance; it’s the only real thing of value that person hold, having a witness of a crime is a criminal’s vilest nightmare. There is a phrase that may have been heard in movies and reality, ‘eyewitness do not live too long.’ This phrase has range amongst people revealing the reputation of eye witnessing for the majority and jury. All evidence used to convict a person has to go through a vigilant examination process especially the testimony of an eyewitness. So much emphasis is put on a truthful and accurate testimony because there has been a false testimony, which cause consequences and complications. Criminal justice systems should demand their district to notice there is an occurrence of bad witness memory, because the brain will juggle and play games with the hauler. Predominantly, the mix up happens because of the perception particularities the individuals mind has mad up and the original information. Memory is simply the development of perception, how the brain process what is seen and reproduces it later. Since there is a chance that the reproduction of once memory will be wrong that makes it essential to the individual does not damage the facts. This accentuates the stress on the knowledge of the eyewitness well-being

Quick! Look over there something suspicious is happening! Just a little later, you’re being called into court to testify on the event. But, what can you remember and what is your mind playing tricks? Based on the facts below, one can come to the conclusion that, eyewitnesses should not be allowed to testify in court because witness often can’t correctly remember the event and, there is no way to test the validity of statements. This can throw off the whole trial. One can come to this conclusion because; witnesses can’t remember, there is no way to test validity, the human brain shifts things around, witnesses often put personal input, witnesses statements have a lot of weight, outside influences affect testimonies, and innocent people are often

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.

Eyewitness testimony has been questioned regarding its accuracy. Discuss the usefulness of an eyewitness in criminal investigations.

In 2001, more than roughly 200 innocent people were convicted of crimes that they did not commit. All of these cases had one thing in common: mistaken eyewitness identification. According to Webster dictionary, an eyewitness identification can be summed up by someone who sees something happen and is able to describe it. In reality, mistaken eyewitness identification has become a huge complication in the United States, because of the difficulties that follow it. Mistaken eyewitness identification has been the leading contributing factors to wrongful convictions. (The Innocence Project) With the help of DNA testing, more than 70% of convictions were overturned. There have been several major research programs and centers that have been actively pursuing new, accurate methods that help to arrest and convict a suspect. The Robert Presley Crime and Justice Center is one of the numerous research centers that help to contribute, to how we as a society, can improve our methods on making successful eyewitness identifications.