Why Is Eyewitness Evidence Reliable

In a United States courtroom, evidence is king. There are all different kinds of evidence that can be brought into court, and these types of evidence are statistical, anecdotal, analogical, and testimony. Testimony is defined by Merriam Webster dictionary as “something that someone says especially in a court of law while formally promising to tell the truth” (2014). During a trial, testimony is heard supporting both sides of the court, the prosecution and defense. Though some of that testimony is based on hard facts, or expert testimony (deemed an expert by the judge), some of it can be easily misconstrued, and some can be undeniable (such as expert testimony in relation to hard evidence such as DNA). But there remains one type of testimony that carries an unprecedented weight in a courtroom, and that is eyewitness testimony. Some of the problems associated with eyewitness testimony are that is it unreliable, and it is leading or suggestive to a jury. In this paper I am going to address these issues as well as explore some ethical issues around eyewitness testimony, how it can effect the presumption of guilt, and who should have the burden of proof under certain circumstances.

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.

Psychological research shows that eyewitness testimony is not always accurate, therefore it should not be used in the criminal justice system. Discuss.

An eyewitness testimony is unreliable because of many different things. Sometimes when witnesses see something they don’t see the whole crime, but only parts which could cause the wrong people to be in trouble. When it’s a serious crime the trial could take years and when asked to stand trial against the perpetrator the witness’s memory could not be fully correct anymore. You could forget important things or get mixed up with things you’ve seen somewhere else, like in a movie. Another reason they are unreliable is Because individuals with certain psychological disorders, like antisocial personality disorder and substance dependence, are at high risk for criminal involvement, they are also at high risk for false identifications by eyewitnesses.

The cognitive interview increases the credibility of eyewitness testimony by decreasing memory error and confabulations.

Psychological research shows that eyewitness testimony is not always accurate; therefore it should not be used in the criminal justice system. Discuss.

It has been shown that eyewitness misidentification is one of the biggest factors in wrongful convictions, which has been overturned due to DNA (Innocence). Forensic evidence is one of the factors used to determine ones’ guilt or innocence in the court of law; however, some of the evidence used can pose a problem in court. Eye witness testimony has caused a lot of faults in court cases because it is portrayed as a strong factor of evidence. Eye witness testimony should not be used as primary evidence because of how unreliable, misidentified, and the impact it can have in the court of law. Eyewitness identification should have different alternatives in how it should be presented to the witness so that bias is not present.

However, factors such as interactions with other witnesses and the influence of media outlets cannot be accounted for. In addition, the small sample size of 13 participants means the results are not as reliable and cannot be generalised to the population at large. One possible factor which may influence the results is that witnesses were within close proximity to the events which transpired which can influence memory as well as not being applicable to many crimes whereby the witnesses only see part of the crime or a shadow of the perpetrator. An alternative explanation would be that flashbulb memory was at work here.

Eyewitnesses are critical to the criminal justice system, but there have been issues involving eyewitness testimonies, which occasionally cause them to be seen as unreliable. According to innocenceproject.org, 72% of DNA exoneration cases in the United States have resulted from eyewitness misidentification. This is concerning because in a study by Benton, Ross, Bradshaw, Thomas, and Bradshaw (2005), they examined jurors, judges and law enforcement’s knowledge about eyewitness issues. They found that those involved in the legal system are still very unaware of eyewitness memory research, and the reasons behind why eyewitnesses may or may not be considered reliable. There needs to be a way to increase reliability so that eyewitnesses are able to accurately recognize perpetrators and other important information to put the guilty people away, and to keep the innocent people free.

An eye witness is a person who has personally seen something happen and so can give a first hand description of it. Every year, more than 75,000 eyewitnesses recognize criminal suspects in the U.S., and studies propose that as many as a third of them are wrong. Mistaken eyewitnesses helped convict three quarters of the people who have been freed from U.S. prisons base on DNA evidence presented by the Innocence Project. The Innocence Project is a nonprofit legal organization that challenges uncertain prosecutions. The California Innocence Project says that they are numerous reasons why eyewitness are mostly wrong. They are High Stress Environment and Trauma, Human Memory, and Suggestive Identification and etc. There are all these reasons that eyewitnesses have a high rate of error but, are still considered some of the most powerful evidence against a suspect. After a comprehensive two-year study of eyewitness testimonies, the New Jersey Supreme Court concluded that they often leads to fictional or false identifications. Thus, recently ordered that new rules on how such testimonies are treated in the courtroom. This is

Over the past few years, a group of people have been exonerated through DNA testing and most of them have been wrongfully convicted partially due to eyewitness misidentification. The role that mistaken eyewitness identifications have played in such convictions has led to huge efforts to seek ways in reducing these errors (Wells, Steblay & Dysart, 2001).

The article, When I Witnesses Talk, covers the issue of eyewitness testimonies and their reliability with memory conformity. Often when two people experience the same event they both have very different recollections of the occurrence. One event within the journal article incorporates the murder of Jill Dando, within this investigation there was a lineup where 16 witnesses were asked to identify the suspect, where only 1 of the 16 witnesses recognized him. The police conducted a second lineup where for example one witness stated that they were 95% sure that the suspect that they identified was at the scene of the crime, yet in the original lineup that person was unable to identify anyone from the lineup. One key piece of information was discovered,

Many jurors actually rely on the eyewitness testimony to make their final decision about the defendant. Jurors come from all over the place and usually have little background knowledge on the science of a crime. Therefore, an eyewitness testimony provides close to logical evidence. However, when a discredited witness is introduced to the situation it can get a bit sticky. With a discredited witness there is a much greater chance that the jurors are hearing a false testimony. A study by Shermer, Rose, and Hoffman (2011) examined the outcomes of cases when an eyewitness testimony was introduced. With the use of 60 eight-person juries, they were able to assign participants to six conditions consisting of questionnaires and a mock trial that measured perception of reliability, credibility, aspects of the trial, trust and confidence in police and courts, and how much of a problem they thought the crime was in their community. One important finding indicated that credibility does play a large part in that the more credible an eyewitness is, then the more likely conviction is desired. What was interesting about this study was that other factors were given alongside the eyewitness account like DNA

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.

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.