Why Is Eyewitness Testimony Unreliable

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

Eyewitness identification are considered to be the most powerful evidence against a suspect. There are numerous reasons for this to occur which includes stress, human memory, and the focus on weapons which leads for the eyewitness to focus less on the perpetrator. When an individual is in a position with high stress, their ability of remembering what actually occurred won't be easy to prove. It leaves the eyewitness unable to recall what occurred at the tie of the scene. This has been a huge problem over the years. According to “Carla Stenzel” eyewitness misidentification will occur because our memory is dynamic. It is very impossible for our brains to perform everything we see. Our memories take in pieces of information and processes the most important information. When a witness is asked by a police officer to give certain details of a suspect, they won't be able to remember how exactly they looked like but will be able to give out certain details like their height, race, and hair color. When a crime is being committed witnesses usually testify that there focus was more on the perpetrator's weapon. All they can focus on would be the size and shape of the weapon and focus less on the actual suspect. Another contribution would be the way the investigator presents the operator to the witness. The investigator prepares a lineup which includes a six pack of people. The use of a six pack lineup has

Eyewitness testimonies are often unreliable and yet they are usually the most incriminating "evidence" provided in court. Eyewitnesses are often under a large amount of stress in the moment and are unable to gather all of the necessary information to accurately describe a crime. The setting of the crime, the type of event occurring, the amount of activity taking place, and the emotional state of the eyewitness can all affect and alter the testimony of the eyewitness. According to the Innocence Project, inaccurate eyewitness testimony accouted for 87% of wrongful convictions. One of these convictions was that of Ronald Cotton.

There are many factors to consider when psychologists and scientists are trying to figure out reliability of eyewitness testimony. The ability to recall or

The “Eyewitness Testimony” by Elizabeth F. Loftus is a seminal article that tests the reliability of an eyewitness’s memory in a legal context. Loftus explores how different factors such as suggestion, misinformation, and memory distortion can affect the accuracy of an eyewitness’s testimony in court. By doing this test, you will see how accurate the statements are and how often they might lead to wrongful convictions. This article starts by bringing attention to the crucial role that eyewitness testimony plays in the criminal justice system. Juries often put a great amount of faith in eyewitnesses’ testimonies, believing that their statements are one of the most reliable sources of evidence in a trial.

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.

Although at times it can be unreliable, the function of it makes us who we are. Currently in Psychology 1100, we are learning about memory, which ties into the article completely. Short-term memory and long-term memory, two important parts of a humans recollection. Short-term memory lasts less than 30 seconds then disappears, the mind chooses what to remember, it takes what is important and processes it to long-term memory. On a daily basis many don’t memorize what their friend was wearing, but we have in long-term memory what their physical features are, height, weight, age, build, etc., this allows us to easily recognize who they are and therefore we remember it. With strangers it’s entirely unnecessary to remember what clothes they’re wearing or what they look like because there is nothing connecting you to them, now if something occurs where you ran into them or had an awkward conversation, your mind would remember it because it was personal and that memory will continue to replay within one’s mind. Now a crime occurs where you were waiting in line at a store and someone robbed the place, you would barely remember what they looked like because you were maybe more focused on your safety and only had a glance, yet some people even without knowing who robbed the store would give a testimony that is presumably false. One aspect I don’t understand is how some investigations and cases solely rely on witness testimony and so many people have been falsely accused because they were “seen” at the crime by a bystander who had very little recollection of the story and pieced in the rest of the information through a schema that they had. With some many of these occurrences it would be a surprise to me if any investigation continued to rely on a witness testimony unless that witness is someone who was trained on remembering these events. I assume articles similar to these give more insight and a compelling argument to

After witnessing a crime, eyewitnesses are asked for a testimony to find the culprit. Most of the time these testimonies are highly relied on. However, according to physiological evidence 33% of the time these testimonies are incorrect and cause an innocent victim, like Johnson, to end up in jail for no reason (Simply Psychology). There are many influencing factors as to why an eyewitness may not remember what they witnessed. These factors include stress causing a negative recollection of the crime, poor conditions in which the crime occurred; so what the eyewitness

According to the Innocence Project, the misidentification of eyewitness is the most common causes of wrongful conviction in which approximately 75% of the cases has been overturned because of this case. There are several causes of eyewitness misidentification, which includes the types of lineup, post-identification feedback effect, and does the instructions given. The lineup is a process which the suspect is identified by the witness as the perpetrator. The main reason that the

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.

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

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

In the late 19th-century research on eyewitness, testimony memory began, psychologists had been studying memory, and the findings became useful for forensic psychology and law. A central issue with studying eyewitness memory and testimony is the ecological validity of lab studies. There are relatively few ‘real world’ eyewitness memory studies, and that causes problems for determining the generalizability of findings in eyewitness memory. Coined by Wells (1978) estimator variables are present at the time of a crime and cannot be changed (i.e. witness characteristics and the type of offence) and system variables are factors that can be manipulated to affect eyewitness accuracy (i.e. line-up procedures and interview types). The system variables

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.