Eyewitness Testimony Essay

Eyewitness testimony is a legal term that allows witnesses to inform us what happened the night of a specific event. This is a necessity for an accurate case, and helps the jury decide the right verdict. Without eyewitness testimony we would not be able to solve cases as easily. With saying this, there are also many things that contemplate whether their information is as precise as they say. There are an abundance of factors that affect the accuracy of eyewitness testimony. “Psychologists usually separate the process of remembering into three stages: Encoding, storage and misinformation effect”(Science)

Ray Bradbury (August 22, 1920 – June 5, 2012) was an American fantasy, science fiction, horror and mystery fiction author. In his works Bradbury brought up various problems, concerning scientific progress as well as personal interaction in modern society. One of these problems is relationship between children and adults.

First, the factor that leading innocent people be charged is flawed eyewitness identification. Eyewitness is one of principal evidences that policies are looking because someone has knowledge about the crime. A study of contributing causes of wrongful convictions show us that 72% are eyewitness because of misidentification ( The causes of wrongful conviction, 1). This study demonstrated that eyewitness is the highest in wrongful convictions. For example, in the documentary Mr Stephens was the eyewitness which, it is the strong evidence that Detective Williams used against Butler. Mr Stephens told the police that he saw a 6-feet tall men between 20 to 25 years-old. Even though the description given by Mr Stephens did not match with

Over the past few decades, hundreds of people have been falsely imprisoned. Many of their cases were founded on the account of one or more eyewitnesses. The criminal justice system often relies on eyewitness accounts to piece together a crime and identify the perpetrator. But studies showing the faultiness of our memories, particularly in stressful events, suggest that witnesses may not be as reliable of a source as we think.

It is unlikely that social consequences of false memories can be avoided. Elizabeth Loftus was intrigued to study false memories, and is perhaps personally responsible for subsequent developments throughout the history of false memories. Some of this history addresses various theories aimed at isolating how or why false memories occur. These include Source Monitoring Framework, Activation Monitoring Theory, Fuzzy Trace Theory, and strategies for persuasion which can lead to the development of false memory. Such persuasion leads to the present discussion concerning how persuasion in the judicial system has created false confessions and wrongful eyewitness testimonies, due to the Misinformation Effect. Additionally, Recovered Memory Therapy psychotherapy, a method used to reclaim lost memories, reveals itself as problematic where false memories are concerned.

Developmental psychology is branch of science, studying the fluctuations happen during infancy, early childhood, adolescence, adult development, aging, and the entire lifespan. The topic of the lecture taught by Dr. Jane Herbert was the ‘Infant Memory Development’ discussing the traditional view on the declarative memory of infants and focusing on how age-related changes in retention and in the flexibility of memory performance. With reference to such topic and research, this essay will evaluate the both scientific and social effects of studying the development of infant memory, including: developing advanced methodology and supporting current theories; …..

People might remember seeing things they actually did not actually see, because it is what they wanted to see or believe. The person could not have been fully aware of the situation at hand; this can be due to extreme stress or shock. Thus, the person will comprehend the situation with addition or subtraction to details. This demonstration did change the way I feel when listening to testimonies and eye witness interview. An eyewitness report can butcher detail and very essential facts. The faulty or "unsupported" report can place the wrong person in prison and get him or her convict. If I was a juror, I would only acknowledge the report if there was a multiple witnesses that have the same argument as testimony given. I wonder now how credible is a person's testimony in court since a person's perception changes by emotion and

Why have more than two-thousand people exonerated for crimes they didn’t commit? Eyewitness misidentification is the leading cause of wrongful convictions in the U.S. Memory can be influenced by anxiety, stress, reconstructive memory and other factors possibly affecting the testimony of the eyewitness and in turn, misleading the jury. I think that when subjects witness a crime they will struggle to remember important details of the event, and their recollection could be easily altered. This is because the reconstructive memory can be influenced by factors such as stress, anxiety, and verbal cues.

When one is victim of or witness to a crime, it is expected that said person is brought into the police department to be questioned by the police. During this line of questioning it is possible that the victim or witness take part in suspect identification procedures. Such procedures include the use of lineups, showups, photo arrays and others. These procedures are referred to as system variables. These system variables are factors under the control of the investigators that have a demonstrated effect on the accuracy and reliability of eyewitness testimony. Examples of system variables that can influence eyewitness testimony include but are not limited to: statements made to eyewitnesses prior to and after lineups, instructions given to witnesses

The Innocence Project lists six primary causes of wrongful convictions exonerated by DNA evidence. The causes are eyewitness misidentification, unvalidated or improper forensic science, false confessions or admissions, government misconduct, informants, and inadequate defense. The leading cause of wrongful convictions proven by DNA evidence is eyewitness misidentification. Eyewitness misidentification was a factor in more than 70% of convictions whose rulings were reversed due to DNA testing nationwide. Throughout history, the reliability of eyewitness identification has been questioned. In 1907, Hugo Mustenberg examined the reliability of eyewitness identification in his book, “On the Witness Stand”. In a study of 65 wrongful convictions completed

The description of the Lockerbie bombing may provide image on how lengthy and complicated an investigation and a trial process could be. Eyewitness would have to go through repeated interviews. The purpose of this procedure is to assess the consistency and accuracy of the testimony. Unfortunately, it is often not realized that repeated interview may also have a negative effect on the quality of the testimony given. A study by Sharps, Herrera, Dunn, and Alcala investigated the effect of repeated questioning in the format based of police procedure (2012).

A jury trial is a privilege that we all have so that we are administered a fair and impartial trial; thus, it must be taken seriously. Depending on each state, when summoned for the jury selection process, and chosen to serve as members of the jury, we are required to take an oath or an affirmation. Additionally, the consideration of the circumstances that lead us to be a witness, should be prevalent in our minds. It is important that we listen to the entire case and determine if the offender, based on the facts given during the trial and not on personal biases, should be convicted. I think this is important because the future of one person is determined based on the testimony of the witnesses whom have sworn truthfulness. Nonetheless, I

The criminal justice system depends majorly on eyewitness identification for investigating and prosecuting crimes. Psychologists have been the only ones who have warned the justice system of problems with eyewitness identification evidence. Recent DNA exoneration cases have corrupted the warnings of eyewitness identification researchers by showing that mistaken eyewitness identification was the largest factor contributing to the conviction of many innocent people eyewitness testimonies are not reliable therefor you would assume they would be taken out of court, but instead

Based on this article two experiments were conducted. Experiment 1 was given to children ages 4-6 and memory test was given 15 months later. Based on the memory test the post event information appeared to be decreasing by the long term test. Experiment 2 tested recognition memory among 4-9 years old, and then tested at 10 months. The results concluded that children memory was affected 1 year later. This source is reliable because it came from a scholarly source. This source however is not biased but rather objective because it explains two different experiments and all children not specifically one gender. This source fits my research because it conducts two different experiments due to memory of the past. The goal of this experiment was to determine how much memory was recalled after a certain period of time. This was a good source and it will back up my

E.g Individuals are more likely to be accursed if they are a different race to the eyewitness testifier. This indicates that individuals are able to reshape, construct scenarios based on stereotypical believes unlike psyical or photographic evidence which is a relabel source to correctly use as a credible source of evidence. This is displayed in Allport and Postman experiment in 1947. Participants were asked to recall the opposite picture, participants were morvlikey to report a black male but this is incorrect as the image shows a white individual. This clearly sows that the memory is an active process and is expected to alter an opinion based on understanding society (Simple Psychology, 2014) .