Most cases where someone has been exonerated due to DNA retesting had a problem with eyewitnesses misidentifying the suspects. This is a problem that can change someone’s life forever. Misidentification of suspects is a flaw in the criminal justice system that can be addressed through more police training and increased help from the judges.
Misidentification by the eyewitnesses and the police officers are current problems in the justice system. Suspects are identified by the eyewitnesses of the crime, but this can lead to some problems with who is identified. More than 75% of cases that have used DNA to exonerate have involved misidentification by the eyewitnesses (“Credible Eyewitnesses”). This proves that eyewitnesses are not reliable sources in a trial. According to the article “Credible Eyewitnesses”,
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The court system has created ways to prevent this problem. The court created a stepped process to stop false identification (“Credible Eyewitnesses”). This shows that there are solutions being put in place to help fix the problem of mistaken identification of suspects. Police officers receive suspensions if they are caught after making false entries in arrest reports (“2 Deputies Suspended for False Report”). This suggests that police officers need to have more consequences for lying.
Honesty from the police officers and the eyewitnesses is something that is expected by the justice system. The police officers need to be as truthful as any other person who testifies (Mills). This insists that the police officers need to be honest about the cases they are testifying on. The court demands honestly from the police officers when it comes to trials and evidence from the case (Mills). This proves that the court has standard for their police officers that they need to
Eyewitness accounts play a huge role in general in trials and verdicts, but may be unreliable many times, with certain views placed on evidence provided by children. Unreliability may arise from not being able to recount the identity of the accused, the actions and speech occurring during that time, the relationship of individuals towards the person in question, and many
Jami Bull Mr. Mollenger Forensics Science 23 February 2018 Power of Proof The Innocence Project is a non-profit legal organization that helps people prove their innocence when wrongfully convicted through new DNA testing. 70% of eyewitnesses misidentified and 45% involved misapplication of forensic science. (“DNA Exonerations in the United States.”)
The legal factors of this case are the level of crime that has been committed is a very high-level. The strength of the evidence is not to strong since the detectives did not thoroughly go over fingerprints or follow up on what had been the alibis. The detectives thought the eyewitness and forced confession would be enough to close this
It states “scientific research indicates that identification procedures such as line-ups and photo arrays produce more reliable evidence when the individual line-up members or photographs are shown to witnesses sequentially – one at a time – rather than simultaneously.” By giving the reader such a valuable piece of information from a credible source, it engages Loftus’ readers into going more in depth with the research into finding out more about the recommendations provided. This is an attempt by the author to encourage those who are familiar with the justice system particularly in Canada and the United States who both mainly use the adversarial court system to rise up and take part into bringing in a new method that will protect the defendant while in court from being falsely accused of a crime they did not
In the book “Picking Cotton”, the former Burlington Police Chief Mike Gauldin, who was the lead detective on Jennifer’s case, was certainly sure that Ronald Cotton was the guy he was looking for after Jennifer picked him twice (Jennifer, Ronald, Erin 80); also, on the McCallum’s case, the polices also chose to trust eyewitnesses when they did not have enough physical evidences. Furthermore, judges can be wrong sometime. Wise and Safer, who are authors of the report “ what US judges know and believe about eyewitness testimony”, surveyed 160 U.S. judges to determine how much they know about eyewitness testimony on a small test( Wise, Safer, 427-432). However, the survey responds the average judges in the U.S. only 55% correct within 14 questions (Wise, Safer, 431-432). Moreover, most of the judges who were surveyed did not know key facts about eyewitness testimony.
The impact of Tim’s case was also felt on a national and even international level, as it shed light on the importance of using accurate and scientific evidence in the legal system and the need to reform the criminal justice system to prevent wrongful convictions. Tim’s story has inspired many other cases to be re-opened and re-examined, leading to the exoneration of several other innocent individuals. Overall, the case of Tim Cole has had a profound impact on the criminal justice system and has helped to bring about important changes in the use of DNA
The state started to build a case against the defendant due to the sexual act that occurred between him and the victim, which lead the criminologist to take samples of the semen and ultimately test for results (Police chief magazine). When time approach for an item to be tested the result came back inclusive due to the technology at that time being used was not qualified to conduct a proper reading on the DNA test. The packet was only able to show if a victim was raped or not (Police chief magazine). After realizing that the technology needed to be updated to better enhance the police investigations (Police chief magazine). The Criminologist worked years to come up with several different ways to test one items by DNA, fingerprints, and/or Hair samples, which resulted in the test be 99.9% reliable when convicting a criminal (Police chief magazine).
In the lab report three students are tested along with one suspect. Student number two’s DNA matched the suspects DNA. The student’s DNA’s are cut with five different enzymes as well as the suspects DNA. Student two’s DNA matched exactly with the suspects DNA; the other two student’s DNA did not resemble the suspects DNA at all. (Choi, et al, 2008) DNA fingerprinting is used a lot in determining who committed a crime.
A defense attorney has an obligation to rigorously defend their client. The attorney must put fourth his best efforts to protect their clients’ rights. Their methods used should be in line with the law. Their efforts must also be ethical. A good lawyer will be very keen, and have a good attention to detail.
In many cases, post-conviction DNA testing has revealed that the DNA found at the crime scene did not match the DNA of the individual who was convicted. We use DNA to link crimes, DNA evidence can link crimes that were previously thought to be unrelated by identifying the same perpetrator through matching DNA profiles found at multiple crime scenes. Like we identify suspects we can also Identify victims, DNA evidence can be used to identify victims of crimes, such as in cases where the victim's body has been severely damaged or decomposed. Providing evidence in court DNA evidence is admissible as evidence in court and can be presented to a jury to help establish the guilt or innocence of a defendant. DNA evidence has become an important tool in the criminal justice system and has helped to solve many crimes, as well as prevent the conviction of innocent individuals and try so hard to find out who the offenders
As Loftus explains, we are so willing to accept unreliable eyewitness accounts because we do not understand how memory actually works. Most people believe the "video camera" scenario instead of the "evolutionary" scenario. Because of this misconception we are very strongly inclined to believe eyewitness accounts. “Why is eyewitness testimony so powerful and convincing? Because people in general and jurors in particular believe that our memories stamp the facts of our experiences on a permanent, non-erasable tape, like a computer disk or videotape that is write-protected,” (p. 21).
This week’s topic was very interesting to learn about how important eyewitnesses can be when a crime and accidents do occur. In the case that was presented in the 60-minute segment of Ronald Cotton and Jennifer Thompson is exactly how legal system can fail us when it comes to the eyewitnesses’ identification testimony and how a person’s perception and memory can be altered. The aspect of psychology and law research from this week’s course material is most relevant to the topic of perception and memory. The memory has different stages the first is encoding the process of entering perception into memory.
Convicting the Innocent: Where Criminal Prosecutions Go Wrong In Brandon L. Garrett 's book, Convicting the Innocent: Where Criminal Prosecutions Go Wrong, he makes it very clear how wrongful convictions occur and how these people have spent many years in prison for crimes they never committed. Garrett presents 250 cases of innocent people who were convicted wrongfully because the prosecutors opposed testing the DNA of those convicted. Garrett provided simple statistics such as graphs, percentages, and charts to help the reader understand just how great of an impact this was.
A comparison between the Due process model and crime control model Within the criminal justice system, there are two competing models: the crime control model and the due process model. These two models were constructed by Robert Packer and each represents a particular school of thought. In managing crime, there is the individual i.e. the suspect and there is the society. The due process model is seen to focus on the suspect whereas the crime control model focuses on the society. This paper analyzes these two models and based on the rate of crime in the society, makes recommendations as to which is the best model in criminal justice.
Thesis: Police interrogations can occasionally lead to false confessions due to misclassification, coercion, and contamination. I. The phrase “Innocent until proven guilty” is a popular statement among law enforcement and government employees, but this statement is not always upheld, as various errors, such as misclassification, are a major cause of false confessions. A. Misclassification errors are caused by “investigator bias,” where the investigator goes into the interrogation believing the suspect is guilty. (Keene)