Eyewitness Identification And Wrongful Conviction

Wrongful convictions are a problem that most government officials won’t admit. The United States and other countries such as Australia have been susceptible to these miscarriages of justice. This can arise from a snowball effect of scenarios such as witness misidentification, perjured testimonies, coercive methods of interrogation, prosecutorial misconduct and ineffective counsel. These are some of the reasons that can potentially lead innocent people to be convicted of crimes they did not commit. The thousands of exonerations in the United States has caused concern for other nations to reevaluate their criminal justice system. Australia being one of those nations has formed an agency call Australian Law Reform Commission, whose purpose is

A story that seems highly improbably or impossible is likely to be so. The bigger the embellishments the more likely it is that the testimony is false, the same could be said of minimizing a story. A testimony that casts a witness in a near perfect light lends to their lack of credibility. In R. v. McKay, there were special scrutiny both as a result of judicial experience and as a matter of law. Accomplice evidence is recognized to be potentially dangerous because an accomplice may be motivated to shift blame away from him or herself to otherwise distort evidence to gain advantage. As supported in R. v. Vetrovec, it is said that juries must be told, and trial judges must remember, that it is dangerous to rely upon the unsupported evidence of an accomplice or other unsavoury witness, without more. You should look for some type of confirming evidence, although this is not a legal requirement.

Elizabeth Loftus discusses her theories of memory and accuracy in her book, Witness for the Defense. Loftus has testified as an expert witness in more than 150 court cases, several of which she sites, discussing the different ways a memory can be fallible. She urges jurors to remain skeptical of eyewitness identifications of defendants, and demonstrates how mistakes have been made.

Columbia Broadcasting System (CBS), 60 Minutes put out an interview piece about Jennifer Thompson and Ronald Cotton and attempted to show how eyewitness testimony is flawed. Thompson was the victim and survivor of a rape and Cotton was the accused. Cotton served nearly 11 years before his exoneration, the eyewitness conviction deemed flawed. However, not flawed eyewitness testimony only convicted Cotton but the power of suggestion, finger pointing, and some unconscientious persuasion as well.

Many wrongful convictions are due to mistaken eyewitnesses, jailhouse snitches, or false evidence. I think many of the wrongful convictions could be solved with harder evidence, more information. A case should not rely on a single eye witness but multiple. For those in prison, those who snitch saying the defendant confessed, testifying can be a bargaining chip; the state will often reduce sentence time or

First, false witnesses are bad in many different ways and can do things to change people's lives. A false witness is a witness that gives a false statement willingly or because he is bribed or blackmailed in a way (O’Grady). This means that anyone can become a false witness and play with the judicial system in a way that usually is not justified or fair. False witnesses are not good to the

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.

Eyewitness misidentification is a major problem that has an effect on adequate policing. One major goal and priority of law enforcement is justice. They should focus on prosecuting the correct person because if they are prosecuting the wrong person they are ruining an innocent persons life and justice is not being served. Many problems can arise from misidentification. It often leads to an innocent persons rights being infringed on. There are many dangers to misidentification and many causes for misidentification occurring.

Many news stories, reports, and books fairly describe wrongful convictions in detail, although not all of these wrongful convictions resulted in formal exonerations. Most witness misidentifications were made in good faith with the witness attempting to help officials find the real perpetrator of a crime, although this explanation does not examine the conditions under which these identifications were made. Some of the conditions that need to be taken into account are whether a photo was shown to a victim by the police before a lineup, whether the identification by the witness was hesitant, or if the victim was urged to be positive when testifying. Additionally, was the identification from the same race; was there prejudice, how much distance and duration of interaction was there between victim and suspect prior to identification and what were the viewing conditions; darkness or day light? With so many factors involved, it should be obvious to some why eye-witness misidentification can happen so frequently. Moreover, the testimony of an eyewitness relies on how accurate their memory of an event actually is. Eyewitness misidentification is the greatest contributing factor to wrongful convictions proven by DNA testing, playing a role in more than 70% of convictions overturned through DNA testing nationwide (“Eyewitness Misidentification,”

Her earliest studies of eyewitness testimony addressed several issues: when someone sees a crime or accident, how accurate is his or her memory? These studies led Loftus to ask what happens when witness are questioned by police officers, and what if those questions are suggestive (Loftus, 2003). For instance, when Loftus began showing people films of traffic accidents, she found that a question such as “How fast were the cars going when the smashed into each other?” led to higher estimates of speed than a more neutral question that used the verb “hit”. Moreover, the “smashed” question led more people to falsely remember seeing broken glass when there was none. Her early papers concluded that leading questions could contaminate or distort a witness’s memory (Loftus,

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 article “When Our Eyes Deceive US” speaks about the wrong decisions that can lead to a wrongful conviction. This particular article decided to focus on cases of wrongful convictions of sexual assault. The first case mentioned was that of the wrongful conviction of Timothy Cole. His victim positively identified him three times (twice in police lineups and one in person at the trial), he was exonerated by DNA testing. To the utmost misfortune, the real rapist had been confessing to the crime for nine years.

Furthermore, there can be several factors at play when a wrongful conviction occurs and each case is unique. Three of the more common and detrimental factors that will be explored in this essay are eyewitness error, the use of jailhouse informants and professional and institutional misconduct. Firstly, eyewitness testimony can be a major contributor to a conviction and is an important factor in wrongful conviction (Campbell & Denov, 2016, p. 227). Witness recall and, frankly, the human emory are not as reliable as previously thought. In fact there has been much research showing the problems with eyewitness testimony such as suggestive police interviewing, unconscious transference, and malleability of confidence (Campbell & Denov, 2016, p.227). All of these components lead to eyewitness error and essentially false incrimination. Secondly, another factor that can contribute to wrongful conviction is the use of jailhouse informants. Campbell & Denov (2016), describe jailhouse informants as prisoner informants that “provide information to law enforcement officials in exchange for money, property, or the promise of leniency in sentencing” (p. 229). This can be problematic because jurors place value on the

Eyewitness identification is ineffective and unjust. Studies have shown that 40% of eyewitness identifications are wrong (Vrij, 1998). Eyewitness identification has great importance in the legal system. This requires the best eyewitness testimony procedure. This essay examines the three main types of eyewitness line-ups; the showup, the sequential and the simultaneous line-up. This essay draws conclusions as to which method the legal system should implement.

Eye witness identification involves selecting an accused perpetrator from a police line up, sketch or being at the crime scene during the murder time. After selecting a suspect, witnesses are asked to make a formal statement confirming the ID of the suspect (s) or other surrounding details which the eyewitness can testify in court. Eyewitnesses are always required to testify in court but eyewitnesses with psychological disorders, substance dependancy are at a higher chance of identifying the wrong suspect therefore wrongfully assisting convict the perpetrator in the wrong  (Hal Arkowitz,  Scott O. Lilienfeld,  January 1, 2010).