Essay on Problems with Eyewitness Testimony

“A person is innocent until proven guilty in a court of law.” In the play Twelve Angry Men by Reginald Rose, a 19-year-old is on trial for the murder of his father. After many pieces of evidence were presented, the three that are shaky include the height of the father, the woman who saw from the el train, and the old man who saw the boy running down from the stair. Based on these, the boy is not guilty.

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.

Information is the lifeblood of a criminal investigation. The ability of investigators to obtain useful and accurate information from eyewitnesses of crimes is crucial to effective law enforcement, yet full and accurate recall is difficult to achieve (Stewart, 1985). Such elicitation of complete and accurate recall from people is important in many aspects of life; specifically, eyewitness recall may determine whether a case is solved. Principle advocates of the cognitive interview (Fisher, Geiselman, Holland & MacKinnon,

The following scenario is from the article “Juvenile Interrogations Must Be Recorded Rules Wisconsin Supreme Court,” written by David Ziemer, and pulled from the Wisconsin Law Journal. Published July 13th, 2005.

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

Although eyewitness testimony can be significant when displaying it to a judge or a jury, years of supportive social science research has sustained that eyewitness identification is often unreliable. As the Innocence Project website illustrates, studies show that the human mind is nowhere near like a ‘tape recorder’ and we as humans do not record events exactly as we see them. Instead, witness recollection is just like any other evidence at a crime scene and must be preserved carefully and sensibly retrieved or it can be considered as contaminated.

Have you ever been a witness to a crime? Would you feel comfortable if prosecutors relied on your eye witness testimony alone for a conviction? According to “The Magic of the Mind”, eyewitness testimony which relies on the accuracy of human memory, has an enormous impact on the outcome of a trial. Eyewitness testimony is a legal term. During an eyewitness testimony, the witness usually goes into an account of the crime he or she has witnessed. This can include details of the crime or identification of perpetrators. Eyewitness testimony is an important area of research in cognitive psychology and human memory (simplypsychology.com). Eyewitness testimony can be affected by many psychological factors such as:

Memory is a cognitive function of the brain that is often taken for granted. Memory may have many purposes, but most importantly it is essentially a record of an entire life span. From this perspective memory is the most important aspect of consciousness. Unfortunately, through formal experimentation it has been shown that memory is fairly inaccurate, inconsistent, and often influenced by our own experiences as well as the bias of others. Memory is not only affected during an observed event, but there are instances where memory can be influenced after an event as well. There are also instances where memory can be affected retroactively due to personal experiences and biases. Incorrectly recalling the memories of one’s life is usually not

There are reasons why eyewitness is said to be unreliable in the courtroom. There are four common causes for wrongful convictions, which are eyewitness misidentification, invalidated forensics, false confessions, and snitches. “Indeed, a detailed analysis of those DNA exoneration cases reveals that more than 70% involved eyewitness misidentifications” (Mickes 2015). There have been hundreds of cases were people are being wrongfully convicted because they choose the wrong person. One of the cases is the Ronald Cotton and Jennifer Thompson case, in which Cotton was convicted of raping Thompson. He was sent to jail for 10 years being accused of a crime he did not commit. Misidentification was a huge role in this case. Even when Thompson said she had studied the face of the man who raped her, she still chose the wrong person. It is very easy to choose the wrongly, our memory may not recall the persons face but when it is lined up with others it may recognize the face of the wrong victim.

The memory of an eyewitness has always been an endless dispute throughout the narration of its existence. The word of an individual holds the most substance; it’s the only real thing of value that person hold, having a witness of a crime is a criminal’s vilest nightmare. There is a phrase that may have been heard in movies and reality, ‘eyewitness do not live too long.’ This phrase has range amongst people revealing the reputation of eye witnessing for the majority and jury. All evidence used to convict a person has to go through a vigilant examination process especially the testimony of an eyewitness. So much emphasis is put on a truthful and accurate testimony because there has been a false testimony, which cause consequences and complications. Criminal justice systems should demand their district to notice there is an occurrence of bad witness memory, because the brain will juggle and play games with the hauler. Predominantly, the mix up happens because of the perception particularities the individuals mind has mad up and the original information. Memory is simply the development of perception, how the brain process what is seen and reproduces it later. Since there is a chance that the reproduction of once memory will be wrong that makes it essential to the individual does not damage the facts. This accentuates the stress on the knowledge of the eyewitness well-being

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.

Is eyewitness testimony a reliable source of evidence in today’s judicial system? Many jurors tend to pay close attention to eyewitness testimony assuming that what they hear is exactly as it happened. They ignore the psychology behind remembering an event. Our brain is a complex structure and it is difficult to absorb every stimulus in our surrounding. We pay great attention to some aspects of a situation while completely ignoring others. It is advisable for expert psychologists to be present during a court case that involves eyewitness testimony, as they are

Eyewitness accounts have long been used since the beginning of modern courtroom justice as evidence to condemn or liberate and eyewitnesses were once considered quintessential in proceedings. Recently, however, the accuracy of these types of accounts is being tested. Psychological and statistical research affirms that eyewitness testimony is inaccurate most of the time, whether significantly or partly, and many innocent people have wrongfully suffered because of these errors. For this reason, eyewitness information should not be used as the sole form of evidence in prosecution, however it should still be used in the courtroom. Better interrogation methods should be utilised by police departments to gain as much accurate information from witnesses as possible and to mitigate the amount of inconsistency and outright error in witness statements. Law schools, police departments and jurors should be educated about the psychology behind eyewitness errors, different external causes of error and forms of error.

Eyewitness testimony is the account of the witness of a certain event or incident. Throughout, the witness is enforced to provide their experience to the court in order to take legal action towards the incident. It is considered a very useful tool in courts. Yet, such a way to find out the truth is unreliable as many witnesses fail to contribute in a positive way to grant courts accurate data of the incident. This essay will be discussing the factors that influence eyewitness testimony including age, weapon focus, stress, or the leading questions asked in court.