Eyewitness Evidence And The Innocence Project

This Organisation is a non-profit Legal organisation dedicated to exonerating wrongfully convicted people through DNA testing and reforming the criminal justice system to prevent future injustices. The Innocence Project was established in a landmark study by the United States Department of Justice and the United States Senate in conjunction with the Benjamin N.Cardozo School of Law, which found that incorrect identification by eyewitnesses was a

In 1992, Barry C. Scheck and Peter J. Neufeld founded the public policy organization, The Innocence Project. It was founded at Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law, in New York City, with the purpose of “exonerating wrongfully convicted individuals through DNA testing and reforming the criminal justice system to prevent future injustice.”

The Innocence Project was founded by Barry Scheck and Peter Neufeld at the Cardozo School of Law. Barry and Peter created a nonfiction book which grew out of the cases and stories of the Innocence Project. Peter and Barry then became involved in studying issues concerning the use of forensic DNA testing. Their work shaped the course of case law across the country and also helped lead to an influential study on forensic DNA

The Innocence Project was established in the wake of a landmark study by the United States Department of Justice and the United States Senate with help from the Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law (Schneider, 2013). This study found that there were numerous reasons why people are wrongfully convicted including, but not limited to eye witness identification, perjured testimony, improper forensic science techniques, and government misconduct (Roberts & Weathered, 2009) The original Innocence Project was founded twenty two (22) years ago as a part of the Cardoza School of Law of Yeshiva University in New York City, New York (Davis, 2012). The Innocence Projects primary goal is to exonerate those whom have been convicted of a crime when there is DNA evidence available to be tested or re-tested (Mitchell, 2011). DNA testing has been possible in five (5) percent to ten (10) percent of cases since 1992 (Risinger, 2007). On the other side, other members of the Innocence Project help to exonerate those have been convicted of a crime where there is no DNA evidence to test. A goal of the Innocence Project is to conduct research on the reasons for wrongful convictions, how to fix the criminal justice system, as well as advocate for those who have been wrongfully convicted (Steiker & Steiker, 2005). The members of this organization strive to teach the world about the dangers of wrongful convictions. To date, this non-profit legal organization, has freed three hundred eighteen (318)

This Organisation is a non-profit Legal organisation dedicated to exonerating wrongfully convicted people through DNA testing and reforming the criminal justice system to prevent future injustices. The Innocence Project was established in a landmark study by the United States Department of Justice and the United States Senate in conjunction with the Benjamin N.Cardozo School of Law, which found that incorrect identification by eyewitnesses was a factor in over 70% of

The Innocence Project is, “a national litigation organization that is dedicated to acquitting wrongfully convicted “criminals” through DNA testing and through reforming the system to prevent further injustice” (The Innocence). The Innocence project was founded by Barry C. Scheck and Peter J. Neufeld at Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law at Yeshiva University in 1992, and became a nonprofit organization in 2004. In addition to our co-directors and a managing attorney, there are six full-time staff attorneys and nearly 300 active cases. As a clinic, the law students handle the casework while being supervised by the team of attorneys and clinic staff. To determine whether or not to represent a case the Innocence Project gathers extensive information about each case application, and their intake and evaluation staff researches each potential case thoroughly. The legal staff ultimately determines whether DNA testing can be performed and, if so, whether or not the results will be favorable in innocence. The length of time spent on each case depends on how quickly evidence is found and secured; how long it takes to test the evidence. The Innocence Project also faces many hurdles in litigating theses cases. They include time-consuming and thorough efforts to find evidence; damaged evidence that cannot be correctly tested; lost or destroyed evidence; and prosecutorial objections. From the time a case is accepted, it can take between a year and

An eye witness is a person who has personally seen something happen and so can give a first hand description of it. Every year, more than 75,000 eyewitnesses recognize criminal suspects in the U.S., and studies propose that as many as a third of them are wrong. Mistaken eyewitnesses helped convict three quarters of the people who have been freed from U.S. prisons base on DNA evidence presented by the Innocence Project. The Innocence Project is a nonprofit legal organization that challenges uncertain prosecutions. The California Innocence Project says that they are numerous reasons why eyewitness are mostly wrong. They are High Stress Environment and Trauma, Human Memory, and Suggestive Identification and etc. There are all these reasons that eyewitnesses have a high rate of error but, are still considered some of the most powerful evidence against a suspect. After a comprehensive two-year study of eyewitness testimonies, the New Jersey Supreme Court concluded that they often leads to fictional or false identifications. Thus, recently ordered that new rules on how such testimonies are treated in the courtroom. This is

The innocence project was started by two individuals, Barry Scheck and Peter Neufeld. They started this project back in 1992 in hopes of helping the wrongfully convicted individuals that had been placed in jail through DNA testing, and also wished to further prevent such cases from happening again (Innocence Project [IP], 2016). From 1992 to 2013 there has been 290 DNA based exonerations of innocent people (Gitschier, 2013, p.1). This project has help countless amounts of individuals and their families, as it has brought peace to something they had been wrongfully convicted of. With these countless wrongfully convicted peoples being let out for something they did not commit means there are people that could still possibly be out there not serving

In Canada, the leading cause of wrongful conviction is due to the factor of eyewitness account. It has been proven that individual’s minds are not like tape recorders because everyone cannot precisely and accurately remember the description of what another person or object looks like. The courts looks at eyewitness accounts as a great factor to nab perpetrators because they believe that the witness should know what they are taking about and seen what occurred on the crime scene. On the other hand, eyewitness accounts lead to a 70 percent chance of wrongful conviction, where witnesses would substantially change their description of a perpetrator.

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.

Common police procedure entails an identification lineup in which the witness to the crime supposedly can identify the culprit, which will lead to the closure of the case and the person of guilt locked up. However, with this lineup procedure, the question arises, “what if there is another variable involved?” This is asking, what if there was something else that led the eyewitness to select the individual that they did? With this the issue of individuals enduring jail time for a crime they did not commit arises. In recent years, there has been a significant amount of attention brought towards wrongful convictions due to advancements in technology. According to the Innocence Project, over 349 people in the United States, with an average of 12 years in prison, have been exonerated due to DNA testing. Seventy-five percent of the 349 wrongful convictions involved eyewitness identification error (Innocence

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.

Improper forensics, bad lawyering, snitches, unqualified “experts,” eye witness misidentification, false confessions, and mishandled evidence are all just a few reasons for wrongful convictions in the justice system. However, the authors of Actual Innocence: When Justice Goes Wrong and How to Make it Right, discuss how DNA is a main factor into “actually innocent” people. Throughout this book we learn stories about those who were wrongfully convicted and later proven guilty for reasons such as DNA testing. While this proves to us that not everyone convicted is guilty, it points out many other errors in the criminal justice system as well.

In the past decade, eyewitness testimonies have cast a shadow on what is wrong with the justice system in today’s society. Before we had the advanced technology, we have today, eyewitness testimonies were solid cold-hard facts when it came to proving the defendant was guilty. However, time has changed and eyewitness testimonies have proven to be the leading causes of wrongful convictions due to misidentification. The Thompson and Cotton case is a perfect example of how eyewitness testimonies can put an innocent man behind bars.

Eyewitness testimony can be crucial for an investigation. A witness can be someone who has called in a complaint, is the victim of the offence, or has seen the incident take place (personal communication, Dave Maze, October 2017). This type of testimony in courts was heavily valued prior to research by Elizabeth Loftus who examined false memories. Since her discoveries, there have been many retrials in which individuals who were previously charged based on eyewitness memory were released due to DNA evidence. Although, eyewitness testimony is still presented in courts, there is much moreskepticism around evidence that is solely based on eyewitness memory.