Eyewitness Essay

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

Techniques for Improving Eyewitness Testimony: The Cognitive Interview An eyewitness is somebody who sees an act, occurrence or happening and can give a firsthand account of the event. The police often rely on such people to provide accurate recollections of these situations in order to aid in their investigations. Research has shown however, that eyewitness testimony can be inaccurate and unreliable. It is absolutely crucial that eyewitness testimony be as accurate as possible, as there have been

anyone on eyewitness testimony only, without any other physical or forensic evidence. In eyewitness identification, in criminal law, evidence is received from a witness "who has actually seen an event and can so testify in court.” (Law.com Legal Online Dictionary) While this could be an important piece of the investigation, it can never take the place of DNA, or forensic evidence. Unfortunately, that happens all too much, with our overburdened legal and criminal justice systems. “Eyewitness misidentification

Eyewitness memory has always been an essential aspect of any trial. The perpetrator’s fate relies on the ability of the witness to accurately identify the person who committed the crime, and the events that occurred. People like to think that their memory can serve like a video camera that will record the events. Then, when they need to recall it, they can simply play it back to remember each detail. However, psychologists have found that this is simply not true. Remembering is found to be an act

Eyewitness testimony plays a crucial role in criminal investigations. Thus, it is important to know how to eliminate factors that can negatively impact eyewitnesses’ recall ability. The result of eyewitness misidentification can lead to numerous inaccurate and wrongful convictions. One study suggests that more than 75,000 people a year become criminal defendants on the basis of eyewitness identifications (Schechel, O'Toole, Easterly, & Loftus, 2006, p.178). Another study has shown that approximately

Eyewitness may have huge impact on the court decision. Witness testimony only relies on human memory. The memory of witness is very important not only in criminals identification but in civil cases as well. For instance, in car accident, eyewitness testimony plays great role in determining who is in fault. In many cases eyewitness played crucial role in court's outcomes. But there is also great risks of relying only on witness identification because, in fact, human memory is far from perfect or in

practitioners alike share a widespread belief that the single greatest cause of wrongful conviction is because of an eyewitness testimony. April 23, 2007, marked the 200th criminal conviction exonerated by DNA evidence in the United States of America. According to www.innocenceproject.org, over 75% of the 200 criminal cases revealed to be wrongful convictions involved a faulty eyewitness testimony. Collectively, these 200 people spent a total of 2,475 years in prison. With factors such as witness memory

subjectivity. I claim that sense perception alone is not a very reliable way of knowing as there are many other by-factors that could trick and manipulate our senses. The first factor that would have to be taken into consideration is that does the eyewitness testimony use reason? If so, is it inductive, abductive or deductive. If it is an inductive and abductive reasoning then we cannot be 100% assured that the eye witness is reliable as it is not a guaranteed

can be affected in different ways through perception. Learning about how our memories can become distorted plays an important part in helping understand our brain. These facts are important to us because they teach us how these things can tie into eyewitness testimonies, the way we perceive cuteness in animals and how the mind affects our stores memories. To start, our minds can affect how memories are stored through perception. Your emotions can also be a factor in how you remember things, Cheryl

Eyewitness testimonies provide crucial evidence in pinpointing the identity of the perpetrator in order to solve a crime, thus the criminal justice system depends upon the accuracy of eyewitness identification to investigate and prosecute criminals. However, eyewitness identification is imperfect and the leading cause of wrongful convictions (Huff, Rattner, & Sagarin, 1996; Scheck, Neufeld, & Dwyer, 2000). One prominent method of eyewitness identification is a line-up procedure during which “A line-up