Eyewitness identification is ineffective and ultimately unjust. Studies have shown that approximately 40% of eyewitness identifications are wrong (Vrij, 1998). Eyewitness identification is given great importance in the legal system. As such, the most accurate and least influential process on witness’s decisions is required. This essay examines the three main types of eyewitness line-ups; the showup, the sequential and the simultaneous lineup. This essay then concludes which is the best and which
What exactly is an eyewitness identification? Well, according to the English dictionary eyewitness identification is a person who actually sees some act, occurrence, or thing and can give a firsthand account of it: Eyewitness identification is also known as Eyewitness ID. With this in mind, everyday people are accused of crimes, whether they are falsely accused or not, people still end of facing time. For example, people can be accused due to someone’s actions being misleading, someone may have
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
75% of these cases, faulty eyewitness identifications were a significant cause to their false imprisonment. One can clearly see that today’s lineup procedures do not effectively protect innocent individuals, nor do they take into consideration the different abilities of individuals to memorise faces . Despite the known problems with eyewitness memory, courts and juries will continue to rely on eyewitness identifications (Arduengo &Adam, 2014). The two methods an eyewitness can identify a criminal
can prove to be detrimental in the case of eyewitness testimony. Convictions made solely by eyewitness testimony puts the fate of the defendant in the hands of the witness, and at the mercy of their memory. There are numerous factors that can taint the memory of the witness, which unfortunately has the power to wrongfully convict an innocent person. Upon review, a study found that more innocent citizens are wrongfully convicted on the basis of eyewitness testimony than any other factor (Smith, Stinson
Eyewitness Identification What You See Is Not Always What You Remember Terri L. Dittenber Ferris State University Abstract In this paper, I will look at what can go wrong in eyewitness identification. We will discuss if eyewitness identification can be considered valid evidence for convicting individuals of a crime. And what precautions can be put into place to protect individuals from wrongful conviction and help make the process more trustworthy. Eyewitness Identification What You See Is Not
Literature Review of Eyewitness Memory The intention of this paper is to examine the reliability of eyewitness memory that is believed to be help in high regard by police and the legal system in suspect identification. The court’s reliance of eyewitness testimony is referred to in fiction and nonfiction writings across the span of history. However, in more recent years, there is increasing evidence contradicting the preconceived notion that eyewitness testimony and memory should be received by
increasingly number of false eyewitness identification over the years. Some believe that it is still reliable and some still think that is not always reliable. In 1907, essay On the Witness Stand, written by Hugo Munsterberg a forensic psychology pioneer was published questioning the reliability of it (Munsterberg, 1908). It is unknown to how reliable eyewitness can be and it is hard to tell whether the person is providing the best truth about the suspect. Eyewitness testimony was created to be used
crime he did not commit. He was convicted of brutally beating and raping a child based on three eyewitness identifications of him at trial. The case against him was substantively weak: there was no physical evidence linking him to the crime, circumstantial evidence indicated that the intruder was not him, and his pregnant wife testified at trial that he was home with her at the time. But, eyewitness testimony is viscerally powerful evidence, and the jury found Calvin guilty beyond a reasonable
people are wrongly convicted every year. However, there are 6 reasons deemed as the most important regarding wrongful convictions. These reasons are eyewitness misidentification, unvalidated or improper forensic science, false confessions or admissions, government misconduct, informants or snitches, and bad lawyering (understand the causes). Eyewitness misidentification is the most common cause of wrongful convictions in the United States, having a factor in almost 75% of wrongful convictions overturned
Eyewitness Error The justice system depends on eyewitness evidence to convict offenders. Eyewitness is a difficult task to achieve in the justice system. According to Wise, Dauphinais, & Safer (2007), in 2002 one million offenders were convicted as felons in America. Out of those one million offenders, 5000 of them were innocent in 2002 (Dauphinais, 2007). The Ohio Criminal Justice survey states that 1 out of 200 felony criminal cases is a wrongful conviction (Dauphinais et al., 2007). According
A system variable is something that can be controlled by the justice system and the methods such as line-ups, base rates and questioning. One of the most talked about system variables amongst researchers is the methods that are used in eyewitness questioning by police. Some of the techniques that have been used in the past are that of closed ended questioning, interrupting regularly whilst the witness is trying to recollect the events and the interviewer talking more and over the top of the interviewee
Eyewitness testimony has been used for many centuries and continues to be a part of our criminal justice system. Although, there has been many controversy debates on whether to allow the continuation of these testimonies in court, and allow it to be used as evidence. Eyewitness testimony can either be harmful or useful for an individual. We must fully analysis and see what certain factors (psychological, and age wise) come into the equation before coming up with final conclusions. A case study titled
edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1140&context=scholar This Article thoroughly investigates in great detail many methods that prosecutors should use in order to accurately analyze eyewitness testimonies. These methods will significantly enhance the ability of the criminal justice system and those within it to assess eyewitness accounts and the accuracy of the accounts that are given. These methods will help to reduce and hopefully eventually eliminate wrongful convictions throughout not only the US but
Loftus has focused the bulk of her career on both the psychological and legal aspects of distorted or false memories, and her work demonstrates the facility with which memories and beliefs can be molded. Her findings regarding the strength of eyewitness testimony and repressed traumatic memories have helped change the notion that such testimony is absolutely reliable (Zagorski, N., 2005).” What she has discovered over her more than thirty-year career, is that when witnesses are primed with
Eyewitness testimony is the evidence given in a court or in police investigations by an individual who has witnessed a crime or offense (Loftus, 2003). Eyewitness testimonies rely heavily upon a human’s memory. “Given the complex interaction of perception, memory, judgment, social influence, and communication processes that lead up to an eyewitness’s story of what happened, it should hardly be surprising that such testimony often is a faulty version of the original event (Wells, 1987)." Eyewitness
and prayed for his release–prayers which were not answered for nearly eight years. In August of 1978, the United States Court of Appeals set aside Jackson’s conviction. With great appreciation, Loftus explained that, “The court found that the eyewitness testimony presented by the prosecution was so tainted by the suggestive procedures of the police investigators that its admission into evidence against Jackson constituted a denial of due process” (Loftus xi). Such devastating mistakes by eyewitnesses
Stakeholders In any wrongful conviction, there would be some groups and parties received major impacts from the consequences. The victim, or the individual who was accused wrongly, is the one that under many effects. Turn back to the case of Carrillo, it can be seen that he had not finished high school by the time he was convicted of being the murderer. He spent his 19 years of youth behind the bars, has not had a chance to take care of his pregnant girlfriend; he did not have a chance to take care
There have been several cases in which eyewitness testimony led to the conviction of an innocent person. In one notable case, Raymond Towler was wrongly convicted in 1981 of the rape, kidnap, and assault of an 11-year old girl based on eyewitness testimony in which the victim and other witnesses identified him from a photo. Towler had been serving a life sentence and was released in 2010 after serving nearly 30 years until DNA evidence proved that he did not commit the rape (Sheeran, 2010). In another
approach in the criminal justice system is intelligible. This system possesses the power to inhibit corruption and dispense justice to the victims of crimes, but it is also capable of depriving the innocent of their freedom which can result from eyewitness misidentification. Therefore, it is vital to implement the use of the most effective procedure when conducting photo lineups. Overall, although sequential photo lineups are not infallible, they retain a multitude of advantages and are a superior