Analysis of Elizabeth Loftus’ Eyewitness Testimony in the Lockerbie Bombing Case
Jelena Petrovic
University of the Ozarks
Analysis of Elizabeth Loftus’ Eyewitness Testimony in the Lockerbie Bombing Case
The following summary will examine the article Eyewitness testimony in the Lockerbie bombing case by Elizabeth Loftus, a cognitive psychologist form University of California, Irvine, CA and analyze the elements of social cognition she talks about in her article.
The “Crime Scene”
The article Eyewitness testimony in the Lockerbie bombing case describes the arrest of a Libyan named Al-Megrahi based on a single testimony by a shopkeeper who identified Al-Megrahi sometime after the bombing as the man who bought the clothes considered to be in the suitcase with the explosives used in the bombing of a flight over Lockerbie, Scotland (Loftus, 2013). As a cognitive psychologist, Loftus was personally asked by a lawyer working on Al-Megrahi’s case to give an opinion on the presented eyewitness testimony, while she was kept out of the details as to which case this was. She was able to find several important details from the testimony that were a factor of time, memory and
Gauci’s initial description and Al-Megrahi’s appearance in 1988 and the final one in 2000. The impression her article leaves is that Mr. Gauci’s testimony had too many changes over the years, therefore making his testimony and unreliable source for evidence. As a cognitive psychologist, she examines the possible biases he might have had in his recollection of the night he saw the man he was identifying in this investigation. She mentions in the conclusion that the case was later on reviewed by The Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission which, based on the evidence, concluded Al-Megrahi’s case was a miscarriage of justice, proving Loftus’ suspicion of the Mr. Gauci’s faulty
Mr. Cockburn concluded that the evidence presented in this case was misinterpret and misapprehend, the leading investigation was “unscientific and slipshod” which lead to the sentence of Edward splatt. Many questions were raised, whether police officers should collect trace elements from the crime scene? The involvemet of police officers collecting samples rather than scientific experts which could lead to wrong and misleading evidence? The scientific procedure undertaking in this investigation. And these collected samples collected from officers and tested would lead to unvaluable piece of evidence.After Edward splatt conviction, anattorney- general by the name of Mr Griffin keeped a close eye on the case and examined the moran report and
One of the key points that are point out in this case is that the eyewitness had variables that may have affected her memory causing her to point Williford as the culprit. One of these variables was weapon focus and its believed that the eyewitness focused more on the culprit’s weapon in this case it was a board used to beat and the gas used to set Foxworth on fire. The reason behind this is probably because of the unusualness of the weapons used in this attack thus causing the witness to focus more on the weapon than the culprit. Another argument that is being made in the validity of the eyewitness testimony is that she was exposed to information after the attack from newspaper causing the post-information effect. The cause of the effect in this case were that newspapers published pictures of the suspect which may have caused the witness to form false memories. It was also said that the eyewitness was shown a picture of Williford before picking him out of a photo array which is another potential way for the witness to form false memories associated with the picture. An additional point that’s made is because there were two other people involved in the attack that it would divert the attention of the eyewitness, thus causing her to remember fewer details about the culprits face. Despite all these arguments the witness stays with her choice of
The use of eyewitnesses has been a constant in of criminal justice system since its very beginning. Unfortunately, people do not make the best witnesses to a crime. The person may not have seen the actual criminal, but someone that looks similar to them. The witness may lie about what he or she may have scene. Also the witness can be influenced by the police as to who or what they saw at the time of the crime. The witness or victims memory of the person may have faded so that they don’t remember exactly what had seen, which could be disastrous for the accused.
Embar-Seddon, A., & Pass, A. D. (2009). World Trade Center Bombing. In Forensic science (3rd ed., pp. 1028-1031). Pasadena, California: Salem Press.
Popular Mechanics.eds. “Debunking the 9/11 Myths: Special Report.” Popular Mechanics Online. March 2005. 26 August 2008. http://www.popularmechanics.com/technology/military_law/1227842.html.
In the magic of the mind author Dr. Elizabeth loftus explains how a witness’s perception of an accident or crime is not always correct because people's memories are often imperfect. “Are we aware of our minds distortions of our past experiences? In most cases, the answer is no.” our minds can change the way we remember what we have seen or heard without realizing it uncertain witnesses “often identify the person who best matches recollection
This paper will consider eye witness testimony and its place in convicting accused criminals. Psychology online (2013) defines “eye witness testimony” as a statement from a person who has witnessed a crime, and is capable of communicating what they have seen, to a court of law under oath. Eye witness testimonies are used to convict accused criminals due to the first hand nature of the eye witnesses’ observations. There are however many faults within this system of identification. Characteristics of the crime is the first issue that will be discussed in this paper, and the flaws that have been identified. The second issue to be discussed will be the stress impact and the inability to correctly identify the accused in a violent or weapon focused crime. The third issue to be discussed is inter racial identification and the problems faced when this becomes a prominent issue. The fourth issue will be time lapse, meaning, the time between the crime and the eye witness making a statement and how the memory can be misconstrued in this time frame. To follow this will be the issue of how much trust jurors-who have no legal training-put on to the eye witness testimony, which may be faltered. This paper references the works of primarily Wells and Olsen (2003) and Rodin (1987) and Schmechel et al. (2006) it will be argued that eye witness testimony is not always accurate, due to many features; inter racial identification, characteristics of the crime, response latency, and line up procedures therefore this paper will confirm that eyewitness testimonies should not be utilised in the criminal ju...
Luminet, O., Curci, A., Marsh, E. J., Wessel, I., & al, e. (2004). The cognitive, emotional, and social impacts of the September 11 attacks: Group differences in memory for the reception context and the determinants of flashbulb memory. The Journal of General Psychology, 131(3), 197-224. Retrieved from http://ezproxy.fiu.edu/login?url=http://search.proquest.com/docview/213650518?accountid=10901
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.
Elizabeth Loftus, is a psychologist, mainly concerned with how subsequent information can affect an eyewitness’s testimony. Loftus has focused on misleading information in both the difference in wording of questions and how these questions can influence eyewitness testimony. This research is important because frequently, eyewitness testimony is a crucial element in criminal proceedings. Throughout Loftus’s career she has found a witness’s memory is highly flexible and subject to being influenced. The classic study by Loftus and Palmer (1974), illustrates that eyewitness testimony can be influenced by leading questions and ultimately proved unreliable.
There has been considerable debate worldwide, regarding the accuracy of eyewitness testimony in the criminal justice system. Particularly, arguments have surrounded wrongful convictions that have resulted from incorrect eyewitness evidence (Areh, 2011; Howitt, 2012; Nelson, Laney, Bowman-Fowler, Knowles, Davis & Loftus, 2011). The purpose of this essay is to consider psychological research about the accuracy of eyewitness testimony and its placement in the criminal justice system. Firstly, this essay will define how eyewitnesses and their testimonies are used within the criminal justice system and the current debate surrounding its usage. Secondly, the impact of post-identification feedback will be used to show the affect on the confidence of a witness. Thirdly, studies around gender related differences will show how a witnesses gender can affect memory recall and accuracy. Fourthly, empirical studies will be used to highlight how a psychological experience called change blindness can cause mistakes in eyewitness identification. Finally, the effect of cross-examination will be used to explore the impact on eyewitness accuracy. It will be argued, that eyewitness testimony is not accurate and highly subjective, therefore, the criminal justice system must reduce the impact that eyewitness testimony is allowed to have. Developing better policies and procedures to avoid wrongful convictions by misled judges and jury members can do this.
In the court of law, eyewitnesses are expected to present evidence based upon information they acquired visually. However, due to memory processing, presenting this information accurately is not always possible. This paper will discuss the reliability of eyewitness testimony, its use in a relevant court case, and how the reasonable person standard relates to eyewitness testimony.
For example, the old man that lived beneath the boy and his father testified that he heard a fight between the boy and the father and heard the boy yell, “I’m gonna kill you,” along with a body hitting the ground, and then claims that he saw the boy running down the stairs. With this information, along with other powerful eyewitness testimonies, all but one of the jury members believed this boy was guilty. The power of eyewitness testimony is also shown in Loftus’s (1974) study. In this study, Loftus (1974) found that those who claimed to “see” something were usually believed even when their testimony is pointless. She discovered in her study that only 18 percent of people convicted if there was no eyewitness testimony, 72 percent of people convicted when someone declared, “That’s the one!”, and even when the witness only had 20/400 vision and was not wearing glasses and claimed “That’s the one!”, 68 percent of people still convicted the person. This proves that in 12 Angry Men and Loftus (1974) study, eyewitness testimony is very powerful and influential in one’s decision to convict a
To our knowledge, eyewitness memory could be simply defined as a person’s episodic memory that he or she has been a witness of a certain criminal event. However, psychologists have discovered that the confidence of memory recall of eyewitness, would increase significantly by asking them the simple question, (e.g., Do you see the perpetrator below the following pictures?), even though the feedback
This essay is going to look at eye witness testimony. It will discuss whether or not it is reliable and studies will be looked at and evaluated to either back up or refute eyewitness reliability.