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Importance of eyewitness testimony in the legal system
The reliability of eyewitness testimony
Essay on the importance of eyewitness testimony
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The criminal justice system heavily relies on eyewitness identification, because eyewitness testimony has helped to solve many cases, hence, people believe the accuracy of eyewitness identification especially in the absence of other physical evidence. However, eyewitness testimony is not always reliable, factors like the recall time, the way that police shows the line-up, weapon focus, age, distance and so on can affect human memory which means it can lead to wrongful testimony and innocent people have put into jail because of the wrongful identification, these people have convicted the crimes which they have not done, and they also suffer their lives in prison and some of them even lost their families. Therefore, this essay will examine the …show more content…
However, human memories sometimes can be influenced by several factors and human eyes can lie to people. According to Howitt, the definition of eyewitness testimony is “the evidence provided to a court by a witness who saw the events in question” (pg.550). This means that the accuracy of the testimony is depends on witnesses’ memories. Human memories are unreliable sometimes, as there are many factors can influence the memories, recall time is one of the factors which can lead to misinformation. According to Rose and Beck (2016) that as the time of memory recall increased, the percentage of accuracy decreased. (pg.255). This explains that recall time is the factor which can affect human memories, if witness does not recall the event as soon as possible, the less accurate information may be provided and lead to misinformation. Krug and Weaver (2005) have the same finding as they indicate that the longer time of recollecting memories, the poorer performance of the witness. (pg,441). This explains that recall time has highly influence on eyewitness testimony accuracy. These two …show more content…
Which means that eyewitness testimony can influence judges and jurors’ decision making, they sometimes cannot identify the credibility and accuracy of the eyewitness testimony and may led to misinformation, hence, put innocent people in prison. According to Pozzulo, Lemieus, Wells and Mccuaig (2006) that jurors’ verdicts can be influenced by witness’s age and the interact with juror’s beliefs, jurors may think children are more honest than adults, thus providing the most reliable testimony. (pg.643). This shows that jurors are more likely to trust children’s testimony, but as the essay mentioned above, children are lacking of language abilities and they have different ways of viewing events compare to adults. Therefore, children’s testimony is not always reliable. Also, Pozzulo, Lemieus, Wells and Mccuaig (2006) have indicated that when witness provides positive identification, jurors are most likely to give guilty verdicts compare with non-identification and foil identification. (pg.650). This explains that jurors’ verdicts are depending on witness’s confidence of identifying the suspects. Moreover, Sigler and Couch (2002) suggest when there is discredited eyewitness testimony, jurors feel that they have been tricked by the prosecution, hence, the jurors will vote more in favour. (pg.146). This explains that if the eyewitness testimony
The use of eyewitness statements and testimony’s can be a great source of information, but can also lead to wrongful convictions. Due to eyewitness testimony, innocent people are convicted of crimes they have not committed. This is why the wording of a question is important to consider when interviewing witnesses. Due to the fact that eyewitness testimony can be the most concrete evidence in an investigation, witnesses may feel they are helping an officer by giving them as much information as possible, therefore they may tell them information that is not entirely true, just to please them. This is why there are advantages and disadvantages to using open and close ended questioning at different durations of an interview. The way you word a question may impact the memory of a witness, this is because a person cannot completely memorize the exact occurrences of an event.
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...
In the last forty years, there has been a shift in courtroom proceedings. Lawyers are not only focusing their evidence on the scientific aspects of an event, but also on those who may have witnessed the actual event as well. Recently, the number of eyewitness appearances in the courtroom has increased, making statements about either a crime or an event that occurred in their presence. But how does the courtroom decide who is a legitimate witness to an event? Too often, age, race, education, and socio-economics play a major role in this decision. Here, we will discuss the age aspect of this problem in terms of child eyewitness testimony and it's implications in the courtroom.
Eyewitnesses play a critical role in criminal justice systems throughout the world and are often essential in identifying, charging, and ultimately convicting perpetrators of crimes.
Wells, G. L., Olson, E. A., & Charman, S. D. (2002). The confidence of eyewitnesses in their identifications from lineups. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 11(5), 151-154.
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 to Dauphinais et al., (2007), Dripps said that eyewitness error is a huge factor in cases of wrong convictions. A study conducted in 1987 indicated that in roughly 80,000 criminal cases, eyewitness error was the only sole evidence against the defendant
Eyewitness misidentification is the most common cause of wrongful convictions in the United States, having a factor in almost 75% of wrongful convictions overturned by DNA testing (understand the causes). Some common causes of misidentification include knowledge of a different potential suspect, making a selection because the eyewitness thought the subject looked somewhat similar to the actual suspect, or the eyewitness was placed in poor conditions to make an identification (understand the causes). Two important variables that affect this decision are estimator variables, which cannot be controlled by the criminal justice system such as race or presence of weapons, and system variables, which can be controlled the criminal justice system, like fillers in a lineup or the instructions given to an eyewitness (understand the causes).
Wells, G. L., & Bradfield, A. L. (1998). “Good, you identified the suspect”: Feedback to eyewitness distorts their reports of the eyewitness experience. Journal of Applied Psychology, 83(3), 360-376.
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
Every day a child is called on to testify in a courtroom. Children who have to testify in open court are easily influenced by outside sources. This paper will show the reasons children should not be used as witnesses in a courtroom. I will show all the different influences that a child receives and prove them uncredible. The interview process can influence a child greatly. Ceci and Bruck (1995) found a study that shows that child witnesses may be questioned up to12 times during the course of an investigation. The questioning process can take up to a year and a half to be completed. Children are not capable of remembering exact details for that period. Their answers to questions will change each time he or she is asked. This is because they do not retain information in the same way as an adult. Most studies have shown that children start to lose their ability to recall an event accurately only 10 days after the original event has happened. Another factor in a child’s ability to recall an event is stress. A child can go into a shock stage and repress all memories of what has happened to them. These memories may not resurface for many years. This affects a child’s ability to identify the suspect in photo and live line-ups. The amount of stress a child goes through affects their ability to answer questions in an interview, if they cannot remember what has happened, how are they supposed to answer the myriad of questions the interviewer will ask them.
During the identification and prosecution of a suspect, eyewitnesses are of the utmost importance. They provide crucial information that determines the fate of the criminal, whether their memories are true to the event or slightly altered. Many eyewitnesses, being the victims of these crimes, have strong emotions related to the event. It has been found that emotions play a role in the accuracy and completeness of memories, especially in eyewitness testimony (Huston, Clifford, Phillips, & Memon, 2013). When emotions are negative in content, accuracy increases for memory of an event (Storbeck & Clore, 2005; Block, Greenberg, & Goodman, 2009). This finding holds true for all types of eyewitnesses, including children. There is no difference in memory between children and adults for aversive events, suggesting that the child eyewitness is just as capable as the adult eyewitness to give an accurate testimony (Cordon, Melinder, Goodman, & Edelstein, 2012). For my research paper, I will focus on the role of emotion in children’s eyewitness testimony.
Evidence provided in many courtroom cases can range from DNA samples, eyewitness testimony and video-recordings, to name a few. What happens when one of the main sources of information in a case comes from a child? Even worse, what if the child is the victim in the case? The topic of children participating and providing testimony in courtroom settings is an image that, presumably, most would not associate as a “usual” place for children. Yet in cases such as sexual abuse or violence towards a child or within the child’s family, it is not impossible to have cases where children are the predominant source of information provided for judges and jurors. Ref It is then important to consider the reliability of children’s testimonial accounts much like how adult testimonies are examined. The question of focus is then, to what extent can we rely on child eyewitnesses? Specifically, what factors influence the veracity of their testimonies?
Valentine, T., Maras, K. (2011) “The effect of cross-examination on the accuracy of adult eyewitness testimony” Applied Cognitive Psychology, 25 (4), 554-661.
From a legal standpoint, eyewitness memories are not accurate. Though they all illustrate the same concept, each paper described different ways eyewitness memories were altered. One’s memory can be misleading by their own attributions towards the situation, what they choose to see and not see, and if the individual has been through a single event or repetitive stressful events. As human beings, our memories on all matters are not concrete. When retelling stories, we tend to modify the situation and tailor certain events, making the information provided unreliable. An eyewitness testimony changes the track of a trial and information that is given to the court can be ambiguous and can cause bias towards the circumstances. Eyewitnesses can even be confident in their retelling of a situation and explain a complete event, when in fact, that particular event never