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After reading a number of articles, and attending the “Picking Cotton” lecture. I have come to the conclusion that, without the breakthrough of DNA extraction technology. Many people would still be convicted of a crime they never committed.
One of the biggest pushes for this change in the judicial system, was the Thompson Vs. Cotton case. Ronald Cotton was accused of raping twenty two year old college student, Jennifer Thompson. During a lecture at Ferris State University, Thompson recalled thinking over and over again that “once I [survive] and live, I will make sure that I know everything about you […] to help the police find you”. Little did she know, the man that she chose in both picture and physical lineup was an innocent man.
Studies have shown that “eyewitness misidentification is the single greatest cause of wrongful convictions nationwide [contributing] […] [to] more than 75% of convictions overturned through DNA testing” (American Civil Liberties Union). The first situation resulting in the misidentification, was made when the police rounded up six men according to the ...
In today's society no crime is a perfect crime, with the use of DNA testing and modern advancements in health and forensics even the smallest piece of someone's genome can be cultured and used to identify even the most devious of criminals. The use of DNA testing was able to help change the life of Gene Bibbins for the better and further proved how DNA testing is able to be used to help clarify who the culprit actually is. Gene Bibbins life was forever changed the night that he was unjustifiably arrested for aggravated rape which resulted in his being sentenced to life in prison, only for his case to eventually be reevaluated sixteen years after his conviction, leading to his exoneration.
The court system includes the judges, jury, prosecutors and defense attorneys. The Attorneys convince the suspects to take plea bargains, the judges are sometimes unfair in the decisions they make, and the prosecutors overlook exculpatory evidence. Picking cotton shows in detail some common errors of the court system. During Ronald Cotton 's first trial, His Attorney, Phil Moseley, tried to bring a memory expert to testify on the unreliability of memory but the judge denied his request. After Ronald 's case was overturned by the supreme court, he got a new trial in another court which had even more problems and bias. First, there was racial prejudice during the jury selection. “Four black people from the community got called in for jury duty. The judge himself dismissed one of them and then Mr turner made sure none of the rest sat on my jury” Ronald cotton stated. Because he was black, the four jurors were dismissed and he was left with an all white jury and two white Alternates. Second, the judge “Held something called a “voir dire” hearing, which Phil explained meant he would have to put up all the evidence about Poole in front of the Judge, but not the Jury”(129). Also, Ronald Cotton 's defense attorney explained to the judge the parallelism between Bobby Poole 's case and the rape Ronald Cotton was charged with. Despite the weak physical evidence against Ronald Cotton, the
It was a mistaken identity case where the distressed raped women picked out the wrong black man. Even though the conviction was overturned due to DNA evidence, a mistaken eyewitness testimony led to a wrongful conviction that the Burlington Police upheld without question due to prejudice feelings toward determine Ronald Cotton (Thompson-Cannino, Cotton and Torneo 283). Ronald had his whole family testify that he had been home the night Jennifer was raped however because he had mixed up his dates when he originally confessed that police assumed he was lying despite what he and his family said. The other indication of racism on the police force was when the second rape victim did not pick Ronald Cotton out of the physical lineup; she claimed she was terrified of the black men standing in front of her and just needed to leave, even though she knew it saw Ronald that had raped her (Thompson-Cannino, Cotton and Torneo 129). Ronald was believed to be guilty and was trying to prove his innocence from the beginning. This simply cannot occur in a justice system where one is supposed to be innocent until proven guilty; racism played a part in convicting this innocent man. Even during the second court case when he was trying to prove his innocence he remembered feeling the jury turn and look at him, "every single one of their white faces" believed how terrible of a man he was (Thompson-Cannino, Cotton and Torneo
Faith is the key to surmounting physical and spiritual obstacles. Believers ken and understand the potency of faith in their lives when times become arduous. There is no obstacle that cannot be overcome by the power of faith in God. The book Picking Cotton, the Bible, the movie Conviction, and many gospel songs are inspired by individuals who overcame obstacles of faith. These individuals include Ronald Cotton, Peter, Phillip, Betty Waters, Kenny, Kurt Carr, Brooklyn Tabernacle Choir, and Kirk Franklin.
One of society’s problems is that the wrong people are convicted of a crime they did not commit. None have more dire consequences on those than who are wrongly convicted of rape and murder. The punishment for these crimes are as harsh as possible to deter the crimes and when wrongly convicted, the wrong person gets punished while the true perpetrator gets away. In order to increase the chance of convicting the true perpetrator of the crime, the tools to find and convict criminals had to be refined. And it was refined due to extensive research into DNA. This research was done by Alec Jeffreys and Vicky Wilson, the research’s technician, and it found that in the massive amount of junk codes, there exists many repetitious codes that have copied so many times that it varies from person to person. (Ridley 132) This means that people can be identified with only their DNA from their hair, fluids, skin, etc. This discovery has led to convictions of rapists and murderers such as the Pickford case that Ridley wrote about. It has also led to the sentences of many wrongly convicted people to be retracted and this had led to the release of about 200 people known as the DNA 200. (Phelan) Now, most of the world keeps criminals’ genotype information in order to identify repeat offenders. In the United States, every state requires that every convicted
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 100 people who were convicted have been exonerated by forensic evidence. Moreover, 75% of these people were known to be victims of mistaken identification. The known DNA exoneration cases are just a fragment of the innocent people who have been convicted based on mistaken eyewitness identification evidence (Wells & Olson, 2003).
Another factor associated with wrongful convictions is eyewitness misidentification. The Innocence Project identifies eyewitness misidentification as the single most important factor leading to wrongful convictions. Eyewitness misidentification is often an error due to witnesses being under high pressure, witnesses focusing on the weapon more than the offender, and police procedures when receiving an identification statement from a victim. A study
Before the late 1800’s, DNA was never used in court cases. We did not have the equipment readily available. Then, in the late 1800’s and early 1900’s, DNA testing started to become very popular. This is when cases started getting overturned from wrongful court convictions. Which meant that the criminal that had actually committed the crime was on the loose in the community still able to do harm. In today’s generation, we still have many wrongful court convictions. Either due to their being little to no DNA evidence in the beginning of their case or the DNA evidence was tested incorrectly or possibly tampered with and that is what lead to the conviction of the wrong person. With the high level of technology we have today and the highly skilled experts in the labs we shouldn’t have any wrongful convictions. While we
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.
Jost, Kenneth. Eyewitness Testimony: Could New Safeguards Prevent Misidentifications? Washington, D.C.: CQ, 2011. 861-73. CQ Researcher. Web. 19 Nov. 2013.
“Eyewitness misidentification is the greatest contributing factor to wrongful convictions proven by DNA testing” (“Eyewitness Misidentification” 2 of 7). According to The Innocence Projects’ website, “Witnesses substantially changed their description of a perpetrator (including key information such as height, weight, and presence of facial hair) after they learned
According to Stenzel, Carla article "Eyewitness Misidentification." “…Eyewitness misidentification occurred in seventy percent of over 300 exoneration cases where innocence was proven by DNA evidence...” (pg. 516). Unfortunately, the results from misidentification of eyewitness result to innocent civilians suffer consequences from a fine to an imprisonment or a death sentence for a false accusation a crime the citizen did not commit. An example, “…the death of Michael Brown, an unarmed teen, shot by a Ferguson …heightened risk of death that African-American men face in police encounters… Witnesses gave deeply conflicting accounts of the shooting death… “(Fan 410-413). The victim Michael Brown was shot by policeman Ferguson; many of the testimonies conflict with each other doesn’t provide the reality of the encounter with Michael Brown and Ferguson. Therefore, body-worn cameras are an opportunity to provide concrete evidence for a case involves police force encounter with a citizen; avoidance of the confliction of accounts and
According to Psychology Today, eyewitness identification can be unreliable. Many people who are convicted of crimes due to eyewitness testimony are usually released based on DNA evidence. As a result, criminals roam freely because eyewitnesses are unable to identify them properly. Eyewitnesses usually take time to identify potential criminals. The extra time allows them to mentally add all kinds of other specifics to the criminal’s face.
The Innocence Project has assisted over 300 men and women be freed and acquitted of crimes they did not commit (Arduengo &Adam, 2014: Malpass, Roy, 2006). In approximately 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
As such, they have been aptly referred to as source monitoring errors. Throughout research, studies have assembled a tri-part variant understanding regarding how source monitoring can come about, that is to say there are external, internal and reality misattributions in this theoretical paradigm (Johnson et al., 1993). External misattributions are explained as when an individual attributes the source of a genuine experience or occurrence having been attributed to another actual experience or occurrence. Through progressive research, this understanding has been suggested as a viable rationale in regards to the cause of numerous incorrect accusations stemming from inaccurate eyewitness testimony (Lindsay, 2007). This is explained as occurring because rather than choosing the correct perpetrator in police line-ups or police identification photographs it has been found that the witness is prone to choose a recognized individual instead (Lindsay, 2007). Put plainly, the memory of the individual in the police line up or picture is wrongly attributed to the memory of the crime. The understanding of internal source monitoring is defined as the aptitude of discriminating amongst what an individual actually thought and what she or he actually said (Johnson, 1997). There is a high likelihood that individuals could confuse what they think that they