Even if he allows it, he will have to instruct the jury about the variables that can lead to misidentification. By posting your comment you agree to our house rules. or debate this issue live on our message boards. Officers of the law should be instructed by their superiors about the potential inaccuracies and dangers of witness testimony. Ultimately, eyewitness testimony is a powerful tool that has the potential to make or break a case. Thomas D. Albright, director of the Vision Center Laboratory at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies, listed some of the many variables affecting eyewitness testimony in a 2017 paper published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, entitled Why Eyewitnesses Fail.. Harvard Univ Press; Cambridge, MA: 2011. It is important to strive to continue to conduct social science research on the nature of eyewitness and the efficacy of potential reforms like the ones above in order to create effective safeguards against unreliable eyewitness testimony. Juries should also be informed as to the manner of the identification, the eyewitnesss confidence and other factors that might influence reliability. There are a few ways in which eyewitness testimony can be inaccurate. Most of these witnesses personally knew Flowers, and many had grown up with him, lived in his same neighborhood. Medicolegal court reports are requested where expert witness evidence is required. 70 percent of the 349 wrongful convictions. Like eyewitness memory, DNA evidence can be contaminated with the trace of an innocent person. Even though no connection between Leiterman and Ruelas was ever established, the prosecution theorized that all three must have been together after midnight at the murder scene in 1969, with the preschooler bleeding on the victim for some unknown reason while Leiterman killed her. Alex Murdaugh's defense attorneys will deliver their closing arguments in his murder trial on Thursday as they seek to raise reasonable doubt about whether he killed his wife and son in 2021. By itself, that fact only shows that contaminated memory is unreliable (just as contaminated DNA evidence is). 6 Wells, Memon, Penrod, Eyewitness Evidence: Improving Its Probative Value, Psychological Science in the Public Interest, (2006). Chester Weger was convicted in 1961 of the notorious Starved Rock Murders, in which three women were brutally killed and their bodies left in a park located in LaSalle County, Illinois about two hours southwest of Chicago. In recent years, more and more jurisdictions have come to accept expert testimony on the reliability of eyewitness identification. Pregnant), Left and got about 1-2 blocks away and saw a man running west, away from downtown, it was her neighbor Flowers, Clemy pointed it out to Roy but Roy did not recognize him, Couldnt remember his clothes or shoes, did not describe seeing blood on him, Latarsha, Clemys cousin, remains convinced that Clemy made up the story because she felt pressured by law enforcement and because she might be able to get money Latarsha was also taken by the police at 19 to be asked questions and Johnson implied that she might get some of the reward money (30k) if she corroborated, Saw a man running across the street 1-2 blocks away that day of the murders, he was alone (not with Clemy) and it was earlier in the morning and when he was with Clemy later, they did not see anybody running, Law enforcement came and found Roy and he ended up giving a statement to John Johnson, Was shown Flowers picture (school picture) ONLY Flowers asked if that was the person Roy saw running Roy said no and John Johnson pushed Roy that it was Flowers and that Clemy was with him when it happened eventually Roy said he broke down and agreed to the story because he wanted to get out of there (he was afraid of Johnson), After that, Johnson recorded Clemy telling her story of seeing Flowers running away from downtown. To many Americans including many jurors eyewitness testimony is the gold standard when it comes to evidence. (Joshua Boucher/The State/AP) If New Jersey can have statewide guidelines, so can California. Albright explains that witness misidentifications are essentially failures of visual perception (seeing things accurately) or failures of memory (lack of precision in storage and recall). More and more research has come out in the last few decades indicating that there are many dangers to relying on eyewitnesses, from the uncertainty of relying on a persons memory all the way to how they are questioned at the police station. One eyewitness couldnt recall whether the detective had told him anything after he identified Grant, but the detective acknowledged telling that particular eyewitness good job following the identification. Many believe that this conviction was based on contaminated DNA evidence. Recently, up to 400 female pupils from around 30 schools were subjected to poisoning attacks in what is believed to be an attempt to stop them getting an education. A full and fair examination of all the circumstances of the subject crime, and all the evidence involved, is necessary. Assistant Professor of Psychology, Arizona State University. Most witnesses didnt come forward of their own accord, and often enough it was the lead investigator for the district attorneys office, John Johnson, who found the witnesses, and brought them in to testify. In other words, the confirmatory remark made the mistaken eyewitnesses just as persuasive as the accurate ones. Dan tries to find out more about Mustafa . Its a stain on our justice system. But studies demonstrate that a variety of factors can lead to the misidentification of criminals. The ability of a person who witnesses a crime to later pick the perpetrator out of a lineup is atrociousright? No comments have so far been submitted. Read through our advertising and sponsorship rates and contact us. Police officers should avoid leading questioning while interviewing potential eyewitnesses, since eyewitnesses might be eager to say what they think will help the investigation, rather than the unblemished version of their memory. In other cases, the circumstances of a purported witness identification may be flimsy; yet the prosecutors still rely on that identification, which is then presented as rock-solid evidence at trial. Miller was placed in a lineup and one of the parking lot attendants positively identified Miller; the other parking lot attendant tentatively identified him. Because she had already servednine years and four months of her initial life sentence, she was released following the change of conviction. Published: 00:56 EST, 2 March 2023 | Updated: 01:01 EST, 2 March 2023. Confidence reported at trial after the eyewitness has received confirmatory feedback is not. A new version of that legislation, AB 308, is pending in the state Senate, though passage in this session is unlikely. After . Family weapons were used to kill the victims in the Murdaugh case, prosecutor says Prosecutor Creighton Waters speaks during closing arguments on Wednesday, March 1. He served 61 years in prison before being released on parole in February 2020. Therefore, it is important that the individuals allowed to testify are accurate in their recollections. Create your free account or Sign in to continue. The other individuals placed in a lineup with the suspect (known as fillers) are supposed to reasonably resemble the suspect in terms of age, height and weight so that the suspect does not stand out. Many more sit in prisons who have not had the opportunity to have their cases re-investigated or samples re-tested. It does make sure that photos in a lineup resemble one another.) According to the prosecution on the day of the murder, at around 7 am, Flowers walked from his home on the West side of town all the way to a sewing factory parking lot on the East side of town, crossing Highway 51, one of the towns largest streets, while doing so. Kendall Taggart BuzzFeed News Reporter The subjects who had been asked the leading question were much more likely to choose the slideshow with the yield sign, since their memories had been tampered by the question asked earlier.4 Many studies have since corroborated the findings of Loftus, such as another experiment, where the same effect was reproduced using television screens, and then seeing the effects between the different participants.5 Studies like these have demonstrated the fickle nature of memory, and how details can be changed without the witness really even recognizing it. This opinion differed from the opinions formed by the other professionals, who concluded that John Worboys should remain in prison. 15 Perry v. New Hampshire, 565 U.S. 228, 248 (2012). The Innocence Project found that out of 138 cases, two-thirds of the DNA exonerated cases were due to an eyewitness testimony (Howitt, 2012). The processes at play in Lydell Grants case are predictable and unfortunately common. It gathered more than 100 signatures from prominent lawmakers, human rights campaigners and celebrities. This decision attracted intense media attention and was seen to be a controversial decision due to the nature and severity of his offences. As of 2014, 44 states and all federal circuits, with the possible exception of the 11th Circuit, allow such expert testimony at the discretion of the trial judge.21, Eyewitness Testimony: Application in Court, The Manson v. Brathwaite test under the Due Process Clause of the U.S. Constitution for assessing eyewitness identification evidence was established in 1977, before much applied research on eyewitness identification had been conducted. In Winona, Mississippi on July 16, 1996, four people were shot and killed at Tardy furniture store. Ernest Saunders, along with three other men, were part of the Guinness Four who were accused of being involved in ascheme to fraudulently increasethe price of Guinness shares. Opinion: Why does Mexicos president want to dismantle the democratic system that elected him? For example, in cases where a mental disorder is an issue, the evidence of a psychiatrist may influence the conduct of legal proceedings, it may help to adduce medical evidence relevant to trial and may be the deciding factor between imprisonment and mental health treatment. John Wixted is a Distinguished Professor of Psychology at the University of California, San Diego. They found that when showing violent and non-violent crimes on videotape to subjects and then prompting them with questions later, the witnesses had more and more difficulty remembering certain details as the violence in the video went up.8. He did it and was fortunate not to be sentenced to death in that era. Jurors trust a confident eyewitness and believe they are telling the truth and that their testimony is accurate [1]. Judges should include within jury instructions clear and concise instructions on how to evaluate and make use of eyewitness testimony during their deliberations. Do not sell or share my personal information. The nearly simultaneous analyses of evidence from these three cases in the same crime lab in 2002a reunion, of sorts, among Mixer, Ruelas and Leiterman, who were ostensibly last together on the night of the murder in 1969was either an incredible coincidence or the Mixer evidence was contaminated with DNA from both Leiterman and Ruelas. 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