Misidentification of Eyewitness Testimony: The War on Exoneration

In assisting this problem with Justice Department, action is needed by both the Federal and State governments; this action is not limited to checking the validation of each account by creating new stress-free anti-conviction agencies using a budget from high cost building projects. These new agencies are to ensure that traditional procedural methods are conflict free, that DNA evidence is used as confirmation, and that any records are handled carefully.

Eyewitness misidentification is the simple justification of what may have collected a misinterpreted scene. Witnesses of any incident are usually distorted, and even forgetful of what they may or may not have remembered. Candidly, it is in this instance where information become fabricated, to fit either racial stereotypes, or a collage of distant memories. With massive rates of innovative technological applications, this paper examines traditional procedural practices that should not be standardized, instead, these methods should be conflicted free (records of every case file should be handled with the proper solidified documentation), relying precisely on DNA evidence. Likewise, action by both the Federal Government, and Police Departments should reflect new validation checklist methods by creating new stress-free anti-conviction agencies using a budget from high cost building projects. The conclusions are clear; rely on eyewitness statements, keep prisons open, and drain the nation’s budget.

“Eyewitness misidentification is the greatest contributing factor to wrongful conviction proven by DNA testing, playing a role in more than 70% of conviction overturned through DNA testing nationwide”. Everyone testimonies, is most cases unreliable, and usually held high in false regard for the cost of unjust incarcerations. With a varying number, of police departments relying on statements from eyewitness, a whopping 70% of overturned cases places an impartial judgement for a charge in determining the validation of any, and every account. Fabrication in memories, and inconsistencies in speech all encounters in the major discrepancies in relying on an eyewitness statement. This along with a higher rate of falsified incarcerations, leads to a misguided decree in the justice system that will eventually concoct overcrowded prisons. In assisting this problem with Justice Department, action is needed by both the Federal and State governments; this action is not limited to checking the validation of each account by creating new stress-free anti-conviction agencies using a budget from high cost building projects. These new agencies are to ensure that traditional procedural methods are conflict free that DNA evidence is used as confirmation, and that any records are handled carefully. This literature review considers dependence and government involves solving the problem of eyewitness misidentification by responding to the following questions.

Misidentification by eyewitnesses has played a role in a high number of wrongful convictions and has led criminal justice experts to look more closely at the effectiveness of identifying suspects from live and photographic lineups. One of the problems with eyewitness misidentification, are the testimony in criminal cases. How come scientists have demonstrated through studies since the 1960s that there was significant reason to be concerned about the accuracy of the eyewitness-identification testimony used in criminal trials. Although witnesses can often be very confident that their memory is accurate when identifying a suspect, the malleable nature of human memory and visual perception makes eyewitness testimony one of the most unreliable forms of evidence.

Courts took very little notice of the problems associated with eyewitness identification until DNA evidence began to be used to exonerate criminal defendants, in some cases decades after they were convicted. In irrefutable cases of wrongful conviction, people both within and outside of the judiciary began to question the factors that led to each wrongful conviction. It became clear that the predominate cause was inaccurate eyewitness identification.

In 2014 the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) released a report, Identifying the Culprit: Assessing Eyewitness Identification. It was a very comprehensive review of studies that defined the nature of the problem and suggested solutions that can be employed to mitigate the impact. The report made it clear that this is a very complex problem, rooted in human psychology, which impacted police and courtroom practices.

The mishaps in eyewitness misidentification:

• Over 230 people, serving an average of 12 years in prison, have been exonerated through DNA testing in the United States, and 75% of those wrongful convictions (179 individual cases as of this writing) involved eyewitness misidentification.

• In 38% of the misidentification cases, multiple eyewitnesses misidentified the same innocent person.

• Over 250 witnesses misidentified innocent suspects.

• Fifty-three percent of the misidentification cases, where race is known, involved cross- racial misidentifications.

• In 50% of the misidentification cases, eyewitness testimony was the central evidence used against the defendant (without other corroborating evidence like confessions, forensic science or informant testimony).

• In 36% of the misidentification cases, the real perpetrator was identified through DNA evidence.

• In at least 48% of the misidentification cases where a real perpetrator was later identified through DNA testing, that perpetrator went on to commit (and was convicted of) additional violent crimes (rape, murder, attempted murder, etc.), after an innocent person was serving time in prison for his previous crime.

The eyewitness statements that are Eyewitness testimony, which relies on the accuracy of human memory, has an enormous impact on the outcome of a trial. Aside from smoking pistol, nothing carries as much weight with a jury as the testimony of an actual witness. The memory of witnesses is crucial not only in criminal cases but in civil cases as well-in automobile accident cases, for example, eyewitness testimony carries great weight in determining who is as fault. Implicit in the acceptance of this testimony as solid evidence is the assumption that the human mind is a precise recorder and store of events. 

Human beings hold fiercely to the belief that our memories are preserved intact, our thoughts are essentially imperishable, and our impressions are never really forgotten. Sigmund Freud believed that long-term memories lie deep in the unconscious mind, too deep to be disturbed by ongoing events and experiences; most people today continue to accept Freud's view of memory. Also Anyone in the world can be convicted of a crime he or she did not commit, or deprived of an award that is due, based solely on the evidence of a witness who convinces a jury that his memory about what he saw is correct. 

Why is the eyewitness testimony so powerful and convincing? Because people in general and jurors in particular believe that our memories stamp the facts of experiences on a permanent, non-erasable tape, like a computer disk or videotape that is write-protected. For the most part, of course, our memories serve us reasonably well. But how often is precise memory demanded of us? When a friend describes a vacation, we don't ask, 'Are you sure your hotel room had two chairs, not three?' After we watch a movie, our companion wouldn't normally grill us with questions like 'Was Gene Hackman's hair wavy, or was it curly?' or 'Did the woman in the bar wear red or pink lipstick?' If we make a mistake, it usually goes unnoticed and uncorrected--does it really matter if there were two chairs or three, or if the actor's hair was wavy or curly? Belief in an accurate memory is confirmed by default. But precise memory suddenly becomes crucial in the event of a crime or an accident. Small details assume enormous importance. Did the assailant have a mustache, or was he clean-shaven? Was he five eight or five eleven? Was the traffic light red, or was it green? How fast was the Cadillac going when it went through the red light--or was it yellow? -and smashed into the Volkswagen? Did the car cross the center line, or did it stay on its own side? 

Civil and criminal cases often rest on such subtle, seemingly trivial details, and these details are often hard to obtain. In July 1977 Flying magazine reported the fatal crash of a small plane that killed all eight people aboard and one person who was on the ground. Sixty eyewitnesses were interviewed, and two eyewitnesses who had seen the airplane just before the impact testified at a hearing to investigate the accident. The plane, one of the eyewitnesses explained, 'was heading right toward the ground--straight down.' This witness apparently did not know that several photographs clearly showed that the airplane hit flat and at a low-enough angle to skid for almost one thousand feet. To be mistaken about details is not the result of a bad memory but of the normal functioning of human memory. When we want to remember something, we don't simply pluck a whole memory intact from a 'memory store.' The memory is constructed from stored and available bits of information; we unconsciously fill in any gaps in the information with inferences. When all the fragments are integrated into a whole that makes sense, they form what we call a memory. Still other factors affect the accurate perception, and therefore recollection, or an event. Was there violence? How much? Was it light or dark? Did the eyewitness have any prior expectations or interests? A tragic real-life case illustrates the potential problems surrounding an initial perception of an event.

References

• National Institute of Justice, 'Eyewitness Identification,' February 28, 2009, nij.ojp.gov: https://nij.ojp.gov/topics/articles/eyewitness-identification
• https://www.ncsc.org/microsites/trends/home/Monthly-Trends-Articles/2017/The-Trouble-with-Eyewitness-Identification-Testimony-in-Criminal-Cases.aspx
• https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/dna/photos/eye/text_06.html
• https://www.innocenceproject.org/reevaluating-lineups-why-witnesses-make-mistakes-and-how-to-reduce-the-chance-of-a-misidentification/
• https://www.yesmagazine.org/for-teachers/curriculum/curriculum-resources-the-innocence-project-prison-food