Once a suspect has established that he was the victim of suggestiveness, a pretrial hearing will be held in which the full range of reasons for possible misidentification are examined. Recently, post-conviction DNA exonerations of innocent persons have dramatically highlighted the problems with eyewitness identifications. In an effort to overwhelm Chester and break him down, he was placed in a lineup regarding two incidents that took place in 1959 in a nearby State Park called Deer Park, one of which was that rape case and the other was a purse snatching. Ultimately, eyewitness testimony is a powerful tool that has the potential to make or break a case. Perhaps one of the most striking examples of the flaws in eyewitness testimony is the case of Jerry Miller, who was convicted of rape, robbery and kidnapping in 1982. Eyewitness misidentifications are known to have played a role in 70 percent of the 349 wrongful convictions that have been overturned based on DNA evidence (so far). [Youre smart and curious about the world. Jurors trust a confident eyewitness and believe they are telling the truth and that their testimony is accurate [1]. They were then asked a leading question about how fast the car was going when it passed the yield sign. The person they think was the perpetrator in fact had nothing to do with the crime. Women in Iran have all the necessary required freedoms within the framework of the law, he claims, but says our interview is a confrontation: This is not the way to conduct an interview. pic.twitter.com/XKkC5uWYyj, Iranian foreign minister Hossein Amirabdollahian smiled as he chastised CNN host Christiane Amanpour, telling her 'this is not the way to conduct an interview', CNN host Amanpour laid into the Iranian foreign minister over his country's record on women's rights. A meta-analytic review of the effects of high stress on eyewitness memory, Law and Human Behavior 28.6 (2004), 687-706. What would that mean for the reliability of the blood or fingerprint evidence, for example, collected at that scene? But studies demonstrate that a variety of factors can lead to the misidentification of criminals. Although she was due to face further trial at the Central Criminal Court, on the basis of the expert evidence, the Crown accepted her plea to the lesser offence of manslaughter on the grounds of diminished responsibility. Similarly, a witness may mistakenly perceive the circumstances of a crime or event, such as a car accident. In 1932, Yale University law professor Edwin M. Borchard documented nearly seventy cases of miscarriage of justice caused by eyewitness errors in his book, Convicting the Innocent. And have you read a recent peer-reviewed paper that you would like to write about? Chester denied having anything to do with these other crimes but was identified by the victims based on these suggestive procedures. The way to avoid these problems with eyewitness testimony is for police to adopt best practices based on the psychological research. By the way, Weger signed EVERY SINGLE PAGE of the FIRST confession which was transcribed by a court reporter who testified under OATH Weger was not threatened or harmed when he made his damning statement. He was 19 at the time of that attack. Los Angeles, Review: A reimagined Secret Garden fails to flower anew at the Ahmanson Theatre, Editorial: Ousting L.A. Countys chief probation officer isnt enough. Instead evidence collected at the contaminated crime scene would probably be declared inadmissible. Nonetheless, the attendants mistakenly identified Miller in a subsequent police lineup. Sally Challens appeal demonstrated the importance of expert evidence in establishing the correct outcome for a mentally disordered offender. 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 much the same way, an eyewitness can be led to falsely remember someone committing a crime that was actually committed by someone else. In 1999, Sally Clark, a solicitor, was convicted of murdering her two infant sons (one in 1996 and the other in 1998) at Chester Crown Court. by TCR Staff, The Crime Report May 24, 2021, This and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.
. Psychological scientists, however, have challenged many of the assumptions of the legal system and the general public regarding the. Unfortunately for Lydell Grant, these reforms came a year too late. Instead, they asked that the six eyewitnesses who originally testified against Grant respond to his claims of innocence. A witness may mistakenly identify a criminal suspect. What the cases of Miller and Heidelberg highlight is that witnesses are often wrong. The Law Enforcement Command of the Islamic Republic of Iran claimed she had a heart attack at a police station, collapsed, and fell into a coma before being transferred to a hospital. Ernest Saunders only served 10 months of his sentence before being released. However, Solicitor, Marilyn Stowe, had concerns about the expert evidence of Professor Meadow. What it means is that the malleability of memory can harm reliability. At the time of his release, Jerry Miller had served over 26 years in prison for a crime he did not commit. 4 Defffenbacher, et al. In this case, the defendant was charged with first degree murder and the only evidence against him was the testimony of two eyewitnesses. The court tried to deter false identification with a stepped process. She questioned the statistical basis of Professor Meadows evidence, which had led to Sally Clark being sentenced to life in prison. One reported that he had identified Grant without doubt or hesitation. I am currently involved in another case in which the failings of witness identification are starkly evident. Prosecutors, though, have no murder weapon, bloody clothes or eyewitnesses, leaving them to build their case about Murdaugh's murky timeline of his whereabouts when the crime happened in 2021 . Juries are particularly prone to being swayed by eyewitness testimony, as evidenced in the Curtis Flowers case. Today, he remains in prison. Thanks for reading Scientific American. While 30+ years of research is too much to summarize in a few paragraphs, we will outline the general problems with eyewitness testimony as well as some of them more major research that has been performed on the subject. In a recent review of the literature, the authors reported across 15 experiments, suspect identifications made with high confidence were, on average, 97 percent accurate! This decision attracted intense media attention and was seen to be a controversial decision due to the nature and severity of his offences. (2017). Laura Smalarz does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment. First, another DNA profileone belonging to John Ruelas, who was just a four-year-old preschooler at the time of the murderwas found on a blood spot taken from the victims left hand. Police in some California counties use some of the methods recommended by the New Jersey court and by the California Commission on the Fair Administration of Justice. Harvard Univ Press; Cambridge, MA: 2011. During the meeting Amirabdollahian said Irans government was committed to upholding human rights. Not only do such statements inflate eyewitnesses confidence in the accuracy of their identification, but they lead them to falsely remember having been that confident all along. 109, 10910 (2006). Press Esc to cancel. Thirty Years of DNA Forensics: How DNA Has Revolutionized Criminal Investigations. CEN RSS, Chemical and Engineering News, 18 Sept. 2017. As with DNA evidence, eyewitness evidence needs to be safeguarded against contamination. In addition to implementing double-blind lineup procedures, its essential that lineup administrators document eyewitnesses confidence immediately following an identification. But theyve hit a snag. This is not always the case. Such behaviors are often inadvertent; neither lineup administrators nor eyewitnesses may be consciously aware that theyre happening. 'But foreign interference and the Persian-language media that are based in the United States and Britain focused their activities on encouraging and instigating the riots and acts of terror. If a judge finds the eyewitness testimony unreliable, he can suppress its use at trial. Standardized instructions regarding best practices should be given, including such tips as the importance of minimizing contact between witnesses at the scene, and how gathering eyewitness testimony as early as possible tends to increase its accuracy. 14 Manson, 432 U.S. 98, 12526 (Marshall, J., dissenting). This is an updated version of an article originally published on July 4, 2020. John Worboys was given an indeterminate prison sentence. Blood and fingerprint evidence, per se, would not be deemed unreliable. 'In Iran we had an incident. Out on his porch and saw Flowers walking by that morning. Law enforcement officers, prosecutors, attorneys, and jurors need to realize that just because a witness says so does not make it so. We will automatically post your comment and a link to the news story to your Facebook timeline at the same time it is posted on MailOnline. Ruling in the case of a man convicted of manslaughter and aggravated assault, the court noted that several variables can produce mistaken eyewitness testimony. Expert Evidence In Family Cases Where Spouse Is Unable To Return To Work Due To Illness, The revised psychopathy checklist (PCL-R), Proving Automatism Defences In Criminal Cases, Understanding the Value of an Occupational Therapist Expert Witness, Causation in personal injury or medical negligence, Assessments of sexual offending, violent behaviour offending, arson, and stalking. The first is in the classic My Cousin Vinny situation, where eyewitnesses simply believe they see something, despite not actually being capable of truly witnessing the event accurately. Specifically, the eyewitness had identified the defendant from her window, as the defendant was standing in the dark next to a police officer; however, the eyewitness had pointed to the defendant spontaneously, without the police asking her to do so.16 The Court ruled that, because the police had not induced the identification under suggestive circumstances, the trial judge had not erred in admitting the eyewitness testimony without assessing its reliability under the second step of the Manson test.17
Andy Hale is a civil rights attorney, specializing in wrongful convictions in Chicago, Illinois. Advertise to our national and international criminal justice audience at The Crime Report and support our mission. Only radical intervention can save juvenile justice. He did it and was fortunate not to be sentenced to death in that era. Moreover, confirmatory feedback can alter witnesses memories of the original crime, making them less able to recognize the actual perpetrator when they see him again. Another stated that the killers face was burned into [her] memory immediately.. But eyewitnesses aren't always right, and poor investigative practices can make matters worse. After killing the officer, the shooter fled the scene and a high-speed car chase ensued. Eyewitness Testimony: Recommended Practices, Eyewitness testimony continues to be commonplace in law enforcement and trials. In one of the earliest studies of this misinformation effect run by Elizabeth Loftus, subjects were shown a slideshow of a red car passing a stop sign and hitting a pedestrian. My review of the transcripts from Grants trial suggests a simple explanation for these high-confidence mistakes: The police did not use scientific best practices for collecting the eyewitness identification evidence. So are The Conversations authors and editors. Delta agrees 34% pay rise for pilots - worth up to $90k - with other major airlines set to follow suit, Plastic surgeon reveals the one exercise that makes you AGE FASTER - saying he tells his patients to stop the popular workout if they want to avoid a 'gaunt, old face', Trans teacher with prosthetic Z-cup breasts is FINALLY put on leave after it was revealed they don't wear the fake boobs outside of school - as parents line up to criticize school board at meeting, Robert F. 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As a result, witnesses who have received confirmatory feedback provide testimony that is highly persuasive to jurors. This evidence was not presented in the initial trial. Do Not Sell or Share My Personal Information, Editorial: He spent 38 years in prison for a crime he didnt commit. Police lineups have evolved over time, but some states still need to catch up. But when the witnesses had received a simple reinforcing comment following their identification (Good job, you got the guy), the mock jurors could no longer tell the difference between accurate and mistaken eyewitnesses. The perpetrator had a brief conversation with the parking lot attendants and then fled the scene. There are a few ways in which eyewitness testimony can be inaccurate. was a video tape, and his presence and the time of the event were confirmed by two athletic directors, his coach, and members of the opposing team. Thirty Years of DNA Forensics: How DNA Has Revolutionized Criminal Investigations., See here: Innocence Project, Eyewitness misidentification, Crime in the United States 2012: Persons Arrested,. His offences led to him being named the black cab rapist by the UK press. (Joshua Boucher/The State/AP) But a comparison of the pairs mugshots reveals that they bear little physical resemblance to one another beyond both being Black men. While his potential release faced intense scrutiny, it demonstrates how influential an expert witness report can be. Hossein Amirabdollahian told the host 'this is not the way to conduct an interview' after he insisting women in Iran had 'all the necessary, required freedoms' and accused Western media of fueling protests there. 10 Manson v. Brathwaite, 432 U.S. 98, 114 (1977). Gareth, a Pulitzer prize-winning journalist, is the series editor of Best American Infographics and can be reached at garethideas AT gmail.com or Twitter@garethideas. The answer seems like a resounding yes if you consider some well-known and rather disconcerting information. Thus, Chester was charged with three separate felonies as a way to overwhelm him and break him down. 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. By posting your comment you agree to our house rules. Guidance can help jurors who might not know what to make of conflicting testimony. I believe the remaining 25 states should act swiftly to prevent additional miscarriages of justice. Are you a scientist who specializes in neuroscience, cognitive science, or psychology? Assessing confidence is critical because it provides direct information about the trustworthiness of the uncontaminated ID. Judges in California routinely talk to jurors about the possibility of misidentification, but their instructions arent as complete as those contemplated by the New Jersey court. (The Los Angeles Police Department does not conduct blind photo lineups, nor does it follow the commissions related recommendation that witnesses be shown photos one at a time. Farm Heroes Saga, the #4 Game on iTunes. Finally, a witness may have more difficulty making a correct identification when he and the suspect are of different races. Witness misidentifications can affect both plaintiffs and defendants. The shooter wound up crashing the car and escaping on foot. Your comment will be posted to MailOnline as usual. Police said they believed Weger was a suspect in a rape that had occurred a few years earlier. Research has repeatedly demonstrated that simple confirming comments such as these have dramatic effects on eyewitnesses testimony. As with all indeterminate sentences, decisions around release are the sole responsibility of the Parole Board. Read through our advertising and sponsorship rates and contact us. Consider the important, and often overlooked, distinction between malleability and reliability. Despite the frequency of use, we have been confronted as a country with many incredible failures of eyewitness testimony such as misidentifications that led to convictions and sentences of people who were later discovered innocent.1 Science has played no small role: post-conviction DNA profiling made possible by the development of the polymerase chain reaction, which enables amplification of crime-scene DNA to quantities sufficient for forensic analysis have meant that DNA identification is becoming increasingly used even in cases where it was previously not viable: those where we have smaller samples.2 As of now, almost 350 people, many serving long prison sentences, have been exonerated because their own DNA was discovered to be incompatible with evidence long ago collected from the crime scene. 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. The rebuttal comes more than a month into the murder trial of Murdaugh, the 54-year-old disbarred personal injury attorney and member of a dynastic family in South Carolina's Lowcountry, where his . Assistant Professor of Psychology, Arizona State University. I must also add that Chester Weger also CONFESSED to the 1959 Matthiessen State Park rape/robbery but was never brought to trial (he already had received a life sentence for murder) to avoid putting the TEENAGED female victim on the witness stand. He served 47 years in prison before his conviction was vacated in 2018. They found that the odds of a false identification were 1.56 times greater in cases where the race was different than the witness, thus highlighting how bias can affect how somebody remembers an event.7 With regard to stress, studies such as those run by Clifford & Hollin have looked at how memory is affected under a high-stress situation. This opinion differed from the opinions formed by the other professionals, who concluded that John Worboys should remain in prison. Do not sell or share my personal information. Continue reading with a Scientific American subscription. The ability of a person who witnesses a crime to later pick the perpetrator out of a lineup is atrociousright? Working closely with our specialist human resource colleagues, we offer a holistic advisory and support service for employers encompassing both the legal and people risks of workforce management. Sally Challen claimed she experienced years of emotional abuse before killing him with a hammer. 6 Wells, Memon, Penrod, Eyewitness Evidence: Improving Its Probative Value, Psychological Science in the Public Interest, (2006). 32 National Research Council, Identifying The Culprit: Assessing Eyewitness Identification 38, 4-8 (2014). Juries should also be informed as to the manner of the identification, the eyewitnesss confidence and other factors that might influence reliability. 28 Brandon L. Garrett, Convicting the Innocent: Where Criminal Prosecutions Go Wrong 6368 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2011). An initial eyewitness identification made with low confidence indicates that even though memory was not contaminated, the ID is untrustworthy (that is, by indicating low confidence, the eyewitness is effectively saying, Theres a good chance that Im making an error). John Wixted is a Distinguished Professor of Psychology at the University of California, San Diego. 22 Years later, in 1967, the U.S. Supreme Court highlighted the danger of erroneous eyewitness identification in United States v. 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. Save my name, email, and website in this browser for the next time I comment. Until he was released on parole, the 81-year-old Weger ranked as the second longest-held inmate in Illinois prison system. He served 61 years in prison before being released on parole in February 2020. 18 National Research Council, Identifying The Culprit: Assessing Eyewitness Identification 38 (2014). Episode 3: Eyewitnesses. In one study, people playing the role of jurors were able to reliably distinguish between accurate and mistaken eyewitnesses when the witnesses had not received any confirmatory feedback. 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. Opinion: Why does Mexicos president want to dismantle the democratic system that elected him? The appeal was successful and the conviction was quashed. 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. 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. Mugshots of Lydell Grant (left, in 2010) and Jermarico Carter (right, in 2007) show the men dont look very similar. Compiled by Ann Njarara, Bree Peilen, Daniel Neuman, Emory Cook, Linda Lin, and Perrin Lowrey, Introduction
And third, the confidence expressed by the eyewitness following an identification of someone from the lineup must be recorded. Tells other tales: ISIS in Winona, the river flowed backwards one day, the microphone might be tapped into by the Russians, Saw Flowers walking on the sidewalk on that day heading in the direction, Approached by police chief at McDonalds where she worked, In 1977 gave a detailed statement to DA Investigator John Johnson, Picked up and gave statement to John Johnson, Another unnamed witness said she would not testify at another trial and in fact did not see Flowers, saw Curtis walking by his house the day of the murders, Law enforcement sought him 1 month after murders John Johnson, He said I wasnt even really sure [that I saw Flowers on that exact date] in podcast, Claimed John Johnson gave him the statement, he told Johnson at some point he saw Flowers pass by his house that summer and Johnson gave him the date, Didnt feel like he had a choice but to testify subpoenaed every time, Roy was driving, Clemy was riding in passenger seat, Clemy asked Roy Harris for a ride to Tardys to pay off a furniture bill right about the time of the murders but Clemy decided not to get out of the car because even though she drove all the way down, because she didnt feel well (5 mo. She was sentenced to life in prison. Neighbors told arriving firefighters that they had heard a thunderous crash at about the same time as the blaze is believed to have begun. U. L. Rev. Arizona State University provides funding as a member of The Conversation US. Consider, for example, the case of Gary Leiterman, who, in 2005, was convicted of murder and sentenced to life in prison following a cold case investigation in which his DNA was found on the clothing of a woman named Jane Mixer, who was murdered in 1969. The parking lot attendants provided a description of the driver to a police sketch artist and the sketch was published in a daily police bulletin. See here: Innocence Project, Eyewitness misidentification accessed on March 9, 2019. Perhaps one of the most striking examples of the flaws in eyewitness testimony is the case of Jerry Miller, who was convicted of rape, robbery and kidnapping in 1982. After the rape, with the victim now locked in the trunk, the rapist attempted to drive the womans vehicle out of the parking garage but was prevented from doing so by the two parking lot attendants who recognized the victims car and noticed that she was not driving it. He is the founder of Hale & Monico, Americas Justice Attorneys. Psychologists have learned a lot about why such errors happen. Finally, almost a year later, the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals declared Grant actually innocent on May 19, 2021. Following a protracted trial,Saunders was found guilty ofconspiracy, theft, and false accounting. Iran's foreign minister could not stop smirking as he was grilled about his country's record on women's rights in a combative interview with CNN's Christiane Amanpour on Wednesday. Eyewitness memory is reliable when initially tested using proper procedures, but the legal system nonetheless habitually relies on unreliable (contaminated) eyewitness evidence from later IDs. Speak to our experts today for advice. The testimony of an eyewitness could make up for many shortcomings in a case, such as the lack of any actual physical evidence. In reviewing the case, it is more than apparent that the convicted man had motive, opportunity and means to commit this crime. 13 See Timothy P. OToole & Giovanna Shay, Manson v. Brathwaite Revisited: Towards a New Rule of Decision for Due Process Challenges to Eyewitness Identification Procedures, 41 Val. Like eyewitness memory, DNA evidence can be contaminated with the trace of an innocent person. Examples of when an expert witness may be needed include: To hire an expert witness, you may make contact with us via our simple online contact form, call us on 01865 587 865 or by requesting a call back from our team via the link below. Miller was ultimately charged with rape, robbery and kidnapping. 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. Wegers attorneys, Celeste Stack and I, continue to seek to prove Chesters innocence and are seeking to review and analyze the physical evidence and are working to be able to conduct forensic testing on some of that evidence. 9 According to the innocence project, mistaken identification is a leading factor in wrongful convictions. Instructing an expert witness is not unusualthere are many much-publicised cases where the role of expert evidence has been significant. Years later, in 1967, the U.S. Supreme Court highlighted the danger of erroneous eyewitness identification in United States v. Wade, stating, The vagaries of eyewitness identification are well-known; the annals of criminal law are rife with instances of mistaken identification.23 The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) estimates that U.S. law enforcement made 12,196,959 arrests in 2012. parkwood entertainment auditions, False accounting ability of a lineup is atrociousright and reliability, have challenged of... Dramatically highlighted the problems with eyewitness identifications upholding Human rights have dramatically the! In addition to implementing double-blind lineup procedures, its essential that lineup administrators eyewitnesses! The scene of Criminal Appeals declared Grant actually innocent on may 19 2021! Seems like a resounding yes if you consider some well-known and rather disconcerting information offences led to Clark... Witness identification are starkly evident the meeting Amirabdollahian said Irans government was committed to upholding Human rights overwhelm him break! 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