Eyewitness+Identification

Methods are often employed by police that cause eyewitnesses to wrongfully identify, and eventually convict, innocent civilians. These civilians often share a few but not all physical traits with that of the perpetrator. They are selected out of a lineup mostly because the witness feels inclined to choose the one who “did” it, even if the real perpetrator is not there. Witnesses often claim to have a “flashback” memory of a traumatic event in order to prosecute a person that they have believed to cause their experience. Psychologists and legal advisers are now questioning whether or not eyewitness testimony is reliable evidence in a trial. People have a strong tendency to believe a victim of a traumatic experience, especially when the victim becomes very emotional when trying to recall the event. However, most times the victim is so emotional that the memory they recall is either exaggerated or even completely wrong. A memory can also be altered if the person recalling it has been a victim to disease or injury to the brain, or the person is an alcoholic. Still another issue is how far back a person can remember the crime in question. It’s become apparent that it is harder to remember crucial details as years pass. Most people have the ability to remember memories as young as when they were 4 or 5 years old, as an infant any younger would not have the mental capacity to hold any memories. In any case, memories are not typically 100% genuine. Most memories are influenced by the power of suggestion, in order to recreate something that might have not entirely happened. Police and lawyers suggest facts to the witness and so they believe that it happened on some scale even if what they saw was differing on some major points. This applies anywhere from the use of evidence to describe a scene to suggesting an specific ethnicity for the perpetrator.

By: Matt, Isaac, Nate

[|__http://innocenceinstitute.org/investigations/false-eyewitness-identification__] [|__http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,974164-1,00.html__] [|__http://agora.stanford.edu/sjls/Issue%20One/fisher&tversky.htm__] [|__http://truthinjustice.org/witness.htm__]