Witnesses arent able to tell whether their testimony was influenced in this way. Thirty Years of DNA Forensics: How DNA Has Revolutionized Criminal Investigations. CEN RSS, Chemical and Engineering News, 18 Sept. 2017. Judges should strive to make sure the jury is informed of all of the identifications an eyewitness has made prior to the trial. 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. Mr. But eyewitnesses aren't always right, and poor investigative practices can make matters worse. to select the person they believe to be a prime suspect. Witness misidentifications can affect both plaintiffs and defendants. There have been hundreds of cases in which mistaken eyewitness identification testimony led to the conviction of innocent people. 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.. One reported that he had identified Grant without doubt or hesitation. Pictured: Protestors take part in an anti-Iran demonstration on December 24, 2022 in Istanbul, Turkey, Women burned their headscarves in Kurdish-controlled north-east Syria in September 2022. Another way is through the misinformation effect, where something occurs between the event and the reporting of the event to muddy or confuse the witness. As with DNA evidence, eyewitness evidence needs to be safeguarded against contamination. This can be true even in situations where the witness has an ample opportunity to observe the offender. Second, the police lineup has to be fair (that is, the suspect should not stand out). Do you want to automatically post your MailOnline comments to your Facebook Timeline? 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. Kendall Taggart BuzzFeed News Reporter Its a stain on our justice system. Compiled by Ann Njarara, Bree Peilen, Daniel Neuman, Emory Cook, Linda Lin, and Perrin Lowrey, Introduction These courts generally accept detailed descriptions of relevant scientific research findings to either attack or support eyewitness testimony.19 Other courts, meanwhile, leave the jury to determine the credibility of eyewitness testimony and insist that findings from scientific research in this area cannot help the jury to do so.20 Having served 10 years in prison, the psychologist recommended his release from prison. Here is a link to a general overview on eyewitness testimony from the National Science Foundation. Create your free account or Sign in to continue. 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. 22 Edwin M. Borchard, Convicting the Innocent: Sixty-Five Actual Errors of Criminal Justice (New York: Garden City Publishing Company, Inc., 1932). Imagine if police let unauthorized people have willy-nilly access to a crime scene that is under investigation. 70 percent of the 349 wrongful convictions. Prior to admitting eyewitness testimony, judges should make inquiries into the reliability of the eyewitness, looking for any indications of unreliability. Medicolegal court reports are requested where expert witness evidence is required. If the contaminated evidence is relied on to establish guilt versus innocence at a trial, the risk of a wrongful conviction is high. Two police officers thought the sketch resembled Miller, a man they had questioned a few days earlier. John Worboyss victims alleged that he assaulted them after offering them champagne which he had spiked with drugs. Out on his porch and saw Flowers walking by that morning. However, Solicitor, Marilyn Stowe, had concerns about the expert evidence of Professor Meadow. Attributing that error to the unreliability of eyewitness memory is, in our view, pointing the finger of blame in the wrong direction. In the sad case of the 1960 Starved Rock murders, there were EIGHT confessions by Chester Weger made to different people at different times, including a re-enactment of the crime at the scene covered by more than a dozen reporters/photographers. Subsequent memory tests, including the dramatic one that occurs in court in front of the jury, constitute contaminated evidence. 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. 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. 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. It should be revived and approved. Because she had already servednine years and four months of her initial life sentence, she was released following the change of conviction. 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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. Abcarian: Mask mandates? 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. It is not uncommon for the Parole Board to instruct expert evidence from psychiatrists and psychologists. Ernest Saunders only served 10 months of his sentence before being released. 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. [Youre smart and curious about the world. The witnesses trial testimony reveals a simple explanation for these high-confidence errors: All of the eyewitnesses received confirmatory feedback following their identification of Grant. Thus, Chester was charged with three separate felonies as a way to overwhelm him and break him down. There, the prosecution claims that Flowers stole Doyle Simpsons gun from the glove compartment of Doyles unlocked car and then walked back to his home on the West side of town. If New Jersey can have statewide guidelines, so can California. In assessing the reliability of eyewitness identification, federal and state courts are still divided on (1) whether expert testimony on eyewitness identification should be allowed under either Daubert or Frye and (2) the proper exercise of trial court discretion when deciding whether to admit such expert testimony.18 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. 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. He served 61 years in prison before being released on parole in February 2020. Ultimately, eyewitness testimony is a powerful tool that has the potential to make or break a case. Publication Date: December 20, 2021 Eyewitness testimony in court is shown to highly sway the opinion of jurors. The processes at play in Lydell Grants case are predictable and unfortunately common. 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. According to the Innocence Project, mistaken identifications are the leading factor in wrongful convictions, accounting for almost 70 percent of the wrongful convictions overturned by post-conviction DNA evidence. 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). 25 A. G. Goldstein, J. E. Chance, and G. R. Schneller, Frequency of Eyewitness Identification in Criminal Cases: A Survey of Prosecutors, 27(1) Bulletin of the Psychonomic Society: 71, 73 (January 1989). 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. This allows jurors to make more informed decisions while evaluating particular eyewitness testimony. Juries are particularly prone to being swayed by eyewitness testimony, as evidenced in the Curtis Flowers case. You can get our highlights each weekend.]. Last updated: 27 February 2023. Renowned Expert witnesses include doctors, psychologists, psychiatrists, social workers, and other professionals who are instructed to give expert opinions in legal proceedings. No comments have so far been submitted. But theyve hit a snag. 23 United States v. Wade, 388 U.S. 230, 288 (1967). 22 Years later, in 1967, the U.S. Supreme Court highlighted the danger of erroneous eyewitness identification in United States v. His subsequent return to business raised further questions about the evidence that led to his early release. Additional Reading: Truth, Lies and Police Lineups, The Crime Report, May 5, 2021. 5 Brewer & Treyens, Role of Schemata in Memory for Places, Cognitive Psychology 13.2 (1981). Play it now! The pathologist discovered that one of the babies had in fact died from a viral infection, not cot death. But there is more to the story. But eyewitnesses allege she was severely beaten and died as a result of police brutality. The NRCs recommendations for law enforcement and judges are below.32. A meta-analytic review of the effects of high stress on eyewitness memory, Law and Human Behavior 28.6 (2004), 687-706. A cornerstone of the state's case is the video at or near the kennels filmed on Paul's phone starting at 8:44 p.m. in which Murdaugh's voice can be heard in the background. As an experimental psychologist who conducts research on eyewitness identification, Ive seen hundreds of examples of highly confident yet mistaken eyewitnesses both in the laboratory and in actual court cases. Another stated that the killers face was burned into [her] memory immediately.. The variables include: viewing conditions (lighting-distance-duration), distracting stimuli (weapons-loud noises) and internal states of the observer (attention-motivation-skill-prejudice). In 2009, he was charged with assaulting 12 women. Police said they believed Weger was a suspect in a rape that had occurred a few years earlier. Instructions given to eyewitnesses should be clear, simple and standardized across jurisdictions. 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 The Manson admissibility test consists of two steps. 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. 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. Sally Challen claimed she experienced years of emotional abuse before killing him with a hammer. 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. 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. 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