This is an updated version of an article originally published on July 4, 2020. Witness misidentifications can affect both plaintiffs and defendants. But in 57 percent of those cases, it was possible to determine what happened on the initial (uncontaminated) memory test. The chance of a lifetime: Five friends ski the tallest mountain in Los Angeles, Shocking, impossible gas bills push restaurants to the brink of closures, Best coffee city in the world? The NRCs recommendations for law enforcement and judges are below.32. Publication Date: December 20, 2021 Eyewitness testimony in court is shown to highly sway the opinion of jurors. In Perry v. New Hampshire, the Supreme Court barred the defendant from challenging the eyewitness testimony proffered by the state, even though the circumstances surrounding the eyewitnesss identification of the defendant were decidedly suggestive. Some courts have held it as an abuse of discretion for a trial judge to bar the defense from admitting expert testimony on eyewitness identification. It is not uncommon for the Parole Board to instruct expert evidence from psychiatrists and psychologists. For every one of those tests, the eyewitnesses were, at best, uncertain. This is not always the case. The detective also admitted making a similar comment to at least one other witness. The involvement of expert witnesses in famous expert witness cases often leads to changes in how expert evidence is formulated and the effect it may have on the outcome of the proceedings. Finally, almost a year later, the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals declared Grant actually innocent on May 19, 2021. 3 Eyewitness Misidentification. The reliability of these alleged identifications was suspect, since the officers would have had only a fraction of a second to observe the driver whizz by them at a high rate of speed at night. Many more sit in prisons who have not had the opportunity to have their cases re-investigated or samples re-tested. Videos circulating on Twitter appeared to show dozens of UN diplomats walking out as he started to speak. 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. Readers speculate why, Letters to the Editor: Serious about the drought? University of Virginia law professor Brandon Garrett analyzed trial materials for 161 DNA exonerated individuals who had been misidentified with high confidence by one or more eyewitnesses in a court of law. Daryl G. Kimball and Frank von Hippel | Opinion. 22 Edwin M. Borchard, Convicting the Innocent: Sixty-Five Actual Errors of Criminal Justice (New York: Garden City Publishing Company, Inc., 1932). Guidance can help jurors who might not know what to make of conflicting testimony. On the strength of six eyewitnesses lineup identifications, Lydell Grant was sentenced to life in prison in 2012 for the murder of a young Texas man, Aaron Scheerhoorn, who was stabbed to death outside a Houston nightclub in 2010. 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. or debate this issue live on our message boards. 26 The Innocence Project, DNA Exoneree Case Profiles,. 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. In response to this issue, the National Research Council (NRC) formed a research committee in 2013 chaired by Judge Jed S. Rakoff of the Southern District of New York and cognitive scientist, Thomas Albright of the Salk Institute for Biological Studies.31 The group released their findings in 2014 in a report titled Identifying the Culprit: Assessing Eyewitness Identification. Ultimately, eyewitness testimony is a powerful tool that has the potential to make or break a case. Are you a scientist who specializes in neuroscience, cognitive science, or psychology? Andy Hale is a civil rights attorney, specializing in wrongful convictions in Chicago, Illinois. The way to avoid these problems with eyewitness testimony is for police to adopt best practices based on the psychological research. Yet, based on, among other things, this powerful purported eyewitness evidence, Heidelberg was convicted. But studies demonstrate that a variety of factors can lead to the misidentification of criminals. Do you ask other countries who are in our region but are allies of the United States the same kinds of questions that you're asking me about the women's hijab? John Worboys was given an indeterminate prison sentence. His subsequent return to business raised further questions about the evidence that led to his early release. 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. 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. Imagine if police let unauthorized people have willy-nilly access to a crime scene that is under investigation. Law enforcement officers, prosecutors, attorneys, and jurors need to realize that just because a witness says so does not make it so. It gathered more than 100 signatures from prominent lawmakers, human rights campaigners and celebrities. 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. 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. Most recently, in 2012, the Supreme Court clarified that the Due Process Clause does not require judges to assess the reliability of eyewitness identifications made under suggestive circumstances when the circumstances are not created by law enforcement officials.15 In other words, in cases where the proffered identification does not result from suggestive police procedure, the judge need not consider whether the identification also passes the second step of the Manson test. Its a stain on our justice system. 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. Get in touch with our team of experts today! 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. By posting your comment you agree to our house rules. 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. 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. Thanks for reading Scientific American. Two other eyewitnesses, a couple, remembered discussing their selection with one another and confirming each others decisions. A "double-blind" lineup or photo-array is when the person interviewing the potential eyewitness does not which of the persons in a photo array or lineup is the actual suspect. Second, the police lineup has to be fair (that is, the suspect should not stand out). After killing the officer, the shooter fled the scene and a high-speed car chase ensued. or debate this issue live on our message boards. If the contaminated evidence is relied on to establish guilt versus innocence at a trial, the risk of a wrongful conviction is high. However, there has yet to be research showing what ideal instructions would look like, as each case involving eyewitness testimony varies from each other. There, the prosecution claims that Flowers killed the people inside Tardys, stole money from the stole, and then went back home, stopping to buy chips and beer at a convenience store on Highway 51 on the way. 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. Psychological scientists, however, have challenged many of the assumptions of the legal system and the general public regarding the. Speak to our experts today for advice. Similarly, a witness may mistakenly perceive the circumstances of a crime or event, such as a car accident. He claimed police did not have the power to use firearms in the riots. The prosecution then claims that Flowers then walked again from his house to Tardy Furniture to commit the murder, passing an auto body shop and a drycleaner on the way, as well as Highway 51. Neighbors told arriving firefighters that they had heard a thunderous crash at about the same time as the blaze is believed to have begun. Eyewitness testimony can hold a lot of weight with jurors. As a result, witnesses who have received confirmatory feedback provide testimony that is highly persuasive to jurors. In much the same way, an eyewitness can be led to falsely remember someone committing a crime that was actually committed by someone else. 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. In reviewing the case, it is more than apparent that the convicted man had motive, opportunity and means to commit this crime. No comments have so far been submitted. Carter has now been indicted for the murder by a grand jury, and Lydell Grant was released from prison. My Blog cases where eyewitnesses were right. He added: 'I can tell you this in full confidence that our police and the security forces in Iran have not killed anyone with bullets or any other means in these riots.'. Mugshots of Lydell Grant (left, in 2010) and Jermarico Carter (right, in 2007) show the men dont look very similar. He was sentenced to 30 months in prison. The puzzling question in this case, though, is why did six eyewitnesses independently identify Lydell Grant as the killer and then confidently testify in court? 2 What facts gave rise to the belief that Leiterman may have been wrongfully convicted based on contaminated evidence? 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 Abcarian: Mask mandates? In Millers case, the two parking lot attendants were immediately suspicious when the victims car approached the ticket booth. 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. A witness may mistakenly identify a criminal suspect. 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). There have been hundreds of cases in which mistaken eyewitness identification testimony led to the conviction of innocent people. Thanks for reading Scientific American. Using eyewitnesses to identify a suspect as the perpetrator to the crime is a form of direct testimonial evidence that is used for forensic purposes. 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. Any evidence can potentially be contaminated, including what is considered to be the gold standard of forensic evidence: DNA. 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. What it means is that the malleability of memory can harm reliability. (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. 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. Eyewitness Testimony: Recommended Practices, Eyewitness testimony continues to be commonplace in law enforcement and trials. As with DNA evidence, eyewitness evidence needs to be safeguarded against contamination. A new version of that legislation, AB 308, is pending in the state Senate, though passage in this session is unlikely. According to the same theory, 33 years later, in 2002, in an almost inconceivable coincidence, evidence samples from Mixer, Ruelas and Leiterman just happened to be together again in the Michigan State Police Laboratory. But if the six eyewitnesses chose Lydell Grant from the lineup only because they were cued to do so by the case detective, why were they so confident in their identifications? One of my clients, Cleve Heidelberg, was convicted in 1970 of killing a Peoria County, Ill., sheriffs deputy who was responding to a call about an armed robbery at a drive-in movie theatre. I believe the remaining 25 states should act swiftly to prevent additional miscarriages of justice. While his potential release faced intense scrutiny, it demonstrates how influential an expert witness report can be. In one clip an unidentified Iranian woman can be heard saying: 'They are without shame and should be embarrassed. Expert witnesses are often instructed in cases where expert evidence is necessary to enable the court to understand specific issues, such as capacity, intent, causation etc. circuit court, the 29-year-old was convicted of a rape that he did not commit and was sentenced to five life sentences. She unsuccessfully appealed against her conviction in 2000. Does Irans Foreign Minister accept women can peacefully protest for change in Iran? He is the founder of Hale & Monico, Americas Justice Attorneys. Psychological experiments have shown that lineup administrators who know who the suspect is end up cuing witnesses toward that person. During the tense interview, Amirabdollahian claimed Mahsa Amini - the 22-year-old who died after being arrested by morality police for failing to wear the hijab - was turned into a 'symbol' by protesters. 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