Eyewitnesses

Eyewitnesses:

Criminal Cases, Reliability, and Reducing Error

An eyewitness is someone who sees something happen, and in the Criminal Justice System, when officers are trying to identify a suspect, it makes their job easier if there is an eyewitness who can describe and/or identify the person accused of committing the crime. However, when officers are using eyewitnesses they need to understand just how unreliable some eyewitnesses can be, and how to get the most accurate information out of them. This paper focuses on three questions:

1. How is eyewitness testimony used in criminal cases?

2. How reliable is eyewitness testimony?

3. How can we reduce error from eyewitnesses?

How is eyewitness testimony used

in criminal cases?

Eyewitnesses are usually used as evidence against the defense in order to convict the defendant in criminal cases. Eyewitness testimony can be crucial to the outcome of the case. Elizabeth Loftus, who is recognized for her excellence in the research of eyewitness testimony, showed just how crucial eyewitness testimony could be in a study she performed. She presented a hypothetical murder case to three different groups of students. The first group only heard the circumstantial evidence; there was not an eyewitness. The second group heard the same circumstantial evidence, but there was a single eyewitness in their case. The third group heard the evidence and an eyewitness, but in their case the defense attorney discredited the eyewitness by telling them that the witness had 20/400 vision and was not wearing glasses.

What was the result? Well, in the first group, evidence only, only 18 percent voted for a conviction. In the second group, with one eyewitness, 72 percent of the students voted for conviction. And, in the third group, where the eyewitness was clearly discredited, 68 percent still voted for a conviction (Myers, 2005, p. 607).

After learning about this study, it is clear that eyewitnesses have a huge impact on criminal cases. I found a quote in one of my online sources that fits well here: “The bottom line is that criminal cases where an eyewitness is produced is more likely to result in a conviction” (Social…, 2005, p.1).

How reliable is

eyewitness testimony?

“At the turn of the millennium, DNA testing had exonerated more than 100 who had been convicted of crimes they did not commit, more than 75 percent of whom were victims of mistaken eyewitness identifications” (Myers, 2005, p. 608).

For many years, there have been all kinds of studies done about the reliability of eyewitnesses. Most of the studies proved eyewitnesses to be quite unreliable. Many of these studies were done on the misinformation effect; remembering misleading information (Myers, 2005, p. 612). An example of a study on the misinformation effect was one done by Elizabeth Loftus, where she showed memories could be manipulated by information presented to witnesses shortly after exposure to the event. In this study, there were two groups of students. Each group saw a series of clips from an automobile accident. In one