Preview

eyewitness

Satisfactory Essays
Open Document
Open Document
551 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
eyewitness
From Fraser’s talking, I strongly agree his concern about the eyewitness identification testimony. I agree with Fraser that eyewitness testimonies are not reliable in some cases because “eyewitness testimony can be critiqued on several grounds, having impaired perception, having impaired memory, having inconsistent testimony, having bias or prejudice, and not having a reputation for telling the truth.” Even eyewitness testimony from honest people can sent innocent people in jail. Therefore, even if none of these characteristics apply, that does not mean that the testimony is credible. Human’s memory is partial complete and is always reconstructed. All our memories are reconstructed memories. They are the product of what we originally experienced and everything that’s happened afterwards.
Also, scientific plays important role when identify testimony in a criminal case. Not just based on eyewitness testimony, but also capable of analyze the evidence and atmosphere in order to find out a real crime. Scott Fraser said, “When it comes to witnesses in criminal trials, the accuracy of human memory can mean the difference between life and death.” False eyewitness testimony from sincere people can put innocent people in jail, but it also can free the criminals.
In conclusion, race also plays important role in eyewitness testimony. Eyewitnesses are more likely to misidentify people of a different race, and are less likely to misidentify people of their own race. Various hypotheses have been tested to explain this deficiency in identification accuracy, including any racial animosity on the part of the viewer, and exposure level to the other race in question. -What role do you think race plays in eyewitness testimony? having bias or prejudice
One of the most-studied topics in this area is the cross-racial identification, namely when the witness and the perpetrator are of different races. A recent meta-analysis of 25 years of research shows a definitive, statistically
Continue Reading
View Writing Issues

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Good Essays

    Ronald Cotton Case Study
    • 993 Words
    • 4 Pages

    Ronald Cotton Case Study

    In this system, both the police and the eyewitness do not know who the suspect is, and the witness gets informed that the police are not aware of the suspect. This process would have led to identification procedure, one that would not be a flaw and had no suggestive cues. The police could also use other features such as asking suspects to change their clad and to repeat the lineup. This case also indicates that in some contexts, the criminal justice system is not fair or equal to all. The minority does not get the same services with the majority in the system. If the suspect was white, perhaps the police could recommend a DNA test at first to remove the uncertainty in the identification procedure. Nevertheless, the police ruled on racial lines possibly due to hate, or laziness to conduct thorough and informed investigations. However, this notwithstanding, the police failed to follow the law whereby all people are equal before the law regardless of their race or social…

    • 993 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
    Read More
  • Better Essays

    How Did Jehovah's Witnesses Contribute To American Culture?
    • 1369 Words
    • 6 Pages

    How Did Jehovah's Witnesses Contribute To American Culture?

    Wells, G. L., & Olson E. A. (2001). The other-race effect in eyewitness identification: What do…

    • 1369 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Better Essays
    Read More
  • Good Essays

    The Pros And Cons Of Police Suspection
    • 666 Words
    • 3 Pages

    The Pros And Cons Of Police Suspection

    Many of which can affect the outcome of an identification. Just by simply changing a few ways they handle a witness they can avoid a misidentification. When conducting a lineup, the witness should be told that regardless of the outcome the lineup the investigation into the crime will continue on. After they completed the lineup the witness should complete a statement of confidence, stating how confident they are about the person they identified (Innocence Project, 2015). This way police can judge how the witness feels about the lineup. A police officer should have a good understanding of how a witness feels. According to Wells et al. (1998) researchers have realized that there is an importance in the confidence of the eyewitness. Even the Supreme Court has had eyewitnesses rate their certainty which has been taken into account of the eyewitness accuracy (p. 14). It can be intimidating going up in front of a courtroom. The confidence of a witness plays a huge part in court. Even if the suspect is the wrong one the jury is more likely to believe a confident witness over one who is…

    • 666 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
    Read More
  • Powerful Essays

    Eyewitness Identification: Supreme Court Case
    • 1638 Words
    • 7 Pages

    Eyewitness Identification: Supreme Court Case

    In this court case, the eyewitness identification of the truck was vital to the initial traffic stop of the vehicle. The 911 caller’s identification of the vehicle played a key role in the court as it served as evidence against the petitioners, so if the caller’s description of the vehicle was not accurate, the right truck would not have been found or the case could be dropped. In a study performed by Neil Brewer and Gary L. Wells, they identified several variables that impact the witness’s accuracy and instill a bias against the suspect. Some of these variables include cross-racial identification and poor lighting (Brewer & Wells, 2011). The cross-racial bias is when someone of one race is able to more easily identify another member of their own race, and their ability to identify someone of another race is impaired (Rutledge, 2016). In an effort to decrease the prevalence of the cross-racial bias, psychologists have recommended the use of double-blind lineups to hopefully discourage the administrator of the lineup from involuntarily indicating the witness to the suspect. Some prime routes to consider when trying to advance in the accuracy of eyewitness identification are decreasing the certainty of variables to explain the identification performance, and the inadequacy of scrutinizing interactions…

    • 1638 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Powerful Essays
    Read More
  • Good Essays

    The Cross-Race Effect
    • 470 Words
    • 2 Pages

    The Cross-Race Effect

    The cross-race bias, also called as own-race bias or cross-race effect, in recognizing faces is the idea that people can better recognize faces from their own race, relative to those of other races. In brief, the theory explains how it is easier to focus on individualistic features to differentiate individuals within their own face, but not in other-race faces due to lack of familiarity. This is particularly important in evaluating how accurate eyewitness identification is: cross-race effect plays an important role in the process of identifying the true culprit among the suspects, particularly when the victim and the assailant are of a different race (Hourihan).…

    • 470 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
    Read More
  • Powerful Essays

    Picking Cotton
    • 1915 Words
    • 8 Pages

    Picking Cotton

    Details in our lives become less and less important every single day, but what happens when we are to encounter a traumatic experience such as a kidnapping, murder, fight or rape. Our minds go blank, our hearts start pumping blood to every vital organ, and we prepare our selves for the flight or fight.…

    • 1915 Words
    • 8 Pages
    Powerful Essays
    Read More
  • Good Essays

    Annotated Bibliography On Living In Partner-Violent Families
    • 713 Words
    • 3 Pages

    Annotated Bibliography On Living In Partner-Violent Families

    The researchers hypothesized that stronger ethnic identification will predict higher perceived discrimination by the police. The research design used in this study was a on-going longitudinal study of juvinelle offenders. This study consisted of interviews that covered background, characteristics, indicators of individual context, personal relationships, and community context. The dependent variable was direct contact. This consisted of individuals having direct experiences with the police using fourteen items to assess the individuals. The independent variable was respondent characteristics. They operationalized the independent variable by participants gender, age, adults present in the home and level of mothers education were used as covarties in the analysis. The population of this study consisted of 1,354 adjudicated youth that were 14 to 18 years old. This population of youth were from juvenile and adult court system. 556 were African American youth. The results from this study showed that youth with stranger sense of ethnic identity perceived more police discrimination, but reported more positive beliefs about police…

    • 713 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
    Read More
  • Satisfactory Essays

    Mistaken Eyewitness Identification
    • 107 Words
    • 1 Page

    Mistaken Eyewitness Identification

    The reliability of eyewitness identification has attracted concern from legal professions in England for a number of years, particularly following the acknowledgment of the erroneous identifications responsible for convicting Adolf Beck in 1904. The case was followed by the Establishment of the Court of Appeal in England and Wales (Bromby, MacMillan & McKellar, 2007). Mistaken eyewitness identification testimony was central to the convictions of innocents who were later exonerated by forensic DNA testing (Gary L. Wells). Although through studies information has been acquired about how to decrease the likelihood of mistaken identifications, many courts around the world still conduct identification using approaches largely unsupported by scientific…

    • 107 Words
    • 1 Page
    Satisfactory Essays
    Read More
  • Good Essays

    Eyewitness Misidentification
    • 252 Words
    • 2 Pages

    Eyewitness Misidentification

    I am completely appalled by the fact that we are still giving so much credit to the accounts of eyewitnesses. As we have learned in our studies, our memories easily become contaminated by things like, post-event misinformation, retroactive interference, errors in source monitoring, not to mention things like the stress of the event, which can also influence our memories (Matlin, 2012). If fact the act of recalling an event is more like trying to put together a puzzle with missing pieces, than simple reviewing a video. And when we take into account that “eyewitness misidentification is the greatest contributing factor to wrongful convictions proven by DNA testing, playing a role in more than 70% of convictions overturned through DNA testing…

    • 252 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
    Read More
  • Good Essays

    Eyewitness Testimony Analysis
    • 1862 Words
    • 8 Pages

    Eyewitness Testimony Analysis

    Elizabeth Loftus knows the value of memory, as she serves as an expert witness on memory. In Evidence-based justice: Corrupted memory, Moheb speaks about Elizabeth Loftus as an expert witness, and details factors that effects a person’s memory (Moheb, 2013, p.268). Loftus states that memory is easily influenced (Moheb, 2013, p.269). According to Loftus, it is more difficult to identify someone who is a different race than the one they are (Moheb, 2013, p.269). She played as an expert witness in a case where a man was trying to rape a woman (Moheb, 2013, p.269). The rapist fled away, and the victim described the man to the police. She identified a man whose car had broken down on the street, as the criminal (Moheb, 2013, p.269). He fit some of the descriptions of the man that the victim was describing. Because Loftus was able to serve as an expert witness, and explained that the woman was in a stressful situation, an innocent person was able to walk freely (Moheb, 2013, p.269). As an expert witness she points out that or memories are not “recordings of actual events.” Loftus is trying to have a policy passed, that jurors are to be informed of the faultiness of eyewitness testimonies (Moheb, 2013,…

    • 1862 Words
    • 8 Pages
    Good Essays
    Read More
  • Powerful Essays

    Eyewitness Testimony Research Paper
    • 2876 Words
    • 12 Pages

    Eyewitness Testimony Research Paper

    These wrongful convictions played a major role in more than 75% of wrongful convictions overturned by DNA testing (The Innocence Project, 2010). Although eyewitness testimony can be critical evidence before a judge or jury; 30 years of strong social science research has proven that eyewitness identification is often unreliable. The research which was conducted by the Innocence Project revealed that the human mind is not like a tape recorder or video camera; we neither record events exactly as we see them, nor recall the instance exactly how it occurred. Nevertheless, witness memory is like any other evidence at a crime scene, it must be documented carefully and retrieved methodically and quickly, or it can be contaminated (The Innocence project 2010). We as people can carry fibers, through our clothing, skin and hair that can cause the contamination of a crime scene just by not following proper procedure. Furthermore, in these types of cases, DNA has proven what scientists already know, that eyewitness identification is frequently…

    • 2876 Words
    • 12 Pages
    Powerful Essays
    Read More
  • Satisfactory Essays

    Implicit Stereotypes
    • 355 Words
    • 2 Pages

    Implicit Stereotypes

    Implicit biases are particularly relevant to the law enforcement decision-making process because they link certain groups with traits related to crime and violence. For example, stereotypes linking African American adolescents to aggression suggest that people precieve behavior by an African American youth as more aggressive than behavior similarily displayed with white adolescents, in addition to violence, danger and hostility [citation-Duncan 1976]. These same stereotypes indicate an aspect of criminality, which is particularily important when assessing whether a suspect poses a threat to personal safety. Furthermore, research suggests that the race of an adolecent will influence these perceptions of threat [citation-Devine 1995]. As first point of contact, law enforcement…

    • 355 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
    Read More
  • Good Essays

    Facial Features Eyewitness
    • 996 Words
    • 4 Pages

    Facial Features Eyewitness

    Studies show that witnesses identify those from one’s own race better than those of a different race (Alley & Schultheis, 2001). Smith, Stinson and Prosser (2004) suggested the suspect’s race can affect clarity of memory and confidence of witness identification decision. Knuycky, Kleider and Cavrak (2014) suggested different races have stereotypical facial features, which may be perceived and remembered differently. These could lead to feelings of familiarity and misidentification (MacLin & Malpass, 2001). To overcome this cross-racial effect, Wells and Olson (2001) suggest police investigators could use same-race lineup constructors or more fillers. However, most of these studies were conducted with a facial recognition paradigm, which is not as ecologically valid as a field study (Sporer, 2001). Ecological validity is important as it demonstrates real-world applications and the study’s relevance to the…

    • 996 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
    Read More
  • Good Essays

    Wrongful Convictions
    • 939 Words
    • 4 Pages

    Wrongful Convictions

    Eyewitness Misidentification alone is the greatest cause of wrongful convictions nationwide, playing a role in 72% of convictions. It’s unbelievable because research shows that memory is malleable and that an eye witness who is uncertain, can become much more certain over time. I also learned that when an eyewitness identifies a suspect it’s possible the police unconsciously provides information to them. Officers also try and use one suspect in multiple procedures with the eyewitness and that will increase the witness’s confidence to…

    • 939 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
    Read More
  • Satisfactory Essays

    Racial Profiling Interview Essay
    • 464 Words
    • 2 Pages

    Racial Profiling Interview Essay

    A: When police use race as a proxy for criminal suspicion, it puts all of us at risk. In October 2002, a group of senior international anti-terrorism law enforcement officials released a memo entitled Assessing Behaviors, asserting that the only effective method of…

    • 464 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
    Read More

Related Topics