One of my witnessing encounters was last week and it involved a clerk at a retail store. I was walking through the store to find the items I needed. I met Regina, a store clerk and I proceeded to communicate with her concerning items in the store and her day. She replied that she was having a bad week due to some unfortunate set of circumstances. I listened and we talked for a while as she restocked items in the store. She was very depressed about the way things were happening in her life. Which led me to ask Regina if she had any kind of spiritual beliefs? Regina communicated with me that she did not believe that there is a God or is not a God. Therefore, I ask Regina to read some scriptures out loud and she read Romans 3:23 and it said: 23 For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God; then I asked her does this say to you. She replied that everyone has done something wrong at some point in time in his or her life. At first, she thought that no one else has made as many mistakes as she did. She was very receptive in reading and sharing her thoughts on the scriptures I asked her to read. The next scripture was Romans 6:23 it says: 23 For the wages of sin is death; but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord; then I asked her what does this say to you? She responded by saying sin leads to death but, God gives me life through Jesus. I replied yes and because sin can send a person to hell. God allows us another chance through his son Jesus and he wants a relationship with each one of us.…
Steve Titus’s circumstances illustrates the dangers of source confusion during eyewitness testimonies. Source confusion occurs when the context and details of a stimulus are misremembered or confused with another stimulus, which may only appear familiar. In this case, Titus resembled a rapist who was wanted, as well as his car was similar to the rapist’s car. When Titus was shown in a lineup, he was picked out as the offender. This situation shows that people are capable of having no source memory, but can still have a sense of familiarity.…
In your view, what is a distinctive idea explored in Witness? Explain how this idea is developed throughout the text?…
People who report on events use many different ways to report on that event. Authors who cover events use either an objective or subjective point of view to describe an event such as a natural disaster. Both “The Story of an Eyewitness,” by Jack London, and “Letter From New Orleans: Leaving Desire,” by Jon Lee Anderson, both describe the effects of a natural disaster from an objective or subjective point of view. “Story of an Eyewitness” focuses on the initial earthquake and fires following it, while “Letter From New Orleans: Leaving Desire” focuses on the floods following the hurricane. Jack London wrote about the 1906 earthquake that took place in San Francisco, Jon Lee Anderson told about the flooding in New Orleans following Hurricane…
I would have to say that it depends on the eye witness. A human being has been proven to sometimes see things that are not actually there and believe things that never happened. The emotions that we have make us susceptible to having our perceptions skewed and out senses tricked. There's also the issue of someone lying for personal gain. That being said, I wouldn't say that eye witness testimony isn't reliable, but it can't be seen as infallible and should be able to hold up to a certain amount of scrutiny.…
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…
In society it is substantially common for people to be exonerated for a crime they did not commit. Unfortunately it is even more common for that to happen when they are incarcerated due to inaccurate eyewitness testimonies. Eyewitness research has demonstrated that there are a multitude of ways to conduct identification processes, however, the processes that police often use today are more likely to encourage inaccurate identification. In addition there have been many case studies of exonerated people that show the downfalls of eyewitness testimony. Wrongful incarceration has consistently demonstrated that inaccurate identification carries a big weight when it comes to wrongful identification, in fact, in the article Contamination of Eyewitness Self-Reports and Mistaken-Identification Problem by Laura Smalarz and Gary L. Wells, they state that there is an average of thirty three percent of witnesses who make an identification from a lineup identify a known innocent filler. There is a lot of thought behind the processes of identification but there are so many variables that can taint a subject’s confidence.…
The forensic technique eyewitnesses is a term meaning a person who has witnesses an event that is important to a criminal investigation or criminal justice trial. The eyewitness will at first tell a police officer what he or she have witnessed, but after telling the police officer the eyewitness may be required to do other things to help the investigation or trial as well. Nowadays the most normal thing a eyewitness will do is to point a person out in a line-up, but a eyewitness can also be required to witness at court and tell their story about what he or she witnessed. (http://www.simplypsychology.org/eyewitness-testimony.html). Eyewitnesses has always been used to help investigations and in the criminal justice system.…
I think that we should not go to war unless the United States’ military, citizens, or leaders are involved in the problem. A very good example of when we did help and it ended badly was what happened in Bosnia in 1992. Many different ethnic and religious groups lived together under a repressive communist government in Yugoslavia. In April 1992, Serbia set out to ethnically cleanse the Bosnian territory by removing all Bosnian Muslims, the Bosniaks, after the president Tito died in 1980. In 1993, The UN learned about this cleanse and made Sarajevo and many other places safe areas for Bosniaks. Slobodan Milosevic responded to the UN by attacking Bosniaks and surrounding Sarajevo. He blocked all roadways and closed down all the airports in Sarajevo. The Serbs then opened fire on thousands of UN peacekeepers and other citizens. This was the largest massacre in Europe since World War 2 by killing a rough total of 23,000 women and children and 8,000 men, which many were part of the UN aid. The UN tried to help again by sending thousands of flights to try and air lift the remaining people out of this unsafe area. In December 1995, the U.S. led negotiations that ended the conflict in Bosnia and provided a force to maintain the problems in the area until it was safe. Some could argue that the UN’s help was critical to stopping this issue, but I think it made it worst. I understand that the issue would have been terrible if no one stepped in but the Serbs didn’t actually do something until they noticed that the UN declared a safe zone. The UN making a safe zone made Milosevic angry and he then took over the safe zone. It was unnecessary for anyone to get involved in this issue besides the Serbs and Bosniaks. There were many deaths that could have been stopped if the UN just left the situation unfold by itself. I think that we should not go to war unless we are a part of the problem and this is a perfect example of…
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…
Crime seems to be on a rise, from low poverty areas to the white collar vicinities. Today’s technology however, is assisting with the apprehension of criminals through the means of cameras, computers, fingerprinting and others. However, something that technology cannot help with is to identify the exact actions of individuals, nor can you duplicate what is seen by others. Eyewitnesses are so important when it comes to the criminal process. It’s vital for individuals to give accurate account of crimes witnessed. It is just as important for those that are gathering the information, or witness statements, to assess each eyewitness correctly, for that statement can put an innocent man in jail and a criminal back in the streets.…
By the standards of the 1740s, this case should have been a draw. Their sole witness was a young, female servant. All three of those characteristics should have made her a null witness. Her status as a servant should have made her a bad witness by the standards of the day. Also, females at the time were not considered reliable witnesses and at many points in history, were not even allowed to testify in court.…
"Mistakes eyewitness identification has gone for 30 years now Identifying the innocent man up to life in prison, while the real perpetrator gets away like in U.S. Supreme Court decisions in Neil v. Bigger and Manson v. Brathwaite" (Criminal Evidence Thomas J. Gardner pg. 319)…
The goal of the criminal justice service is to protect the public, handle convicted offender in a proper way and give equal treatment. The United States has the largest incarceration rate in the world compared to other countries. More taxpayer is having to waste more money because of how much it cost to run the criminal justice system. The criminal justice system is ineffective because of bias law enforcement, mass incarceration and unfair court system…
The judge has to take into account that eyewitness descriptions are generally accurate regarding certain features such as sex, hair colour and any distinguishing features, whereas age, height and ethnic origin are rather inaccurate[7]. Hence, based on the eyewitness testimonies regarding the accused, Alan was identified as being present at the scene of the…