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Accuracy of an Eyewitness Testimony

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Accuracy of an Eyewitness Testimony
The Accuracy of an Eyewitness Testimony
Student: Amy Mason
Number: 2842657
Tutor: Serena Nicholls
Tutorial Time: Thursday 10am - 10:50am
Due date: Friday 21st September 21, 2012
Word count: 1858

Psychological research shows that eyewitness testimony is not always accurate, therefore it should not be used in the criminal justice system. Discuss.

The reliability if an eyewitness testimony is questionable. The witness may be so certain that the person that thy are pointing out is one hundred per cent the suspect or they could be so certain when it comes to retelling the incident, although these people are so sure on what it is they are doing, their testimony cannot always accurate. Due to the lack of accuracy with eyewitness testimonies, they should not be used as the most reliable piece of evidence.

The criminal justice system relies heavily on eyewitness identification for investigating and prosecuting crimes (Wells & Olson, 2003) because a testimony from an eyewitness is so strong within a case, you would expect the accuracy and reliability of that testimony to be very high. When we look at criminal statistics, we know that most victims know who the offender is, therefore the risk of an innocent misidentification is minimal (Howitt, 2012) It is circumstances where the victim and victimizer are strangers that can cause risk of an innocent misidentification (Howitt, 2012) When discussing the accuracy of an eyewitness testimony one should look at the Cotton case. Ronald Cotton was sentenced to life imprisonment after he was found guilty for rape. The victim and eyewitness, Jennifer Thompson had picked Mr. Cottons picture out of a group of pictures and also identified him in a line up. When the case went to court, when asked who attacked her the night of the incident, Thompson pointed to cotton. Because Jennifer had made such an effort to identify her attacker the night she was attacked, and had chosen Cotton in the lineup, his photo and in the
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