Here, too, there is a substantial body of research demonstrating that eyewitnesses can make serious, but often understandable and even predictable, errors (Caputo & Dunning, 2007; Cutler & Penrod, 1995). When a witness is uncertain about what (or who) they saw, they can be susceptible to suggestions made by other witnesses. She has studied the dynamic between a witness and a detective during photo lineups, and has observed that when an officer knows the identity of the suspect in the lineup, all kinds of subtle cues pass from the detective to the witness. Memory decay is also an issue with eyewitness testimony. Memories fade with time, and it's not uncommon for months if not years to pass before a case goes to trial. If an eager witness feels pressured by law enforcement to offer information, they might attempt to fill in the blanks when asked a question rather than admitting that they don't know. Imagine being convicted of a crime you did not commit because a single witness insists that they saw you do it. The nature of real, implanted, and fabricated memories for emotional childhood events: Implications for the recovered memory debate. False memories of childhood experiences. Eyewitness Testimony has been a controversial topic in court cases for as long as I can remember. Imagine for a second that you are walking to the parking lot after class and a man suddenly runs past you and grabs a purse off of the arm of another student and runs off. One of the pair was the original slide containing the stop sign; the other was a replacement slide containing a yield sign. Another one involved a man named Brandon Garrett from the University of Virginia School of Law who ended up analyzing 161 cases of eyewitness misidentification that ended up getting exonerated because of DNA (Ryan, 2015). Police believed that one suspect was responsible for both attacks.. Do you remember proposing marriage to the Pepsi machine? Supporting the unreliability of eyewitness testimony are two examples of case exonerations. There should be other ways to back it up in a court case, so that the jury does not rely solely on eyewitness testimony. Then subjects worked individually on 20 additional memory test questions. Eyewitnesses also have preconceived notions about the type of people who commit certain crimes. After more than 10 years, he was exonerated (and the real rapist identified) based on DNA evidence. Individual differences in imagination inflation. One factor would be age or age bias. The authors of a 2018 study concluded that “eyewitnesses typically provide reliable evidence on an initial, uncontaminated memory test, and this is true even for most of the wrongful convictions that were later reversed by DNA evidence.”. The alteration of this one word had a strong impact on the memory of the participants. Eyewitness Testimony Put Innocent Persons on Death Row Adams, Randall Dale (convicted 1977, exonerated 1989) — Mr. Adams was sentenced to death for the murder of a police officer in Dallas County, Texas. (Video). Read, D.F. But when Trina Gomez took the stand at the trial a few months later, she stared at Miles sitting at the table next to his lawyer and said, not in the presence of the jury, “He looks different.” Pausing, and then viewing him from another angle: “I’m sure that that’s him in the photo, but I’m not sure if that’s him over there.”. By Charlotte Silver | Vice | April 1, 2015. We will review the factors that influence the accuracy of eyewitness accounts, including leading questions by police officers. (Teamer had allegedly manned the getaway car.). These suggest that some people have the ability to direct their attention to multiple objects or elements of an eyewitness event, which can make their eyewitness memory more accurate, whereas others do not (Jenkins, 2018). One of these individuals is the police suspect, and the remainder are “foils” or “fillers” (people known to be innocent of the particular crime under investigation). At times, an entire criminal case is built on eyewitness reports. Using a false feedback manipulation, we have been able to persuade subjects to falsely remember having a variety of childhood experiences. The speed estimates the students provided were affected by the verb used to ask the question. Loftus, E. F. (1975). (2007). Paterson, H. M., & Kemp, R. I. Looking down the barrel of a gun: What do we know about the weapon focus effect? Lindsay, D. S., Hagen, L., Read, J. D., Wade, K. A., & Garry, M. (2004). Some of these cases are fairly old and may have begun when DNA testing was not possible, many women and men were sentenced to jail time for crimes they did not commit for long periods of times. Criminal justice reform advocates say what happened to Miles shows what’s wrong with the way eyewitness testimony is treated in America. Brown, A. S. (1991). Psychological science has taught us what some of those precautions might involve, and we discuss some of that science now. 2018;69:241-284. doi:10.1016/bs.plm.2018.09.006, Ⓒ 2020 About, Inc. (Dotdash) — All rights reserved, Verywell Mind uses only high-quality sources, including peer-reviewed studies, to support the facts within our articles. But some experimental psychologists believed that the memories were instead likely to be false—created in therapy. Memory in the Real World: How Reliable is Eyewitness Testimony? But to what extent is this necessary? Hyman, I. E., Jr., Husband, T. H., & Billings, F. J. Investigators also need to determine whether the individuals providing eyewitness testimony were influenced by other witnesses or the environment around them. Why Do Some Victims Develop Stockholm Syndrome? Eyewitnesses are often asked to describe that perpetrator to law enforcement and later to make identifications from books of mug shots or lineups. Experts on the task force were asked to develop guidelines for law enforcement to ensure that eyewitnesses would not be pressured, unconsciously encouraged, or persuaded to give false statements. It includes what happens during the actual crime to facilitate or hamper witnessing, as well as everything that happens from the time the event is over to the later courtroom appearance. (2004). The researchers argued that eyewitnesses are usually correct immediately after a crime takes place, but that their memories become contaminated during the process of interviewing and questioning. In 2002, the California Innocence Project picked Miles’s case out of the thousands of pleas for assistance they receive each year. Ross, J.D. Eyewitness testimony. The problems with memory in the legal system are real. With two strikes already on his record, Miles was sentenced to 75 years to life, in accordance with the state’s three strikes law. Takarangi, M. K., Parker, S., & Garry, M. (2006). Less often, an eyewitness will be shown a single photo and asked, “Is this the perpetrator?” However, single photos produce less accurate results compared to lineups. This process is modeled in laboratory studies of eyewitness identifications. Inaccuracies in eyewitnesses' memories can, in turn, lead to wrongful convictions. Myth: Eyewitness testimony is the best kind of evidence. Eyewitness identification procedures: Recommendations for lineups and photospreads. When Eyewitness Testimony Goes Horribly Wrong. Importantly, once these false memories are implanted—whether through complex methods or simple ones—it is extremely difficult to tell them apart from true memories (Bernstein & Loftus, 2009a; Laney & Loftus, 2008). Other sorts of memory biases are more complicated and longer lasting. The researchers asked if the now undergraduate students remembered each of these four events—introduced via short hints. One group of students was instructed to choose among the suspects in the lineup. Importantly, once these false memories are implanted—whether through complex methods or simple ones—it is extremely difficult to tell them apart from true memories (Bernstein & Loftus, 2009a; Laney & Loftus, 2008). In June 1998, an Orange County, California, bank was robbed. 2015;38(3):861. Seamon, J. G., Philbin, M. M., & Harrison, L. G. (2006). Effects of exposure time and cognitive operations on facial identification accuracy: A meta-analysis of two variables associated with initial memory strength. Eyewitnesses are often asked to describe that perpetrator to law enforcement and later to make identifications from books of mug shots or lineups. Law and Human Behavior. A person can be convicted of a crime or not convicted of a crime depending on how reliable the eyewitness is and how much they can convey to a jury (Bryant, 2020). How Does Misinformation Influence Our Memories of Events? Working memory can be controversial though, because someone who has a stronger working memory may be able to remember things better and store details in their long-term memory, which in turn would make them more reliable. The police have shown you a lineup of photos and asked you to identify the suspect. Miles wanted to break away from the life of gangs, crime, and prison that he had been locked into since dropping out of high school, according to his family. Berkowitz, S. R., Laney, C., Morris, E. K., Garry, M., & Loftus, E. F. (2008). Other researchers gave subjects unmanipulated class photographs from their childhoods along with a fake story about a class prank, and thus enhanced the likelihood that subjects would falsely remember the prank (Lindsay et al., 2004). Sometimes the lineups are target present, meaning that the perpetrator from the mock crime is actually in the lineup, and sometimes they are target absent, meaning that the lineup is made up entirely of foils. Make my memory: How advertising can change our memories of the past. stream Studies have shown that when law enforcement officials confirm a witness's choice in a lineup, the witness’s confidence is inflated. However, if police feedback suggests a witness failed to pick the “correct” suspect, the witness's confidence wanes, which can affect future court testimony.. As stated before, a lot of eyewitness testimony can rely solely on memory. Berkowitz, S. R., Laney, C., Morris, E. K., Garry, M., & Loftus, E. F. (2008). The physical evidence only weakly linked Cotton to the crime (including a boot print and a flashlight that appeared similar to one found at the scene). An "eyewitness" is typically a victim or bystander who was present at an event that is under criminal investigation (such as a robbery, assault, or murder). A memory error caused by exposure to incorrect information between the original event (e.g., a crime) and later memory test (e.g., an interview, lineup, or day in court). Three men made off with a little over a thousand dollars in cash. legally important event) and later gets up on the stand and recalls for the court all the details of the witnessed event As surely as physical evidence collected at a crime scene can be contaminated purposely or through carelessness, a witness’s memory can be sullied and rendered invalid.