Ethical Issues With Eyewitness Testimony

Eyewitness testimony has long been viewed as important evidence in court cases. The general population believes eyewitness identification more than any other evidence, even if the witness account is conflicting with the other evidence presented. Studies show that eyewitness testimony is unreliable, and yet it is still considered the most important form of evidence. People think that if a person says they saw something then it must have happened. Currently there are no universal guidelines on how to obtain and present such evidence. The purpose of this paper is to explain why eyewitness testimony is unreliable, and discuss the proposed guidelines on how law enforcement agencies should gather identifications, as well how

There has been considerable interest and study in the accuracy or inaccuracy of the use of eyewitness testimonies in the current criminal justice system. Results collated by several studies add to the bulk of literature suggesting that the current usage of eyewitness testimony by the legal system is far from ideal. Currently, high emphasis is being placed on reviewing and reconsidering eyewitness accounts (Leinfelt, 2004). In particular, recent DNA exoneration cases have substantiated the warnings of eyewitness identification researchers by showing that mistaken eyewitness identification was the largest single factor contributing to the conviction of innocent people (Wells & Olson, 2003). In this essay, the use of eyewitness testimony in the criminal justice system will be explored, with a particular focus on the impreciseness of this practice.

In the past decade, eyewitness testimonies have cast a shadow on what is wrong with the justice system in today’s society. Before we had the advanced technology, we have today, eyewitness testimonies were solid cold-hard facts when it came to proving the defendant was guilty. However, time has changed and eyewitness testimonies have proven to be the leading causes of wrongful convictions due to misidentification. The Thompson and Cotton case is a perfect example of how eyewitness testimonies can put an innocent man behind bars.

In Canada, the leading cause of wrongful conviction is due to the factor of eyewitness account. It has been proven that individual’s minds are not like tape recorders because everyone cannot precisely and accurately remember the description of what another person or object looks like. The courts looks at eyewitness accounts as a great factor to nab perpetrators because they believe that the witness should know what they are taking about and seen what occurred on the crime scene. On the other hand, eyewitness accounts lead to a 70 percent chance of wrongful conviction, where witnesses would substantially change their description of a perpetrator.

It has been shown that eyewitness misidentification is one of the biggest factors in wrongful convictions, which has been overturned due to DNA (Innocence). Forensic evidence is one of the factors used to determine ones’ guilt or innocence in the court of law; however, some of the evidence used can pose a problem in court. Eye witness testimony has caused a lot of faults in court cases because it is portrayed as a strong factor of evidence. Eye witness testimony should not be used as primary evidence because of how unreliable, misidentified, and the impact it can have in the court of law. Eyewitness identification should have different alternatives in how it should be presented to the witness so that bias is not present.

An eye witness is a person who has personally seen something happen and so can give a first hand description of it. Every year, more than 75,000 eyewitnesses recognize criminal suspects in the U.S., and studies propose that as many as a third of them are wrong. Mistaken eyewitnesses helped convict three quarters of the people who have been freed from U.S. prisons base on DNA evidence presented by the Innocence Project. The Innocence Project is a nonprofit legal organization that challenges uncertain prosecutions. The California Innocence Project says that they are numerous reasons why eyewitness are mostly wrong. They are High Stress Environment and Trauma, Human Memory, and Suggestive Identification and etc. There are all these reasons that eyewitnesses have a high rate of error but, are still considered some of the most powerful evidence against a suspect. After a comprehensive two-year study of eyewitness testimonies, the New Jersey Supreme Court concluded that they often leads to fictional or false identifications. Thus, recently ordered that new rules on how such testimonies are treated in the courtroom. This is

To minimise the impact of a confident eyewitness in a courtroom, Wixted (2015) suggests that a jury needs to be made aware of any hesitation displayed at the time of initial questioning. It seems that An emphasis should be placed on the early stages of an investigation whilst removing the absolute reliance of courtroom testimonies. By educating a jury about the significance of initial non-identification, it would reduce the likelihood of these testemonies from becoming conclusive

Revealing the truth of the wicked eye, the certainty behind eye witness identification will not always remain hidden. Many innocent individuals have been wrongfully convicted on account of illegitimate witness statements and suspect identification. Faulty eye witnesses have been deemed the leading cause of wrongful convictions. Of the first 250 DNA exonerations in the United States, 190 of them appear to have involved mistaken identity (Benforado, 2015, p. 112). To resolve the problem of wrongful imprisonment due to false witness statements, the governors of each state should ensure that law enforcement enforce recording of witness testimonies in its entirety to verify factuality. In addition, the jurors should be informed on erroneous witness

Witness identifications are not 100% fail-safe. Research by Borchard (1932) supports sixty-five eyewitness errors in his book, Convicting the Innocent: Sixty-Five Actual Errors of Criminal Justice. Today, based on suggestive implications during lineups, the U.S. Supreme Court determined in the case of the United States v. Wade (1967) that criminal procedures also have a duty to protect a suspect’s

Eyewitness testimony has been used for many centuries and continues to be a part of our criminal justice system. Although, there has been many controversy debates on whether to allow the continuation of these testimonies in court, and allow it to be used as evidence. Eyewitness testimony can either be harmful or useful for an individual. We must fully analysis and see what certain factors (psychological, and age wise) come into the equation before coming up with final conclusions.

Having witnesses to resolve an issue is extremely beneficial, especially in court where evidence is needed to prove whether the defendant is guilty or innocent. However, it is unfortunately not always one hundred percent accurate due to the imperfection and complexity of human memory. This dilemma occurred with two men, Ronald Cotton and Dwayne Allen Dail, whom were both falsely convicted of a crime and sentenced to prison. These two men had to give up their freedom to spend years imprisoned because of a crime they didn’t commit and unreliable eyewitness testimony. While eyewitness testimony can be very valuable in crime solving, it can also wrongly strip away the freedom of innocent people.

In this paper I’m going to discuss the psychological issues that are used in prosecutors cases such as eyewitness identification, issues that have led to the wrongful convictions of defendants, and what is done to overturn these wrongful convictions. I will also start by defining eyewitness identification. Eyewitness identification is a person whose identification by sight of another person may be relevant in a criminal proceeding. (GS_15A-284.52.)

Eyewitness identification and testimony play a huge role in the criminal justice system today, but skepticism of eyewitnesses has been growing. Forensic evidence has been used to undermine the reliability of eyewitness testimony, and the leading cause of false convictions in the United States is due to misidentifications by eyewitnesses. The role of eyewitness testimony in producing false confessions and the factors that contribute to the unreliability of these eyewitness testimonies are sending innocent people to prison, and changes are being made in order to reform these faulty identification procedures.

There has been great controversy about utilizing eyewitness identification in courts as a reliable method of conviction. However, police officers, investigators, prosecutors, and the courts often rely on eyewitness identification and testimonies to prosecute criminals. Records show that eyewitness identification is the greatest contributing factor to wrongful convictions of criminals. More than 73% of more than 200 wrongful convictions in the United States have been overturned, and one third of these cases rested on the testimony of two or more mistaken eyewitnesses. I believe that eyewitness identification is not a reliable way of conviction because of the many different problems with memory such as reconstructive

I do agree that eyewitness testimony is not always reliable, because on my family history. Many people are doing time in jail or in a prison because of something he or she did not commit. People eyes can deceive them of what they thought they saw or seen. As well as a person might heard something they did not hear. With this in mind, everybody has perceptions. Mostly of the time the person perception of event of questioning is correct but mostly of the time it not. For instance, if a person can’t remember of what all she or he seen, they might go along with what the court official saying to fill in the empty spaces. This can cause a false testimony. Having a false testimony can destroy an innocent person’s life.