Eyewitness Testimony In Judicial System

Crimes occur in our society, and at times there may be an eye witness to a crime. Therefore, this eyewitness may need to testify in a court of what he/she saw that day the crime was committed. Eyewitness identification usually involves the selection of the perpetrator, either from a police lineup or police sketches. Once the police have a suspect, they ask the eyewitness to make a formal statement to confirm the identification of the perpetrator, they are also encouraged to try to recall other details that surrounded the crime scene (Arkowitz & Lilienfeld, 2010). Although an individual may be present when a crime occurs, how accurate are eyewitnesses of what they saw?

Eyewitness identification can be faulty, although it plays a big role in the investigational process and prosecution of crimes. Thus, it has been proven that eyewitnesses can make mistakes when identifying what they saw, causing very serious consequences for innocent bystanders. It is essential that when the judicial court system and the police use eyewitness testimonies every aspect of accuracy is practiced since it can affect a person’s life by being convicted or acquitted. There have been cases in our society where eyewitnesses have wrongfully identified a person with another, causing many innocent people to be convicted (Albright, 2017). Even when a person is witnessing a crime many situations can cause the eyewitness’s vision or processing of the crime inaccurate. For example, if a deadly weapon is used, the stress of the weapon being present can have the eyewitness focus mostly on the weapon instead of on the individual. Also, the eyewitness may freeze with stress or even during the identification process. Thus, if the criminal used a disguise like sunglasses, a wig, or a mask this can make identification harder and not as clear. Racial disparity is also an issue that is often faced; for example, a caucasian eyewitness may see a person from another ethnic group as black, though in reality, that person is hispanic (Arkowitz & Lilienfeld, 2010). Therefore, how accurate are eyewitnesses? As expressed in the article, there are almost 350 individuals whom many are serving a long prison sentence and those who have been absolved due to DNA not matching that of the crime scene. There is at least 70% of misidentification cases in the United States, where eyewitness testimony has failed and ended in the conviction of innocent people (Albright, 2017).

There has been much research conducted about the accuracy of eyewitness identification, and social scientists have been able to demonstrate that there is significant reason to be concerned about the sole use of eyewitness, due to accuracy. They emphasize how human’s flexible memory and visual perception can make an eyewitness testimony the most unreliable form of evidence for a case (Hurley, 2017). Researchers have been researching for more than a century on eyewitness testimony because of the defect of human memory and its huge role in wrongful convictions. In the 1990s, forensic DNA testing uncovered many wrongful convictions of innocent individuals, where eyewitness testimony was the main proof for the case (Quigley-McBride, Smalarz & Wells, 2018).

There are two larger views of eyewitness cognitions which include memory judgments and meta-cognitive contexts. For example, when an eyewitness is making a selection from a lineup, the eyewitness shows confidence in identifying the perpetrator during the lineup process. The lineup process consists of one actual perpetrator of the crime in question, and various fillers who resemble the perpetrator although are already known to be innocent of the crime (Gronlund & Benjamin, 2018). If an eyewitness does not recall all the information from the crime, then it is more probable that their recollection will be reconstructed by the information provided by the media, prosecutors, police, or even through other witnesses. As discussed by Scott D. Gronlund and Aaron S. Benjamin (2018), skepticism on eyewitness testimony and their confidence in identifying the perpetrator is malleable as a result of feedback and repeated drills to remember the events that occurred during the crime. Many factors can come into play when a witness is recalling events of a crime, such as feedback information and leading questions by officers. As suggested by scientists, eyewitness memory is malleable and when a witness receives confirming feedback it can also increase their confidence, although their sense of accuracy does not increase. With this being said, jurors and legal professionals must know these factors that can affect an eyewitness's capability to testify accurately.

According to the article, The new science of eyewitness memory, police, and the judicial system should not put that much emphasis or weight on eyewitness testimonies. This is believed because it is astonishing to realize how a witness who is not quite certain of what they saw during the crime, suddenly gain confidence on the stand in court and state with certainty what they say they saw (Gronlund & Benjamin, 2018). There is the probability that when an event occurs and it is processed by an individual (in this case an eyewitness) there are factors that can affect how the information is processed, and when the eyewitness needs to recall information, it can be altered. Even though eyewitnesses are used to identifying many perpetrators every year in the United States, and their given testimonies are known to be one of the most compelling forms of evidence that is presented to the jurors, it is not a hundred percent accurate; meaning it is not foolproof. A Minnesota Law professor named Steven Penrod has devoted his whole career to studying the reliability of eyewitness identification. He mentioned that an eyewitness can be one hundred percent confident about his testimony and still be one hundred percent wrong (Cutler & Penrod, 1996).

The single most common form of witness in a criminal trial is the eyewitness testimony, and even though research has proven that it is unreliable and the judicial system acknowledges the influence of eyewitness testimony and the poor reliability of their testimony, it is still practiced today, with outcomes that are affecting innocent lives. This can be a challenge for society if criminals tend to commit crimes and the innocent population is accused of committing the crime rather than the actual criminal due to mistaken identity. There are many criminal cases in the judicial court system where this has happened, though some cases have been overturned. For example, the case of Shaun Deckinga who was convicted of robbing several banks, and eyewitness testimony put him behind bars. Even when Shaun did not have a previous criminal record, other than illegally registering vehicles and using a fake address, he was still easily convicted of a crime he did not commit thanks to eyewitness testimony. Shaun Deckinga did not commit the robberies, but he shared a resemblance with the burglar who did. The burglar’s name was Jerome Thomas Clepper; who later confessed to robbing all the banks. Mr. Clepper tried to do things legally and open his own business; unfortunately, his business ended up failing which put financial pressure on Mr. Clepper. This made him desperate for money and was the reason he decided to start robbing banks to save his business. It would be easy to say that this where Mr. Deckinga’s nightmare begins, because of Mr. Clepper’s unreasonable ways to try and solve his money problems, but in fact, Deckinga’s nightmare really began with the weight put on the eyewitness testimony presented during his court session (Cutler & Person, 1996).

Eyewitness testimony also affects the field of psychology. Plenty of research has been done on eyewitness testimony and the outcomes demonstrate that eyewitness testimony can be unreliable, and courts and juries should be wary when they are evaluating eyewitness testimony. Even the American Psychological Association (APA), one of the most influential forces of psychology, has filed two friend-of-the-court briefs that support the idea of carefully analyzing eyewitness testimony in criminal cases (Azar, 2011). The APA is taking part in the reform of the criminal justice system in America and has expressed the limitations of eyewitness testimony since 1977. The effect of eyewitness testimony has been so impactful to society and to even the field of psychology that the APA filed their first brief in the Pennsylvania Supreme Court case Commonwealth of PA v Walker. Pennsylvania courts at one point in time did not allow defendants to call expert witnesses to speak about the limitations of eyewitness identification or to testify about the nature of human memory (Azar, 2011).

Conclusion

Due to all the research that has been done and is still being done on eyewitness testimony, the APA was able to have a say and encourage the criminal justice system to reform itself in a way. Today, defendants in Pennsylvania can call an expert witness to speak on the flaws of eyewitness identification. At the end of the day, eyewitness testimony will always serve as a challenge to both psychologies and society. Psychology has shown that human memory works in complex manners and can at times be faulty due to various factors, like stress or exposure to a weapon. Unfortunately, people can be persuaded by what other people say they saw, whether it be accurate or not. This plight will always affect society because innocent people may be incarcerated due solely to mistaken eyewitness testimony, and once someone is incarcerated, especially if it is for a long time, their lives will never be the same even if they really are innocent. At the same time, when innocent people are potentially being blamed for crimes, the actual criminals are running free potentially causing more harm to members of society.