When proper procedures are not followed, the potential for error exists. Thanks for reading The Crime Report! If a judge finds the eyewitness testimony unreliable, he can suppress its use at trial. The transcript from Lydell Grants trial revealed that the homicide detective in charge of investigating the case administered the lineup to the eyewitnesses. Unfortunately for Lydell Grant, these reforms came a year too late. The court tried to deter false identification with a stepped process. This created an inherent bias that made the lineup unfair, and likely affected the victims subsequent identification. I am currently involved in another case in which the failings of witness identification are starkly evident. Therefore, it is important that the individuals allowed to testify are accurate in their recollections. I can vouch for the truth of his observations, having been involved in several cases dealing with witness misidentifications while representing both plaintiffs and defendants. During Wednesday's interview with CNN, Amirabdollahian accused western media outlets of encouraging violent protests in his country. Nationally, more than 75% of convictions that have been overturned because of DNA evidence involved erroneous eyewitness testimony. There are a few ways in which eyewitness testimony can be inaccurate. Similarly, a witness may mistakenly perceive the circumstances of a crime or event, such as a car accident. The puzzling question in this case, though, is why did six eyewitnesses independently identify Lydell Grant as the killer and then confidently testify in court? Miller was placed in a lineup and one of the parking lot attendants positively identified Miller; the other parking lot attendant tentatively identified him. Her defence had argued that the children had died of Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS), but expert witness, Sir Professor Roy Meadow, told the court that the probability of two children from an affluent family suffering SIDS was 1 in 73 million. She questioned the statistical basis of Professor Meadows evidence, which had led to Sally Clark being sentenced to life in prison. In the sad case of the 1960 Starved Rock murders, there were EIGHT confessions by Chester Weger made to different people at different times, including a re-enactment of the crime at the scene covered by more than a dozen reporters/photographers. Specifically, the eyewitness had identified the defendant from her window, as the defendant was standing in the dark next to a police officer; however, the eyewitness had pointed to the defendant spontaneously, without the police asking her to do so.16 The Court ruled that, because the police had not induced the identification under suggestive circumstances, the trial judge had not erred in admitting the eyewitness testimony without assessing its reliability under the second step of the Manson test.17 Mr. Nonetheless, the attendants mistakenly identified Miller in a subsequent police lineup. In one clip an unidentified Iranian woman can be heard saying: 'They are without shame and should be embarrassed. Create your free account or Sign in to continue. Several police officers reported and later testified at Heidelbergs criminal trial that they observed him driving the subject vehicle as it sped past them at various points during the chase. Once this fact is appreciated, then proper testing protocols can be put in place to minimize the likelihood that the original memory trace is contaminated. In this case, 120 eyewitnesses from as far north as Grants Pass, Ore., to as far south as. 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Another stated that the killers face was burned into [her] memory immediately.. Are you a scientist who specializes in neuroscience, cognitive science, or psychology? And third, the confidence expressed by the eyewitness following an identification of someone from the lineup must be recorded. Its a stain on our justice system. Medicolegal court reports are requested where expert witness evidence is required. Instructing an expert witness is not unusualthere are many much-publicised cases where the role of expert evidence has been significant. The prosecutor, Doug Evans, tried Curtis Flowers, a former employee at Tardy, six times for the crime.29 The Flowers case relied on three key points of evidence: (1) the eyewitness testimony of people who placed Curtis Flowers on the route from his home, to steal a gun, back to his home and then to Tardy to commit the murders and then home again (2) ballistics and (3) jailhouse confessions.30 was a video tape, and his presence and the time of the event were confirmed by two athletic directors, his coach, and members of the opposing team. 28 Brandon L. Garrett, Convicting the Innocent: Where Criminal Prosecutions Go Wrong 6368 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2011). The modern test for the admissibility of eyewitness testimony at a criminal trial under the Due Process Clause was established by the U.S. Supreme Court in Manson v. Brathwaite in 1977. Now the influential New Jersey Supreme Court has instructed police and judges to take into account an array of responses that might prevent mistaken identifications. You have, Witnesses are Often Wrong: The Case Against Eyewitness ID, Florida City Creates Youth Curfew to Deter Juvenile Crime, Legislator Introduces Laws to Protect Law Enforcement After Temple University Cop is Killed in the Line of Duty, Oversight Report Shows Issues with DOJ Collection of Deaths in Policy Custody Data, Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License, New York-Based Chinese Gang Steals 3,000 Texas IDs in Cyber Fraud Case, Murdaugh Murder Trial Jurors to Visit Crime Scene, Heartbreakingly Evil: DOJ Strengthens Fight Against Elder Fraud, Sex Abuse of Athletes: Dont Tell is No Longer an Option, Criminal Justice Journalism Wins Pulitzer Prizes, View from the Trauma Center: Why Gun Violence Persists. Judges should strive to make sure the jury is informed of all of the identifications an eyewitness has made prior to the trial. In Millers case, the two parking lot attendants were immediately suspicious when the victims car approached the ticket booth. Recently though, with the rise of social science, eyewitness testimony has taken a tumble from its lofty standing. Hale is an Emmy-nominated executive producer for several true-crime documentaries highlighting wrongful convictions. Eyewitness memory is reliable when initially tested using proper procedures, but the legal system nonetheless habitually relies on unreliable (contaminated) eyewitness evidence from later IDs. Neighbors told arriving firefighters that they had heard a thunderous crash at about the same time as the blaze is believed to have begun. Your comment will be posted to MailOnline as usual. He served 47 years in prison before his conviction was vacated in 2018. Eyewitness testimony done right L.A. Times Archives Sept. 8, 2011 12 AM PT To many Americans including many jurors eyewitness testimony is the gold standard when it comes to evidence. This section will focus on the courts current treatment of eyewitness testimony. A letter by UN Watch - a Geneva-based organization monitoring activities of the UN - urged all 193 members to leave the meeting. Some professionals have questioned whether this case has led to heightened caution when considering capacity and fitness in cases where dementia and cognitive impairment are diagnosed. The psychiatrist formed an opinion of her mental state at the time of the homicide. Arizona State University provides funding as a member of The Conversation US. 32 National Research Council, Identifying The Culprit: Assessing Eyewitness Identification 38, 4-8 (2014). Eyewitness testimony can hold a lot of weight with jurors. The processes at play in Lydell Grants case are predictable and unfortunately common. Daryl G. Kimball and Frank von Hippel | Opinion. Retrieved March, 2019. By itself, that fact only shows that contaminated memory is unreliable (just as contaminated DNA evidence is). Imagine if police let unauthorized people have willy-nilly access to a crime scene that is under investigation. Alex Murdaugh's defense attorneys will deliver their closing arguments in his murder trial on Thursday as they seek to raise reasonable doubt about whether he killed his wife and son in 2021. Marilyn Stowe instructed a pathologist to review the medical notes of both infants. Women in Iran have all the necessary, required freedoms within the framework of the law,' he added. After she had spent several years in prison, an independent consultant psychiatrist was instructed as an expert witness. This helps to safeguard against overly eager police officers who might implicitly encourage eyewitnesses (with tone of voice, body language, etc.) COVID origins? But eyewitnesses allege she was severely beaten and died as a result of police brutality. Thanks to the work of the Innocence Project of Texas, new DNA testing on biological material collected from underneath the victims fingernails cleared Grant and implicated another man, Jermarico Carter, who police said confessed to the killing. The same is true of eyewitness memory: memory can be contaminated with the trace of an innocent person, but under proper testing conditions, eyewitness evidence is highly reliable. As a result, witnesses who have received confirmatory feedback provide testimony that is highly persuasive to jurors. Does Irans Foreign Minister accept women can peacefully protest for change in Iran? Andy Hale is a civil rights attorney, specializing in wrongful convictions in Chicago, Illinois. . Psychologists have learned a. Research has repeatedly demonstrated that simple confirming comments such as these have dramatic effects on eyewitnesses testimony. What would that mean for the reliability of the blood or fingerprint evidence, for example, collected at that scene? In one study, people playing the role of jurors were able to reliably distinguish between accurate and mistaken eyewitnesses when the witnesses had not received any confirmatory feedback. Compiled by Ann Njarara, Bree Peilen, Daniel Neuman, Emory Cook, Linda Lin, and Perrin Lowrey, Introduction Eyewitness misidentifications are known to have played a role in 70 percent of the 349 wrongful convictions that have been overturned based on DNA evidence (so far). In an effort to overwhelm Chester and break him down, he was placed in a lineup regarding two incidents that took place in 1959 in a nearby State Park called Deer Park, one of which was that rape case and the other was a purse snatching. Consider the important, and often overlooked, distinction between malleability and reliability. Iran's foreign minister could not stop smirking as he was grilled about his country's record on women's rights in a combative interview with CNN's Christiane Amanpour on Wednesday. Instructions given to eyewitnesses should be clear, simple and standardized across jurisdictions. But a closer examination of those witnesses testimonies reveals a few disconcerting factors: the earliest testimony from a witness came a month after the murders, and other testimony came nine, twelve months later. Because she had already servednine years and four months of her initial life sentence, she was released following the change of conviction. Expert evidence may be important in determining the right outcome. In Manson, the Supreme Court highlighted reliability as the linchpin in determining the admissibility of identification testimony and adopted a totality of the circumstances test to assess reliability in this context.10 Episode 3: Eyewitnesses. Yes, the 1959 Matthiessen (Not Deer Park) State Park rape/robbery played a role in Wegers arrest (the rape victim ALSO ID Weger separately and BEFORE the line-up mentioned here), but it played NO role (not mentioned at all) in his trial or subsequent conviction. What law enforcementand the publicneeds to know. In addition to implementing double-blind lineup procedures, its essential that lineup administrators document eyewitnesses confidence immediately following an identification. Knowledge awaits. (2017). Prosecutors, though, have no murder weapon, bloody clothes or eyewitnesses, leaving them to build their case about Murdaugh's murky timeline of his whereabouts when the crime happened in 2021 . Judges should include within jury instructions clear and concise instructions on how to evaluate and make use of eyewitness testimony during their deliberations. According to the Innocence Project, mistaken identifications are the leading factor in wrongful convictions, accounting for almost 70 percent of the wrongful convictions overturned by post-conviction DNA evidence. Pregnant), Left and got about 1-2 blocks away and saw a man running west, away from downtown, it was her neighbor Flowers, Clemy pointed it out to Roy but Roy did not recognize him, Couldnt remember his clothes or shoes, did not describe seeing blood on him, Latarsha, Clemys cousin, remains convinced that Clemy made up the story because she felt pressured by law enforcement and because she might be able to get money Latarsha was also taken by the police at 19 to be asked questions and Johnson implied that she might get some of the reward money (30k) if she corroborated, Saw a man running across the street 1-2 blocks away that day of the murders, he was alone (not with Clemy) and it was earlier in the morning and when he was with Clemy later, they did not see anybody running, Law enforcement came and found Roy and he ended up giving a statement to John Johnson, Was shown Flowers picture (school picture) ONLY Flowers asked if that was the person Roy saw running Roy said no and John Johnson pushed Roy that it was Flowers and that Clemy was with him when it happened eventually Roy said he broke down and agreed to the story because he wanted to get out of there (he was afraid of Johnson), After that, Johnson recorded Clemy telling her story of seeing Flowers running away from downtown. Scientific best practices for conducting eyewitness lineups require that the person administering the lineup not know who the police suspect. Los Angeles, Review: A reimagined Secret Garden fails to flower anew at the Ahmanson Theatre, Editorial: Ousting L.A. Countys chief probation officer isnt enough. Its a fact that eyewitnesses make mistakes. John Wixted is a Distinguished Professor of Psychology at the University of California, San Diego. By posting your comment you agree to our house rules. In this case, the defendant was charged with first degree murder and the only evidence against him was the testimony of two eyewitnesses. So are The Conversations authors and editors. 'This is not the way to conduct an interview. A "double-blind" lineup or photo-array is when the person interviewing the potential eyewitness does not which of the persons in a photo array or lineup is the actual suspect. Of course, he knew that Lydell Grant was the one under suspicion. In recent years, more and more jurisdictions have come to accept expert testimony on the reliability of eyewitness identification. His subsequent return to business raised further questions about the evidence that led to his early release. This opinion differed from the opinions formed by the other professionals, who concluded that John Worboys should remain in prison. Following criticism of the decision, the high court ordered the parole board to re-examine Worboys case. To see why, let us revisit those DNA exoneration cases that so often involve eyewitness misidentification. It should be revived and approved. The parole board initially approved him for release. Three of the eyewitnesses reported that the detective told them that they had picked the same person other people had, though the detective himself denied having made such statements. Farm Heroes Saga, the #4 Game on iTunes. Videos circulating on Twitter appeared to show dozens of UN diplomats walking out as he started to speak. Law enforcement officers, prosecutors, attorneys, and jurors need to realize that just because a witness says so does not make it so. He claimed police did not have the power to use firearms in the riots. What facts gave rise to the belief that Leiterman may have been wrongfully convicted based on contaminated evidence? But studies demonstrate that a variety of factors can lead to the misidentification of criminals. But there is more to the story. Thanks for reading Scientific American. The sooner police, prosecutors and judges understand that fact, the better off we all will beincluding you, if you are ever incorrectly fingered by an eyewitness. The variables include: viewing conditions (lighting-distance-duration), distracting stimuli (weapons-loud noises) and internal states of the observer (attention-motivation-skill-prejudice). Historically, eyewitness testimony has been in use not only in the United States and our penal system but all around the world. Some elements include the following: First, and most important of all, because the test itself contaminates memory, only the initial memory test provides uncontaminated results. Most of these witnesses personally knew Flowers, and many had grown up with him, lived in his same neighborhood. As an experimental psychologist who conducts research on eyewitness identification, Ive seen hundreds of examples of highly confident yet mistaken eyewitnesses both in the laboratory and in actual court cases. Editorial: Los Angeles County bus riders get no shelter from the storm, Before and after photos from space show storms effect on California reservoirs, Dramatic before and after photos from space show epic snow blanketing SoCal mountains, Yet more rain expected to hit California in March. Many believe that this conviction was based on contaminated DNA evidence. Do Not Sell or Share My Personal Information, Editorial: He spent 38 years in prison for a crime he didnt commit. This can be true even in situations where the witness has an ample opportunity to observe the offender. For every one of those tests, the eyewitnesses were, at best, uncertain. Moreover, confirmatory feedback can alter witnesses memories of the original crime, making them less able to recognize the actual perpetrator when they see him again. 15 Perry v. New Hampshire, 565 U.S. 228, 248 (2012). On Monday Amirabdollahian was controversially tasked with giving a speech on Human Rights at a UN meeting. Chester denied having anything to do with these other crimes but was identified by the victims based on these suggestive procedures. Last updated: 27 February 2023. Years later, in 1967, the U.S. Supreme Court highlighted the danger of erroneous eyewitness identification in United States v. Wade, stating, The vagaries of eyewitness identification are well-known; the annals of criminal law are rife with instances of mistaken identification.23 The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) estimates that U.S. law enforcement made 12,196,959 arrests in 2012. The Louisiana Supreme Court remanded the case based on prosecutorial and police misconduct, including improper argument at the trial and failure to disclose the existence of exculpatory witnesses. Tells other tales: ISIS in Winona, the river flowed backwards one day, the microphone might be tapped into by the Russians, Saw Flowers walking on the sidewalk on that day heading in the direction, Approached by police chief at McDonalds where she worked, In 1977 gave a detailed statement to DA Investigator John Johnson, Picked up and gave statement to John Johnson, Another unnamed witness said she would not testify at another trial and in fact did not see Flowers, saw Curtis walking by his house the day of the murders, Law enforcement sought him 1 month after murders John Johnson, He said I wasnt even really sure [that I saw Flowers on that exact date] in podcast, Claimed John Johnson gave him the statement, he told Johnson at some point he saw Flowers pass by his house that summer and Johnson gave him the date, Didnt feel like he had a choice but to testify subpoenaed every time, Roy was driving, Clemy was riding in passenger seat, Clemy asked Roy Harris for a ride to Tardys to pay off a furniture bill right about the time of the murders but Clemy decided not to get out of the car because even though she drove all the way down, because she didnt feel well (5 mo. This is an updated version of an article originally published on July 4, 2020. Thirty Years of DNA Forensics: How DNA Has Revolutionized Criminal Investigations., See here: Innocence Project, Eyewitness misidentification, Crime in the United States 2012: Persons Arrested,. 2 The Innocence Project found that out of 138 cases, two-thirds of the DNA exonerated cases were due to an eyewitness testimony (Howitt, 2012). You can get our highlights each weekend.]. Compared to administrators conducting double-blind lineups, these informed administrators are more likely to ask witnesses about the suspect and smile when witnesses are looking at the suspect rather than at another person in the lineup. Thus, Chester was charged with three separate felonies as a way to overwhelm him and break him down. There have been many famous expert witness cases. Chester Weger was convicted in 1961 of the notorious Starved Rock Murders, in which three women were brutally killed and their bodies left in a park located in LaSalle County, Illinois about two hours southwest of Chicago. Thanks for reading Scientific American. The NRC found that police officers and detectives are frequently uninformed of what the best practices concerning gathering eyewitness testimony are. It is not uncommon for the Parole Board to instruct expert evidence from psychiatrists and psychologists. (The Los Angeles Police Department does not conduct blind photo lineups, nor does it follow the commissions related recommendation that witnesses be shown photos one at a time. The case shed renewed light on the country's treatment of women, with a growing number of female Iranians choosing to flout the Sharia-based law to wear the hijab. Expert witnesses are often instructed in cases where expert evidence is necessary to enable the court to understand specific issues, such as capacity, intent, causation etc. Well ask you to confirm this for your first post to Facebook. His offences led to him being named the black cab rapist by the UK press. Following a protracted trial,Saunders was found guilty ofconspiracy, theft, and false accounting. Additional Reading: Truth, Lies and Police Lineups, The Crime Report, May 5, 2021. For example, 21 police departments in the state conduct blind photo lineups, in which the person administering the viewing doesnt know who the suspect is. Ruling in the case of a man convicted of manslaughter and aggravated assault, the court noted that several variables can produce mistaken eyewitness testimony. 22 Edwin M. Borchard, Convicting the Innocent: Sixty-Five Actual Errors of Criminal Justice (New York: Garden City Publishing Company, Inc., 1932). It is important to strive to continue to conduct social science research on the nature of eyewitness and the efficacy of potential reforms like the ones above in order to create effective safeguards against unreliable eyewitness testimony. 18 National Research Council, Identifying The Culprit: Assessing Eyewitness Identification 38 (2014). Part of the Daily Mail, The Mail on Sunday & Metro Media Group, Beaming Prince Harry and Meghan enjoy a date night at exclusive $4,200-A-YEAR private members' club in LA - as friend claims they've been left furious over King Charles' 'cruel' decision to evict them from Frogmore Cottage, Biden LAUGHS at claim he was responsible for fentanyl overdoses of two brothers and says they died 'under the previous administration' - after mom's heartbreaking testimony to Congress, US housing market faces 20% correction amid further rate hikes and overinflated housing market, Dallas Fed warns, Is air travel going to get even MORE expensive? 14 Manson, 432 U.S. 98, 12526 (Marshall, J., dissenting). She was sentenced to life in prison. Just as double-blind clinical trials in medical studies are intended to prevent patients and doctors expectations from affecting outcomes of the clinical trial, double-blind lineups aim to prevent witnesses and administrators expectations from influencing the outcomes of the identification procedure. But. Over time, social science experts were soon quick to point out the errors that were likely to occur leading to an erroneous conviction based on faulty eyewitness testimonies.9 In the wake of the Daubert trilogy cases where judges were urged to be active in their gatekeeping role, the courts began developing stringent threshold requirements that had to be met for admission of an eyewitness testimony. by TCR Staff, The Crime Report May 24, 2021, This and is republished here under a Creative Commons license..