Should Eye Witness Testimony Be Banned from Court?
Should eyewitness testimony be used as evidence in a court of law? Discuss using research and/ or psychological theory to support your views.
By: Megan Hong
Word Count = 799 (Not including headings and bibliography)
Eyewitness testimony is the account a bystander gives in the courtroom, describing what they perceived happened during the specific incident under investigation. Ideally this recollection of events is detailed; however this is not always the case. This recollection is used as evidence to show what happened from a witness ' point of view. Memory recall has been considered a credible source in the past, but has recently come under attack as forensics can now support psychologists in their claim that memories and individual perceptions are unreliable; being easily manipulated, altered, and biased.
Innocent people are mistaken far more often that people think. Every year, more than 75,000 eyewitnesses identify criminal suspects in the U.S., and studies suggest that as many as a third of them are wrong. Why are so many eyewitnesses mistaken? This is solely because human memory is fragile and malleable. More than 2,000 studies on eyewitnesses in recent decades have determined that recollections are prone to decay, distortion, and suggestion. Victims may simply misremember or misreport what they have seen. Witnesses are particularly inaccurate, studies show, when asked to remember the facial features of someone of a different race. A prime example was the fault involving Jennifer Thompson in 1984 (22-year-old college student) when she was raped and Ronald Cotton (an innocent 22-year-old man who looked similar to the real rapist, Bobby Poole). Her misconduct and accusation led to Cotton watching in silent terror as he was labelled a rapist. When she picked Ronald Cotton out of both a photo and physical line up, she was dead sure she’d found her attacker and even when she had the option of choosing her real attacker (Bobby Poole) with Cotton, she
By: Megan Hong
Word Count = 799 (Not including headings and bibliography)
Eyewitness testimony is the account a bystander gives in the courtroom, describing what they perceived happened during the specific incident under investigation. Ideally this recollection of events is detailed; however this is not always the case. This recollection is used as evidence to show what happened from a witness ' point of view. Memory recall has been considered a credible source in the past, but has recently come under attack as forensics can now support psychologists in their claim that memories and individual perceptions are unreliable; being easily manipulated, altered, and biased.
Innocent people are mistaken far more often that people think. Every year, more than 75,000 eyewitnesses identify criminal suspects in the U.S., and studies suggest that as many as a third of them are wrong. Why are so many eyewitnesses mistaken? This is solely because human memory is fragile and malleable. More than 2,000 studies on eyewitnesses in recent decades have determined that recollections are prone to decay, distortion, and suggestion. Victims may simply misremember or misreport what they have seen. Witnesses are particularly inaccurate, studies show, when asked to remember the facial features of someone of a different race. A prime example was the fault involving Jennifer Thompson in 1984 (22-year-old college student) when she was raped and Ronald Cotton (an innocent 22-year-old man who looked similar to the real rapist, Bobby Poole). Her misconduct and accusation led to Cotton watching in silent terror as he was labelled a rapist. When she picked Ronald Cotton out of both a photo and physical line up, she was dead sure she’d found her attacker and even when she had the option of choosing her real attacker (Bobby Poole) with Cotton, she
Bibliography: Book(s): Ricciuti, E 2007, Forensics, HaperCollins, United States of America. Website(s): The Advantages of an Eyewitness Report, 2013, eHow, accessed 29 April 2013, <http://www.ehow.com/info_12004584_advantages-eyewitness-report.html>. Eyewitness testimony, 2013, Wikipedia, accessed 29 April 2013, <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eyewitness_testimony>. Eyewitness Testimony and Memory, 2013, About.com, accessed 29 April 2013, <http://atheism.about.com/od/parapsychology/a/eyewitness.htm>.