Instructions given to eyewitnesses should be clear, simple and standardized across jurisdictions. Marilyn Stowe instructed a pathologist to review the medical notes of both infants. Some courts have held it as an abuse of discretion for a trial judge to bar the defense from admitting expert testimony on eyewitness identification. Mugshots of Lydell Grant (left, in 2010) and Jermarico Carter (right, in 2007) show the men dont look very similar. Expert Evidence In Family Cases Where Spouse Is Unable To Return To Work Due To Illness, The revised psychopathy checklist (PCL-R), Proving Automatism Defences In Criminal Cases, Understanding the Value of an Occupational Therapist Expert Witness, Causation in personal injury or medical negligence, Assessments of sexual offending, violent behaviour offending, arson, and stalking. The attendants were also able to have a brief conversation with the driver before he fled on foot. Are you a scientist who specializes in neuroscience, cognitive science, or psychology? All six of those eyewitnesses were wrong. Not only do such statements inflate eyewitnesses confidence in the accuracy of their identification, but they lead them to falsely remember having been that confident all along. Recently, up to 400 female pupils from around 30 schools were subjected to poisoning attacks in what is believed to be an attempt to stop them getting an education. Unfortunately for Lydell Grant, these reforms came a year too late. Arizona State University provides funding as a member of The Conversation US. In Millers case, the two parking lot attendants were immediately suspicious when the victims car approached the ticket booth. 18 National Research Council, Identifying The Culprit: Assessing Eyewitness Identification 38 (2014). In much the same way, an eyewitness can be led to falsely remember someone committing a crime that was actually committed by someone else. It marks the longest-running anti-government protests in Iran since the 1979 Islamic revolution, with hundreds killed as a result. Witnesses arent able to tell whether their testimony was influenced in this way. 3 Eyewitness Misidentification. With surprising ease, for example, participants in a memory experiment can be led to believe that they saw a stop sign when they actually saw a yield sign or that they became lost in a shopping mall as a child when no such experience actually occurred. 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. Perhaps one of the most striking examples of the flaws in eyewitness testimony is the case of Jerry Miller, who was convicted of rape, robbery and kidnapping in 1982. Today, he remains in prison. 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. Last updated: 27 February 2023. 4 Defffenbacher, et al. Women in Iran have all the necessary, required freedoms within the framework of the law,' he added. Women in Iran have all the necessary required freedoms within the framework of the law, he claims, but says our interview is a confrontation: This is not the way to conduct an interview. pic.twitter.com/XKkC5uWYyj, Iranian foreign minister Hossein Amirabdollahian smiled as he chastised CNN host Christiane Amanpour, telling her 'this is not the way to conduct an interview', CNN host Amanpour laid into the Iranian foreign minister over his country's record on women's rights. 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. A cornerstone of the state's case is the video at or near the kennels filmed on Paul's phone starting at 8:44 p.m. in which Murdaugh's voice can be heard in the background. Noxious fumes wafted into their classrooms, causing some to need hospital treatment after complaining of headaches, heart palpitations, lethargy and being unable to move. To do this we will link your MailOnline account with your Facebook account. The pathologist discovered that one of the babies had in fact died from a viral infection, not cot death. Judges should include within jury instructions clear and concise instructions on how to evaluate and make use of eyewitness testimony during their deliberations. 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. Blood and fingerprint evidence, per se, would not be deemed unreliable. Scientific best practices for conducting eyewitness lineups require that the person administering the lineup not know who the police suspect. A judge can review the footage to see if claims of witness tampering are true, or if the witness shows significant doubt while identifying the suspect. Instructing an expert witness is not unusualthere are many much-publicised cases where the role of expert evidence has been significant. A witness may mistakenly identify a criminal suspect. He did it and was fortunate not to be sentenced to death in that era. 10 Manson v. Brathwaite, 432 U.S. 98, 114 (1977). An initial eyewitness identification made with low confidence indicates that even though memory was not contaminated, the ID is untrustworthy (that is, by indicating low confidence, the eyewitness is effectively saying, Theres a good chance that Im making an error). 'The issue in Iran at the moment is not that of hijab.'. Examples of when an expert witness may be needed include: To hire an expert witness, you may make contact with us via our simple online contact form, call us on 01865 587 865 or by requesting a call back from our team via the link below. The Law Enforcement Command of the Islamic Republic of Iran claimed she had a heart attack at a police station, collapsed, and fell into a coma before being transferred to a hospital. Miller was convicted and sentenced to 52 years in prison. Despite the frequency of use, we have been confronted as a country with many incredible failures of eyewitness testimony such as misidentifications that led to convictions and sentences of people who were later discovered innocent.1 Science has played no small role: post-conviction DNA profiling made possible by the development of the polymerase chain reaction, which enables amplification of crime-scene DNA to quantities sufficient for forensic analysis have meant that DNA identification is becoming increasingly used even in cases where it was previously not viable: those where we have smaller samples.2 As of now, almost 350 people, many serving long prison sentences, have been exonerated because their own DNA was discovered to be incompatible with evidence long ago collected from the crime scene. One might assume that Grant was the murderers unlucky doppelganger. But eyewitnesses aren't always right, and poor investigative practices can make matters worse. Most witnesses didnt come forward of their own accord, and often enough it was the lead investigator for the district attorneys office, John Johnson, who found the witnesses, and brought them in to testify. [Youre smart and curious about the world. bn. The transcript from Lydell Grants trial revealed that the homicide detective in charge of investigating the case administered the lineup to the eyewitnesses. In the United States, more than 300 exonerations have resulted from postconviction DNA testing since 1989.26 According to the Innocence Project, at least one mistaken eyewitness identification was present in almost three-quarters of DNA exonerations.27 In many of these cases, eyewitness identification played a significant evidentiary role, and almost without exception, the eyewitnesses who testified expressed complete confidence that they had chosen the perpetrator. 14 Manson, 432 U.S. 98, 12526 (Marshall, J., dissenting). John Worboyss victims alleged that he assaulted them after offering them champagne which he had spiked with drugs. 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. My Blog cases where eyewitnesses were right. Nonetheless, the attendants mistakenly identified Miller in a subsequent police lineup. 8 Clifford & Hollin, Effects Of the Type of Incident and the Number of Perpetrators on Eyewitness Memory, Journal of Applied Psychology 66.3 (1981). He served 61 years in prison before being released on parole in February 2020. One of my clients, Cleve Heidelberg, was convicted in 1970 of killing a Peoria County, Ill., sheriffs deputy who was responding to a call about an armed robbery at a drive-in movie theatre. 109, 10910 (2006). Given the prevalence and impact eyewitness testimony can have within a criminal case, it is important to take steps to make it a more reliable practice. To do this, proper testing protocols that reduce chances of contamination need to be followed. But eyewitnesses allege she was severely beaten and died as a result of police brutality. Juries are particularly prone to being swayed by eyewitness testimony, as evidenced in the Curtis Flowers case. Such behaviors are often inadvertent; neither lineup administrators nor eyewitnesses may be consciously aware that theyre happening. 9 According to the innocence project, mistaken identification is a leading factor in wrongful convictions. Following criticism of the decision, the high court ordered the parole board to re-examine Worboys case. The shooter had borrowed Heidelbergs car, and when Heidelberg went to retrieve his car later that night he was arrested by officers at the scene. by TCR Staff, The Crime Report May 24, 2021, This and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.
. (2017). No comments have so far been submitted. Juries should also be informed as to the manner of the identification, the eyewitnesss confidence and other factors that might influence reliability. First, the judge must determine whether the procedure used by law enforcement officials in obtaining the proffered eyewitness identification (e.g., photographic array or lineup) was unnecessarily suggestive.11 The judge must then weigh this determination against the following five factors to assess the reliability of the identification: In practice, therefore, the test is flexible. University of Virginia law professor Brandon Garrett analyzed trial materials for 161 DNA exonerated individuals who had been misidentified with high confidence by one or more eyewitnesses in a court of law. Neighbors told arriving firefighters that they had heard a thunderous crash at about the same time as the blaze is believed to have begun. 28 Brandon L. Garrett, Convicting the Innocent: Where Criminal Prosecutions Go Wrong 6368 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2011). His doctors maintained that he was suffering from pre-senile dementia, and he couldnt remember three numbers backwards or the name of the US president. A neurologist also claimed that Saunders brain was small for a man his age and showed evidence of shrinking. Thanks for reading The Crime Report! The detective also admitted making a similar comment to at least one other witness. According to the same theory, 33 years later, in 2002, in an almost inconceivable coincidence, evidence samples from Mixer, Ruelas and Leiterman just happened to be together again in the Michigan State Police Laboratory. Current procedures for collecting and assessing evidence from eyewitnesses are often not designed to minimize contamination.This problem does not apply to other kinds of forensic evidence. Most of these witnesses personally knew Flowers, and many had grown up with him, lived in his same neighborhood. Improper lineup procedures can also lead to witness misidentifications. . They are child killers.'. The subjects who had been asked the leading question were much more likely to choose the slideshow with the yield sign, since their memories had been tampered by the question asked earlier.4 Many studies have since corroborated the findings of Loftus, such as another experiment, where the same effect was reproduced using television screens, and then seeing the effects between the different participants.5 Studies like these have demonstrated the fickle nature of memory, and how details can be changed without the witness really even recognizing it. She unsuccessfully appealed against her conviction in 2000. Mr. 'Do you ask other countries? Therefore, it is important that the individuals allowed to testify are accurate in their recollections. The lineup photo from one of these lineups shows how suggestive it was: The other four men in the lineup were much older and bigger than Chester. 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. But there is more to the story. A full and fair examination of all the circumstances of the subject crime, and all the evidence involved, is necessary. Family weapons were used to kill the victims in the Murdaugh case, prosecutor says Prosecutor Creighton Waters speaks during closing arguments on Wednesday, March 1. Medicolegal court reports are requested where expert witness evidence is required. What law enforcementand the publicneeds to know. There have been many famous expert witness cases. While his potential release faced intense scrutiny, it demonstrates how influential an expert witness report can be. A new version of that legislation, AB 308, is pending in the state Senate, though passage in this session is unlikely. Thus, Chester was charged with three separate felonies as a way to overwhelm him and break him down. What it means is that the malleability of memory can harm reliability. 13 See Timothy P. OToole & Giovanna Shay, Manson v. Brathwaite Revisited: Towards a New Rule of Decision for Due Process Challenges to Eyewitness Identification Procedures, 41 Val. Because she had already servednine years and four months of her initial life sentence, she was released following the change of conviction. They were then asked a leading question about how fast the car was going when it passed the yield sign. Judges in California routinely talk to jurors about the possibility of misidentification, but their instructions arent as complete as those contemplated by the New Jersey court. By itself, that fact only shows that contaminated memory is unreliable (just as contaminated DNA evidence is). 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. Nationally, more than 75% of convictions that have been overturned because of DNA evidence involved erroneous eyewitness testimony. 'This is not the way to conduct an interview. 2023 Scientific American, a Division of Springer Nature America, Inc. Thirty Years of DNA Forensics: How DNA Has Revolutionized Criminal Investigations. CEN RSS, Chemical and Engineering News, 18 Sept. 2017. Having served 10 years in prison, the psychologist recommended his release from prison. If New Jersey can have statewide guidelines, so can California. Pictured: Protestors take part in an anti-Iran demonstration on December 24, 2022 in Istanbul, Turkey, Women burned their headscarves in Kurdish-controlled north-east Syria in September 2022. Other major dangers that have plagued eyewitness reports are factors such as high-stress situations, how witnesses are interviewed by police, and whether the victim is the same or different race as the witness.6 In 2001, Meissner and Brigham performed a broad review of research on cross-race identification, analyzing data from 39 research articles and 5,000 subjects/witnesses. One reported that he had identified Grant without doubt or hesitation. Officers of the law should be instructed by their superiors about the potential inaccuracies and dangers of witness testimony. Many more sit in prisons who have not had the opportunity to have their cases re-investigated or samples re-tested. John Worboys was given an indeterminate prison sentence. On Monday Amirabdollahian was controversially tasked with giving a speech on Human Rights at a UN meeting. But in 2006, DNA testing on the victims slip exonerated Miller and established the identify of another man, Robert Weeks, as the real perpetrator. Abcarian: Mask mandates? the opportunity of the witness to view the criminal at the time of the crime; the accuracy of the witnesss prior description of the criminal; the level of certainty demonstrated at the identification procedure; and. the time between the crime and the identification procedure. The other individuals placed in a lineup with the suspect (known as fillers) are supposed to reasonably resemble the suspect in terms of age, height and weight so that the suspect does not stand out. In recent years, more and more jurisdictions have come to accept expert testimony on the reliability of eyewitness identification. After . This can be true even in situations where the witness has an ample opportunity to observe the offender. 15 Perry v. New Hampshire, 565 U.S. 228, 248 (2012). According to the prosecution on the day of the murder, at around 7 am, Flowers walked from his home on the West side of town all the way to a sewing factory parking lot on the East side of town, crossing Highway 51, one of the towns largest streets, while doing so. 1 Garrett B. Convicting the Innocent: Where Criminal Prosecutions Go Wrong. 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. 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