The murder victims cold case evidence was there because the case had recently been reopened; the 1969 preschoolers DNA sample was there as part of an active murder investigation, and Leitermans DNA sample was there because he had recently been arrested for forging a prescription. Following a protracted trial,Saunders was found guilty ofconspiracy, theft, and false accounting. The processes at play in Lydell Grants case are predictable and unfortunately common. You can choose on each post whether you would like it to be posted to Facebook. In recent years, more and more jurisdictions have come to accept expert testimony on the reliability of eyewitness identification. 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. 4 Defffenbacher, et al. The NRC found that police officers and detectives are frequently uninformed of what the best practices concerning gathering eyewitness testimony are. Jurors trust a confident eyewitness and believe they are telling the truth and that their testimony is accurate [1]. In 2009, he was charged with assaulting 12 women. Research has repeatedly demonstrated that simple confirming comments such as these have dramatic effects on eyewitnesses testimony. Noting a victims initial confidence level at the initial identification can be important, so as to track if the witness grows more or less confident with the identification over the course of the trial, which might be an indicator of eyewitness unreliability. 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. 2 They range from photo lineups in which none of the other images resembles the suspect to subtle pressure on a witness from an officer who knows which picture is the correct one. 'The issue in Iran at the moment is not that of hijab.'. She questioned the statistical basis of Professor Meadows evidence, which had led to Sally Clark being sentenced to life in prison. Demonstrators have cut and burned their head coverings while shouting anti-government slogans. It is used to establish facts in a criminal investigation or prosecution. The nearly simultaneous analyses of evidence from these three cases in the same crime lab in 2002a reunion, of sorts, among Mixer, Ruelas and Leiterman, who were ostensibly last together on the night of the murder in 1969was either an incredible coincidence or the Mixer evidence was contaminated with DNA from both Leiterman and Ruelas. Even if he allows it, he will have to instruct the jury about the variables that can lead to misidentification. Improper lineup procedures can also lead to witness misidentifications. In 1932, Yale University law professor Edwin M. Borchard documented nearly seventy cases of miscarriage of justice caused by eyewitness errors in his book, Convicting the Innocent.22 Most of these witnesses personally knew Flowers, and many had grown up with him, lived in his same neighborhood. In one clip an unidentified Iranian woman can be heard saying: 'They are without shame and should be embarrassed. Harvard Univ Press; Cambridge, MA: 2011. In the Miller case, a woman was raped in her car in a parking garage in downtown Chicago. Dan tries to find out more about Mustafa . The Manson admissibility test consists of two steps. After killing the officer, the shooter fled the scene and a high-speed car chase ensued. Confidence reported at trial after the eyewitness has received confirmatory feedback is not. What would that mean for the reliability of the blood or fingerprint evidence, for example, collected at that scene? In assessing the reliability of eyewitness identification, federal and state courts are still divided on (1) whether expert testimony on eyewitness identification should be allowed under either Daubert or Frye and (2) the proper exercise of trial court discretion when deciding whether to admit such expert testimony.18 The parking lot attendants provided a description of the driver to a police sketch artist and the sketch was published in a daily police bulletin. Two other eyewitnesses, a couple, remembered discussing their selection with one another and confirming each others decisions. Press Esc to cancel. My Blog cases where eyewitnesses were right. 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? Explore our digital archive back to 1845, including articles by more than 150 Nobel Prize winners. In addition to implementing double-blind lineup procedures, its essential that lineup administrators document eyewitnesses confidence immediately following an identification. I must also add that Chester Weger also CONFESSED to the 1959 Matthiessen State Park rape/robbery but was never brought to trial (he already had received a life sentence for murder) to avoid putting the TEENAGED female victim on the witness stand. Are you a scientist who specializes in neuroscience, cognitive science, or psychology? 6 Wells, Memon, Penrod, Eyewitness Evidence: Improving Its Probative Value, Psychological Science in the Public Interest, (2006). Many more sit in prisons who have not had the opportunity to have their cases re-investigated or samples re-tested. Blood and fingerprint evidence, per se, would not be deemed unreliable. Its a fact that eyewitnesses make mistakes. 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. (2017). EvgeniyShkolenko/iStock via Getty Images Plus, Chicago Sun-Times/Chicago Daily News/Chicago History Museum via Getty Images, Scientific best practices for conducting eyewitness lineups, smile when witnesses are looking at the suspect, no longer tell the difference between accurate and mistaken eyewitnesses, alter witnesses memories of the original crime, less able to recognize the actual perpetrator, is informative regarding the eyewitnesss accuracy, 25 states have adopted these core procedural reforms, Committee Member - MNF Research Advisory Committee, PhD Scholarship - Uncle Isaac Brown Indigenous Scholarship. The shooter wound up crashing the car and escaping on foot. 'To the extent that Daesh or even ISIS exploited the situation to establish a presence in Iran. Overall, an issue plaguing both courts and law enforcement is the lack of standard procedures to safeguard defendants against unreliable eyewitness testimony. However, Solicitor, Marilyn Stowe, had concerns about the expert evidence of Professor Meadow. While 30+ years of research is too much to summarize in a few paragraphs, we will outline the general problems with eyewitness testimony as well as some of them more major research that has been performed on the subject. Marilyn Stowe instructed a pathologist to review the medical notes of both infants. Retrieved March, 2019. Get in touch with our team of experts today! 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 Pay farmers handsomely to give up their water rights. 25 A. G. Goldstein, J. E. Chance, and G. R. Schneller, Frequency of Eyewitness Identification in Criminal Cases: A Survey of Prosecutors, 27(1) Bulletin of the Psychonomic Society: 71, 73 (January 1989). 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. Officers of the law should be instructed by their superiors about the potential inaccuracies and dangers of witness testimony. Confidence collected at the time of an identification during a double-blind lineup procedure is informative regarding the eyewitnesss accuracy. 28 Brandon L. Garrett, Convicting the Innocent: Where Criminal Prosecutions Go Wrong 6368 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2011). Today, he remains in prison. The testimony of an eyewitness could make up for many shortcomings in a case, such as the lack of any actual physical evidence. Later two slideshows were shown, one with a stop sign and the other with a yield sign and they asked the subjects which was the one they had previously seen. But eyewitnesses aren't always right, and poor investigative practices can make matters worse. 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. bn. 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. Following criticism of the decision, the high court ordered the parole board to re-examine Worboys case. 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. According to the trial transcript, most of the eyewitnesses testified to having been positive when they picked Grant out of the lineup. Taken together, each witnesses testimony fits within the cohesive whole, tied together into a description of the route Flowers had to have taken that morning. Until he was released on parole, the 81-year-old Weger ranked as the second longest-held inmate in Illinois prison system. 23 United States v. Wade, 388 U.S. 230, 288 (1967). After his conviction at Croydon Crown Court, several more women made allegations of sexual assault against him. To many Americans including many jurors eyewitness testimony is the gold standard when it comes to evidence. Ultimately, eyewitness testimony is a powerful tool that has the potential to make or break a case. Read through our advertising and sponsorship rates and contact us. 31 Elizabeth Loftus, Eyewitness Science and the Legal System, 14 Annual Review of Law and Social Science 110 (2018). Publication Date: December 20, 2021 Eyewitness testimony in court is shown to highly sway the opinion of jurors. No comments have so far been submitted. Witness misidentifications can affect both plaintiffs and defendants. 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. 22 Years later, in 1967, the U.S. Supreme Court highlighted the danger of erroneous eyewitness identification in United States v. The psychiatrist formed an opinion of her mental state at the time of the homicide. 2023 Scientific American, a Division of Springer Nature America, Inc. The pathologist discovered that one of the babies had in fact died from a viral infection, not cot death. This evidence was not presented in the initial trial. Finally, almost a year later, the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals declared Grant actually innocent on May 19, 2021. Compiled by Ann Njarara, Bree Peilen, Daniel Neuman, Emory Cook, Linda Lin, and Perrin Lowrey, Introduction Expert witness evidence is not needed in all legal proceedings but it plays an important part in many cases. Please send suggestions to Mind Matters editor Gareth Cook. Any evidence can potentially be contaminated, including what is considered to be the gold standard of forensic evidence: DNA. The FBI estimates that 521,196 of these arrests were for violent crimes.24 Accurate data on the number of crimes observed by eyewitnesses are not available. 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. Mugshots of Lydell Grant (left, in 2010) and Jermarico Carter (right, in 2007) show the men dont look very similar. I believe the remaining 25 states should act swiftly to prevent additional miscarriages of justice. 27 The Innocence Project, Eyewitness Identification,. Recently, post-conviction DNA exonerations of innocent persons have dramatically highlighted the problems with eyewitness identifications. It should be revived and approved. In contrast, a high-confidence ID is highly accurate, a surprising fact that has only recently come to be appreciated by experimental psychologists. He did it and was fortunate not to be sentenced to death in that era. Advertise to our national and international criminal justice audience at The Crime Report and support our mission. Another stated that the killers face was burned into [her] memory immediately.. Arizona State University provides funding as a member of The Conversation US. This section will focus on the courts current treatment of eyewitness testimony. Many believe that this conviction was based on contaminated DNA evidence. Judges should strive to make sure the jury is informed of all of the identifications an eyewitness has made prior to the trial. Laura Mickes is an academic at Royal Holloway, University of London. 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. 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. It turns out, back in 1998, just days after the crime, the NYPD had a main suspect for the murder of Al Ward: a man named Mustafa. 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. But in 57 percent of those cases, it was possible to determine what happened on the initial (uncontaminated) memory test. If New Jersey can have statewide guidelines, so can California. . 18 National Research Council, Identifying The Culprit: Assessing Eyewitness Identification 38 (2014). Assistant Professor of Psychology, Arizona State University. My Blog cases where eyewitnesses were right. 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. 9 According to the innocence project, mistaken identification is a leading factor in wrongful convictions. John Worboys worked as a cab driver and was charged with sexually assaulting several of his female passengers. Noxious fumes wafted into their classrooms, causing some to need hospital treatment after complaining of headaches, heart palpitations, lethargy and being unable to move. A letter by UN Watch - a Geneva-based organization monitoring activities of the UN - urged all 193 members to leave the meeting. 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. 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. Arnaud, Celia Henry. Discover world-changing science. So are The Conversations authors and editors. Instead, they asked that the six eyewitnesses who originally testified against Grant respond to his claims of innocence. 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. 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. COVID origins? Instructing an expert witness is not unusualthere are many much-publicised cases where the role of expert evidence has been significant. In 1932, Yale University law professor Edwin M. Borchard documented nearly seventy cases of miscarriage of justice caused by eyewitness errors in his book, Convicting the Innocent. 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. I am currently involved in another case in which the failings of witness identification are starkly evident. Few would doubt that under such conditions, DNA evidence is highly reliable. Instead of concluding that DNA evidence is inherently unreliable because of the contamination that apparently occurred in this case, a more reasonable conclusion would be that for DNA testing to be reliable, proper protocols must be followed. A full and fair examination of all the circumstances of the subject crime, and all the evidence involved, is necessary. In this case, the defendant was charged with first degree murder and the only evidence against him was the testimony of two eyewitnesses. 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