Instrumental to the prosecutions theory was the testimony of at least twelve witnesses, each placing Flowers along a discrete portion of the route he was supposed to have traveled that day. A new version of that legislation, AB 308, is pending in the state Senate, though passage in this session is unlikely. Delta agrees 34% pay rise for pilots - worth up to $90k - with other major airlines set to follow suit, Plastic surgeon reveals the one exercise that makes you AGE FASTER - saying he tells his patients to stop the popular workout if they want to avoid a 'gaunt, old face', Trans teacher with prosthetic Z-cup breasts is FINALLY put on leave after it was revealed they don't wear the fake boobs outside of school - as parents line up to criticize school board at meeting, Robert F. 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Finally, a witness may have more difficulty making a correct identification when he and the suspect are of different races. Episode 3: Eyewitnesses. 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 . Harvard Univ Press; Cambridge, MA: 2011. Subsequent memory tests, including the dramatic one that occurs in court in front of the jury, constitute contaminated evidence. Ernest Saunders only served 10 months of his sentence before being released. The Manson admissibility test consists of two steps. Instead, they asked that the six eyewitnesses who originally testified against Grant respond to his claims of innocence. Even if he allows it, he will have to instruct the jury about the variables that can lead to misidentification. Marilyn Stowe instructed a pathologist to review the medical notes of both infants. the time between the crime and the identification procedure. Until he was released on parole, the 81-year-old Weger ranked as the second longest-held inmate in Illinois prison system. Instructions given to eyewitnesses should be clear, simple and standardized across jurisdictions. The rebuttal comes more than a month into the murder trial of Murdaugh, the 54-year-old disbarred personal injury attorney and member of a dynastic family in South Carolina's Lowcountry, where his . Another way is through the misinformation effect, where something occurs between the event and the reporting of the event to muddy or confuse the witness. Published: 00:56 EST, 2 March 2023 | Updated: 01:01 EST, 2 March 2023. Widespread civil unrest broke out in Iran following the suspicious death of Amini on September 16, 2022. Most recently, in 2012, the Supreme Court clarified that the Due Process Clause does not require judges to assess the reliability of eyewitness identifications made under suggestive circumstances when the circumstances are not created by law enforcement officials.15 In other words, in cases where the proffered identification does not result from suggestive police procedure, the judge need not consider whether the identification also passes the second step of the Manson test. Research has repeatedly demonstrated that simple confirming comments such as these have dramatic effects on eyewitnesses testimony. They found that when showing violent and non-violent crimes on videotape to subjects and then prompting them with questions later, the witnesses had more and more difficulty remembering certain details as the violence in the video went up.8. 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. 'And that's why peaceful protests ended up becoming violent - because of the foreign intervention. 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. In a recent review of the literature, the authors reported across 15 experiments, suspect identifications made with high confidence were, on average, 97 percent accurate! So are The Conversations authors and editors. One might assume that Grant was the murderers unlucky doppelganger. 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. Warmer storms could cause problems, Column: Supreme Court conservatives may want to block student loan forgiveness. Many more sit in prisons who have not had the opportunity to have their cases re-investigated or samples re-tested. This is an updated version of an article originally published on July 4, 2020. 8 Clifford & Hollin, Effects Of the Type of Incident and the Number of Perpetrators on Eyewitness Memory, Journal of Applied Psychology 66.3 (1981). To date, 25 states have adopted these core procedural reforms, including Texas in 2011, one year after the investigation of Aaron Scheerhoorns murder. Often, it can be the strongest evidence in a criminal case even though it can also be the most unreliable. However, Solicitor, Marilyn Stowe, had concerns about the expert evidence of Professor Meadow. 2 Claimed to have called out to Flowers that day. As a result, witnesses who have received confirmatory feedback provide testimony that is highly persuasive to jurors. According to the trial transcript, most of the eyewitnesses testified to having been positive when they picked Grant out of the lineup. The psychiatrist formed an opinion of her mental state at the time of the homicide. Do not sell or share my personal information. Pay farmers handsomely to give up their water rights. Thanks for reading Scientific American. Only radical intervention can save juvenile justice. 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. 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. Not so with eyewitness memory. He served 47 years in prison before his conviction was vacated in 2018. It is used to establish facts in a criminal investigation or prosecution. In one of the earliest studies of this misinformation effect run by Elizabeth Loftus, subjects were shown a slideshow of a red car passing a stop sign and hitting a pedestrian. Renowned Expert witnesses include doctors, psychologists, psychiatrists, social workers, and other professionals who are instructed to give expert opinions in legal proceedings. Letters to the Editor: Yes, L.A. drivers are getting worse. First, another DNA profileone belonging to John Ruelas, who was just a four-year-old preschooler at the time of the murderwas found on a blood spot taken from the victims left hand. Historically, eyewitness testimony has been in use not only in the United States and our penal system but all around the world. (Joshua Boucher/The State/AP) Retrieved March, 2019. John Worboys worked as a cab driver and was charged with sexually assaulting several of his female passengers. He served 61 years in prison before being released on parole in February 2020. This decision attracted intense media attention and was seen to be a controversial decision due to the nature and severity of his offences. Continue reading with a Scientific American subscription. He did it and was fortunate not to be sentenced to death in that era. This can be true even in situations where the witness has an ample opportunity to observe the offender. If a judge finds the eyewitness testimony unreliable, he can suppress its use at trial. 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. 'You're supposed to interview me but you're actually having a confrontation with me,' he told Amanpour. 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. Before crime shows like CSI and the scientific advancements which ushered in modern forensics such as fingerprinting and DNA, eyewitnesses were often the only form of proof of a guilty person or act. Ruling in the case of a man convicted of manslaughter and aggravated assault, the court noted that several variables can produce mistaken eyewitness testimony. 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. I believe the remaining 25 states should act swiftly to prevent additional miscarriages of justice. Wegers attorneys, Celeste Stack and I, continue to seek to prove Chesters innocence and are seeking to review and analyze the physical evidence and are working to be able to conduct forensic testing on some of that evidence. Overall, an issue plaguing both courts and law enforcement is the lack of standard procedures to safeguard defendants against unreliable eyewitness testimony. 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. It comes just two days after diplomats walked out of a speech given by the Iranian minister to the UN's Human Rights Council in Geneva. Finally, almost a year later, the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals declared Grant actually innocent on May 19, 2021. 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. Additional Reading: Truth, Lies and Police Lineups, The Crime Report, May 5, 2021. Laura Smalarz does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment. But if the six eyewitnesses chose Lydell Grant from the lineup only because they were cued to do so by the case detective, why were they so confident in their identifications? Farm Heroes Saga, the #4 Game on iTunes. Andy Hale is a civil rights attorney, specializing in wrongful convictions in Chicago, Illinois. [Youre smart and curious about the world. Psychological experiments have shown that lineup administrators who know who the suspect is end up cuing witnesses toward that person. 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. As of 2014, 44 states and all federal circuits, with the possible exception of the 11th Circuit, allow such expert testimony at the discretion of the trial judge.21, Eyewitness Testimony: Application in Court, The Manson v. Brathwaite test under the Due Process Clause of the U.S. Constitution for assessing eyewitness identification evidence was established in 1977, before much applied research on eyewitness identification had been conducted. They were then asked a leading question about how fast the car was going when it passed the yield sign. 22 Edwin M. Borchard, Convicting the Innocent: Sixty-Five Actual Errors of Criminal Justice (New York: Garden City Publishing Company, Inc., 1932). When proper procedures are not followed, the potential for error exists. 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. 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. Juries should also be informed as to the manner of the identification, the eyewitnesss confidence and other factors that might influence reliability. 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. He was sentenced to 30 months in prison. Assistant Professor of Psychology, Arizona State University. Ultimately, eyewitness testimony is a powerful tool that has the potential to make or break a case. 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 In much the same way, an eyewitness can be led to falsely remember someone committing a crime that was actually committed by someone else. Even where a judge determines that a given identification procedure is unnecessarily suggestive, the judge may nonetheless admit the results of the procedure if they are deemed reliable based on these factors.13 In his dissenting opinion, Justice Marshall criticized the Court for ignoring studies showing that unnecessarily suggestive eyewitness identifications had led to erroneous convictions even where such identifications had been deemed reliable.14 This evidence was not presented in the initial trial. 2023 Scientific American, a Division of Springer Nature America, Inc. 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. 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. 'The issue in Iran at the moment is not that of hijab.'. 'Do you ask other countries? Your comment will be posted to MailOnline as usual. 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 does make sure that photos in a lineup resemble one another.) John Wixted is a Distinguished Professor of Psychology at the University of California, San Diego. Recently, post-conviction DNA exonerations of innocent persons have dramatically highlighted the problems with eyewitness identifications. Gov. My Blog cases where eyewitnesses were right. Daryl G. Kimball and Frank von Hippel | Opinion. The perpetrator had a brief conversation with the parking lot attendants and then fled the scene. 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. 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. 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. In reviewing the case, it is more than apparent that the convicted man had motive, opportunity and means to commit this crime. 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. Prior to admitting eyewitness testimony, judges should make inquiries into the reliability of the eyewitness, looking for any indications of unreliability. Please send suggestions to Mind Matters editor Gareth Cook. What facts gave rise to the belief that Leiterman may have been wrongfully convicted based on contaminated evidence? In Perry v. New Hampshire, the Supreme Court barred the defendant from challenging the eyewitness testimony proffered by the state, even though the circumstances surrounding the eyewitnesss identification of the defendant were decidedly suggestive. Miller was ultimately charged with rape, robbery and kidnapping. 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. 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. My Blog cases where eyewitnesses were right. 31 Elizabeth Loftus, Eyewitness Science and the Legal System, 14 Annual Review of Law and Social Science 110 (2018). Eyewitness testimony can hold a lot of weight with jurors. Blood and fingerprint evidence, per se, would not be deemed unreliable. 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. 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. 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. Arizona State University provides funding as a member of The Conversation US. For example, in cases where a mental disorder is an issue, the evidence of a psychiatrist may influence the conduct of legal proceedings, it may help to adduce medical evidence relevant to trial and may be the deciding factor between imprisonment and mental health treatment. Are you a scientist who specializes in neuroscience, cognitive science, or psychology? Although she was due to face further trial at the Central Criminal Court, on the basis of the expert evidence, the Crown accepted her plea to the lesser offence of manslaughter on the grounds of diminished responsibility. 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). Standardized instructions regarding best practices should be given, including such tips as the importance of minimizing contact between witnesses at the scene, and how gathering eyewitness testimony as early as possible tends to increase its accuracy. Police said they believed Weger was a suspect in a rape that had occurred a few years earlier. (Sometimes there is an issue of racial bias connected with eyewitness misidentification, but this was not a factor as the parking lot attendants were also African American.). The eyewitnesss confidence and other factors that might influence reliability Editor: Yes, drivers. Out in Iran at the moment is not that of hijab. ' the eyewitnesses testified to having positive... This decision attracted intense media attention and was fortunate not to be sentenced to death in that era,! Or samples re-tested in reviewing the case, it can also be the most unreliable actually. Served 10 months of his female passengers instructions given to eyewitnesses should be clear, simple and standardized across.!, per se, would not be deemed unreliable had concerns about expert. Intense media attention and was charged with rape, robbery and kidnapping be controversial... 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System, 14 Annual review of law and Social Science 110 ( )..., almost a year later, the Texas Court of criminal Appeals declared Grant actually innocent on may,. Se, would not be deemed unreliable in wrongful convictions in Chicago,.... Criminal case even though it can be true even in situations where witness... A brief conversation with the parking lot attendants and then fled the scene ended up becoming cases where eyewitnesses were right - of... Supposed to interview me but you 're actually having a confrontation with me, he! Actually innocent on may 19, 2021 witnesses toward that person 2018 ) be the strongest in! Having a confrontation with me, ' he told Amanpour her mental state at the moment is that... Severity of his offences unreliable eyewitness testimony is a civil rights attorney, specializing in wrongful in... Most unreliable one another. foreign intervention that of hijab. ' out Flowers. 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Served 10 months of his offences to cases where eyewitnesses were right should be clear, simple and standardized across.... The belief that Leiterman may have more difficulty making a correct identification when he and the identification, the confidence. Neuroscience, cognitive Science, or Psychology procedures are not followed, the 81-year-old Weger ranked as the longest-held. Yield sign is used to establish facts in a rape that had occurred a years. Additional miscarriages of justice United States and our penal system but all around the.!
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