by TCR Staff, The Crime Report May 24, 2021, This and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.. To many Americans including many jurors eyewitness testimony is the gold standard when it comes to evidence. Juries are particularly prone to being swayed by eyewitness testimony, as evidenced in the Curtis Flowers case. 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. Farm Heroes Saga, the #4 Game on iTunes. It is not uncommon for the Parole Board to instruct expert evidence from psychiatrists and psychologists. 'You're supposed to interview me but you're actually having a confrontation with me,' he told Amanpour. 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. (2017). In other cases, the circumstances of a purported witness identification may be flimsy; yet the prosecutors still rely on that identification, which is then presented as rock-solid evidence at trial. He served 61 years in prison before being released on parole in February 2020. During Wednesday's interview with CNN, Amirabdollahian accused western media outlets of encouraging violent protests in his country. Press Esc to cancel. Andy Hale is a civil rights attorney, specializing in wrongful convictions in Chicago, Illinois. Once a suspect has established that he was the victim of suggestiveness, a pretrial hearing will be held in which the full range of reasons for possible misidentification are examined. John Worboyss victims alleged that he assaulted them after offering them champagne which he had spiked with drugs. The chance of a lifetime: Five friends ski the tallest mountain in Los Angeles, Shocking, impossible gas bills push restaurants to the brink of closures, Best coffee city in the world? Noxious fumes wafted into their classrooms, causing some to need hospital treatment after complaining of headaches, heart palpitations, lethargy and being unable to move. 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. 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. 28 Brandon L. Garrett, Convicting the Innocent: Where Criminal Prosecutions Go Wrong 6368 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2011). So are The Conversations authors and editors. There have been hundreds of cases in which mistaken eyewitness identification testimony led to the conviction of innocent people. He claimed police did not have the power to use firearms in the riots. But theyve hit a snag. U. L. Rev. After killing the officer, the shooter fled the scene and a high-speed car chase ensued. 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 . 2 By the way, Weger signed EVERY SINGLE PAGE of the FIRST confession which was transcribed by a court reporter who testified under OATH Weger was not threatened or harmed when he made his damning statement. 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. 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. Type above and press Enter to search. Most of these witnesses personally knew Flowers, and many had grown up with him, lived in his same neighborhood. 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. 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. The NRC found that police officers and detectives are frequently uninformed of what the best practices concerning gathering eyewitness testimony are. 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. The variables include: viewing conditions (lighting-distance-duration), distracting stimuli (weapons-loud noises) and internal states of the observer (attention-motivation-skill-prejudice). The way to avoid these problems with eyewitness testimony is for police to adopt best practices based on the psychological research. He added: 'I can tell you this in full confidence that our police and the security forces in Iran have not killed anyone with bullets or any other means in these riots.'. 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. Instead, they asked that the six eyewitnesses who originally testified against Grant respond to his claims of innocence. Medicolegal court reports are requested where expert witness evidence is required. bn. At the time of his release, Jerry Miller had served over 26 years in prison for a crime he did not commit. She questioned the statistical basis of Professor Meadows evidence, which had led to Sally Clark being sentenced to life in prison. Column: 15 minutes of fame flies by. 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. Episode 3: Eyewitnesses. Chester denied having anything to do with these other crimes but was identified by the victims based on these suggestive procedures. Widespread civil unrest broke out in Iran following the suspicious death of Amini on September 16, 2022. 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. 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. 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. One might assume that Grant was the murderers unlucky doppelganger. (Joshua Boucher/The State/AP) 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? But a comparison of the pairs mugshots reveals that they bear little physical resemblance to one another beyond both being Black men. The pathologist discovered that one of the babies had in fact died from a viral infection, not cot death. If the contaminated evidence is relied on to establish guilt versus innocence at a trial, the risk of a wrongful conviction is high. 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. In this case, the defendant was charged with first degree murder and the only evidence against him was the testimony of two eyewitnesses. Imagine if police let unauthorized people have willy-nilly access to a crime scene that is under investigation. Judges should strive to make sure the jury is informed of all of the identifications an eyewitness has made prior to the trial. The attendants were also able to have a brief conversation with the driver before he fled on foot. Witness misidentifications can affect both plaintiffs and defendants. 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 Medicolegal court reports are requested where expert witness evidence is required. Incredibly, prior to Heidelbergs sentencing, the real shooter, James Clark, confessed to the crime, but the confession fell on deaf ears and Heidelberg was sentenced to 99 to 175 years in prison. Do Not Sell or Share My Personal Information, Editorial: He spent 38 years in prison for a crime he didnt commit. John Worboys was given an indeterminate prison sentence. But when the witnesses had received a simple reinforcing comment following their identification (Good job, you got the guy), the mock jurors could no longer tell the difference between accurate and mistaken eyewitnesses. Often, it can be the strongest evidence in a criminal case even though it can also be the most unreliable. What the cases of Miller and Heidelberg highlight is that witnesses are often wrong. But in 57 percent of those cases, it was possible to determine what happened on the initial (uncontaminated) memory test. John Wixted is a Distinguished Professor of Psychology at the University of California, San Diego. This opinion differed from the opinions formed by the other professionals, who concluded that John Worboys should remain in prison. Publication Date: December 20, 2021 Eyewitness testimony in court is shown to highly sway the opinion of jurors. Dan tries to find out more about Mustafa . Psychologists have learned a. or debate this issue live on our message boards. 'Do you ask other countries? (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.). Laura Mickes is an academic at Royal Holloway, University of London. 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. Officers of the law should be instructed by their superiors about the potential inaccuracies and dangers of witness testimony. They are child killers.'. Claimed to have called out to Flowers that day. 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). Expert witness evidence is not needed in all legal proceedings but it plays an important part in many cases. 'This is not the way to conduct an interview. One estimate based on a 1989 survey of prosecutors suggests that at least 80,000 eyewitnesses make identifications of suspects in criminal investigations each year.25 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). Its a fact that eyewitnesses make mistakes. 2023 Scientific American, a Division of Springer Nature America, Inc. 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. 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. See here: Innocence Project, Eyewitness misidentification accessed on March 9, 2019. 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. Although the high accuracy of an initial ID made with high confidence is important to appreciate, the low accuracy of an ID made with low confidence may be even more important to appreciate. Marilyn Stowe instructed a pathologist to review the medical notes of both infants. Mr. Ernest Saunders, along with three other men, were part of the Guinness Four who were accused of being involved in ascheme to fraudulently increasethe price of Guinness shares. 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. 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. 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. At his criminal trial, both parking lot attendants identified Miller as the perpetrator. 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. Many eyewitnesses testified with high confidence despite earlier expressions of uncertainty.28. Recently though, with the rise of social science, eyewitness testimony has taken a tumble from its lofty standing. 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. 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. This case raised important questions about the reliability of expert evidence. Even though no connection between Leiterman and Ruelas was ever established, the prosecution theorized that all three must have been together after midnight at the murder scene in 1969, with the preschooler bleeding on the victim for some unknown reason while Leiterman killed her. Thirty Years of DNA Forensics: How DNA Has Revolutionized Criminal Investigations. CEN RSS, Chemical and Engineering News, 18 Sept. 2017. Letters to the Editor: Yes, L.A. drivers are getting worse. Readers speculate why, Letters to the Editor: Serious about the drought? Compiled by Ann Njarara, Bree Peilen, Daniel Neuman, Emory Cook, Linda Lin, and Perrin Lowrey, Introduction Get in touch with our team of experts today! 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. 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. Of course, he knew that Lydell Grant was the one under suspicion. Document Witness Confidence and Videotape Witness Identifications. 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. It gathered more than 100 signatures from prominent lawmakers, human rights campaigners and celebrities. In 2011, Sally Challen was convicted of murdering her husband before Guildford Crown Court. It should be revived and approved. Police in some California counties use some of the methods recommended by the New Jersey court and by the California Commission on the Fair Administration of Justice. 22 Edwin M. Borchard, Convicting the Innocent: Sixty-Five Actual Errors of Criminal Justice (New York: Garden City Publishing Company, Inc., 1932). Gareth, a Pulitzer prize-winning journalist, is the series editor of Best American Infographics and can be reached at garethideas AT gmail.com or Twitter@garethideas. Play it now! 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. This section will focus on the courts current treatment of eyewitness testimony. Instructing an expert witness is not unusualthere are many much-publicised cases where the role of expert evidence has been significant. Judges should include within jury instructions clear and concise instructions on how to evaluate and make use of eyewitness testimony during their deliberations. 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. Assistant Professor of Psychology, Arizona State University. Expert evidence may be important in determining the right outcome. 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. Read through our advertising and sponsorship rates and contact us. You can choose on each post whether you would like it to be posted to Facebook. Your comment will be posted to MailOnline as usual. Subsequent memory tests, including the dramatic one that occurs in court in front of the jury, constitute contaminated evidence. Eyewitness testimony can hold a lot of weight with jurors. As with all indeterminate sentences, decisions around release are the sole responsibility of the Parole Board. [Youre smart and curious about the world. 'And that's why peaceful protests ended up becoming violent - because of the foreign intervention. But studies demonstrate that a variety of factors can lead to the misidentification of criminals. As with DNA evidence, eyewitness evidence needs to be safeguarded against contamination. 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. Retrieved March, 2019. Why are we still having these debates? This is an updated version of an article originally published on July 4, 2020. 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. 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. After his conviction at Croydon Crown Court, several more women made allegations of sexual assault against him. Hale is an Emmy-nominated executive producer for several true-crime documentaries highlighting wrongful convictions. 4 Defffenbacher, et al. 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? They were then asked a leading question about how fast the car was going when it passed the yield sign. 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). In much the same way, an eyewitness can be led to falsely remember someone committing a crime that was actually committed by someone else. Do you want to automatically post your MailOnline comments to your Facebook Timeline? John Worboys worked as a cab driver and was charged with sexually assaulting several of his female passengers. If New Jersey can have statewide guidelines, so can California. Mugshots of Lydell Grant (left, in 2010) and Jermarico Carter (right, in 2007) show the men dont look very similar. Following a protracted trial,Saunders was found guilty ofconspiracy, theft, and false accounting. Questions were raised about the outcome after Ernest Saunders made a recovery following his release. 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. 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. My Blog cases where eyewitnesses were right. Police said they believed Weger was a suspect in a rape that had occurred a few years earlier. Abcarian: Mask mandates? 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. The parole board initially approved him for release. But in 2006, DNA testing on the victims slip exonerated Miller and established the identify of another man, Robert Weeks, as the real perpetrator. Guidance can help jurors who might not know what to make of conflicting testimony. Gov. 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. Working closely with our specialist human resource colleagues, we offer a holistic advisory and support service for employers encompassing both the legal and people risks of workforce management. Please send suggestions to Mind Matters editor Gareth Cook. Women in Iran have all the necessary, required freedoms within the framework of the law,' he added. circuit court, the 29-year-old was convicted of a rape that he did not commit and was sentenced to five life sentences. But faith in eyewitnesses runs so deep that despite the overwhelming proof of Grants innocence, the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals initially refused his exoneration request. 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. More and more research has come out in the last few decades indicating that there are many dangers to relying on eyewitnesses, from the uncertainty of relying on a persons memory all the way to how they are questioned at the police station. Why not be the first to send us your thoughts, 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. After she had spent several years in prison, an independent consultant psychiatrist was instructed as an expert witness. 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