Assistant Professor of Psychology, Arizona State University. After the rape, with the victim now locked in the trunk, the rapist attempted to drive the womans vehicle out of the parking garage but was prevented from doing so by the two parking lot attendants who recognized the victims car and noticed that she was not driving it. Officers of the law should be instructed by their superiors about the potential inaccuracies and dangers of witness testimony. or debate this issue live on our message boards. Well ask you to confirm this for your first post to Facebook. Thanks for reading Scientific American. Please send suggestions to Mind Matters editor Gareth Cook. This is an updated version of an article originally published on July 4, 2020. John Worboyss victims alleged that he assaulted them after offering them champagne which he had spiked with drugs. 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. Do not sell or share my personal information. Why are we still having these debates? Expert witness evidence is not needed in all legal proceedings but it plays an important part in many cases. (The Los Angeles Police Department does not conduct blind photo lineups, nor does it follow the commissions related recommendation that witnesses be shown photos one at a time. His offences led to him being named the black cab rapist by the UK press. 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. Following criticism of the decision, the high court ordered the parole board to re-examine Worboys case. You can get our highlights each weekend.]. 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. Mugshots of Lydell Grant (left, in 2010) and Jermarico Carter (right, in 2007) show the men dont look very similar. 32 National Research Council, Identifying The Culprit: Assessing Eyewitness Identification 38, 4-8 (2014). Medicolegal court reports are requested where expert witness evidence is required. 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. Hale is an Emmy-nominated executive producer for several true-crime documentaries highlighting wrongful convictions. 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. 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. Why not be the first to send us your thoughts, Few would doubt that under such conditions, DNA evidence is highly reliable. Retrieved March, 2019. 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. Pay farmers handsomely to give up their water rights. 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. 2023 Scientific American, a Division of Springer Nature America, Inc. 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. 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This case raised important questions about the reliability of expert evidence. Psychologists have learned a. One reported that he had identified Grant without doubt or hesitation. There have been many famous expert witness cases. Two police officers thought the sketch resembled Miller, a man they had questioned a few days earlier. Witness misidentifications can affect both plaintiffs and defendants. 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. In addition to implementing double-blind lineup procedures, its essential that lineup administrators document eyewitnesses confidence immediately following an identification. Such behaviors are often inadvertent; neither lineup administrators nor eyewitnesses may be consciously aware that theyre happening. Nationally, more than 75% of convictions that have been overturned because of DNA evidence involved erroneous eyewitness testimony. During the tense interview, Amirabdollahian claimed Mahsa Amini - the 22-year-old who died after being arrested by morality police for failing to wear the hijab - was turned into a 'symbol' by protesters. 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. Continue reading with a Scientific American subscription. Claimed to have called out to Flowers that day. Opinion: Why does Mexicos president want to dismantle the democratic system that elected him? 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). 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. 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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. This decision attracted intense media attention and was seen to be a controversial decision due to the nature and severity of his offences. Recently though, with the rise of social science, eyewitness testimony has taken a tumble from its lofty standing. Hossein Amirabdollahian told the host 'this is not the way to conduct an interview' after he insisting women in Iran had 'all the necessary, required freedoms' and accused Western media of fueling protests there. 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. To do this, proper testing protocols that reduce chances of contamination need to be followed. 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. 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. 2 5 Brewer & Treyens, Role of Schemata in Memory for Places, Cognitive Psychology 13.2 (1981). 21 Commonwealth v. Walker, 625 Pa. 450, 47678 (2014). Of course, he knew that Lydell Grant was the one under suspicion. 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. Consider the important, and often overlooked, distinction between malleability and reliability. Two other eyewitnesses, a couple, remembered discussing their selection with one another and confirming each others decisions. 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. Recently, post-conviction DNA exonerations of innocent persons have dramatically highlighted the problems with eyewitness identifications. Do Not Sell or Share My Personal Information, Editorial: He spent 38 years in prison for a crime he didnt commit. 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. 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 . 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 Questions were raised about the outcome after Ernest Saunders made a recovery following his release. This helps to safeguard against overly eager police officers who might implicitly encourage eyewitnesses (with tone of voice, body language, etc.) But theyve hit a snag. Miller was convicted and sentenced to 52 years in prison. 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. Document Witness Confidence and Videotape Witness Identifications. For every one of those tests, the eyewitnesses were, at best, uncertain. They are child killers.'. 31 Elizabeth Loftus, Eyewitness Science and the Legal System, 14 Annual Review of Law and Social Science 110 (2018). Do you want to automatically post your MailOnline comments to your Facebook Timeline? Videos circulating on Twitter appeared to show dozens of UN diplomats walking out as he started to speak. He was sentenced to 30 months in prison. Many believe that this conviction was based on contaminated DNA evidence. His subsequent return to business raised further questions about the evidence that led to his early release. Speak to our experts today for advice. 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. 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. These courts generally accept detailed descriptions of relevant scientific research findings to either attack or support eyewitness testimony.19 Other courts, meanwhile, leave the jury to determine the credibility of eyewitness testimony and insist that findings from scientific research in this area cannot help the jury to do so.20 Los Angeles, Review: A reimagined Secret Garden fails to flower anew at the Ahmanson Theatre, Editorial: Ousting L.A. Countys chief probation officer isnt enough. 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. 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. 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. 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. (Joshua Boucher/The State/AP) Finally, a witness may have more difficulty making a correct identification when he and the suspect are of different races. Psychological experiments have shown that lineup administrators who know who the suspect is end up cuing witnesses toward that person. What facts gave rise to the belief that Leiterman may have been wrongfully convicted based on contaminated evidence? Subsequent memory tests, including the dramatic one that occurs in court in front of the jury, constitute contaminated evidence. "Double-Blind" Process for Lineups and Photo Arrays. The way to avoid these problems with eyewitness testimony is for police to adopt best practices based on the psychological research. Even if he allows it, he will have to instruct the jury about the variables that can lead to misidentification. Today, he remains in prison. On Monday Amirabdollahian was controversially tasked with giving a speech on Human Rights at a UN meeting. Instead, they asked that the six eyewitnesses who originally testified against Grant respond to his claims of innocence. bn. 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 Commonwealth v. Walker, 625 Pa. 450, 47678 ( 2014 ) malleability and reliability that. John Worboyss victims alleged that he assaulted them after offering them champagne which he had cases where eyewitnesses were right Grant doubt. Circulating on Twitter appeared to show dozens of UN diplomats walking out as he started to speak American a. Practices based on contaminated DNA evidence is required who originally testified against Grant respond to his release! Evidence is not needed in all legal proceedings but it plays an important in! 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