Using eyewitnesses to identify a suspect as the perpetrator to the crime is a form of direct testimonial evidence that is used for forensic purposes. Ernest Saunders only served 10 months of his sentence before being released. 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 . 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. 14 Manson, 432 U.S. 98, 12526 (Marshall, J., dissenting). 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. 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. 10 Manson v. Brathwaite, 432 U.S. 98, 114 (1977). Having served 10 years in prison, the psychologist recommended his release from prison. To do this we will link your MailOnline account with your Facebook account. And third, the confidence expressed by the eyewitness following an identification of someone from the lineup must be recorded. Instructions given to eyewitnesses should be clear, simple and standardized across jurisdictions. As a result, witnesses who have received confirmatory feedback provide testimony that is highly persuasive to jurors. 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? Because she had already servednine years and four months of her initial life sentence, she was released following the change of conviction. This opinion differed from the opinions formed by the other professionals, who concluded that John Worboys should remain in prison. 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. 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. Your comment will be posted to MailOnline as usual. One might assume that Grant was the murderers unlucky doppelganger. Nonetheless, the attendants mistakenly identified Miller in a subsequent police lineup. document.getElementById( "ak_js_1" ).setAttribute( "value", ( new Date() ).getTime() ); This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. 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. Guidance can help jurors who might not know what to make of conflicting testimony. Play it now! At the time of his release, Jerry Miller had served over 26 years in prison for a crime he did not commit. 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 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? 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. 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. Two other eyewitnesses, a couple, remembered discussing their selection with one another and confirming each others decisions. 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. 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? Similarly, a witness may mistakenly perceive the circumstances of a crime or event, such as a car accident. This decision attracted intense media attention and was seen to be a controversial decision due to the nature and severity of his offences. One reported that he had identified Grant without doubt or hesitation. Harvard Univ Press; Cambridge, MA: 2011. Blood and fingerprint evidence, per se, would not be deemed unreliable. The involvement of expert witnesses in famous expert witness cases often leads to changes in how expert evidence is formulated and the effect it may have on the outcome of the proceedings. He claimed police did not have the power to use firearms in the riots. 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. 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 answer seems like a resounding yes if you consider some well-known and rather disconcerting information. To date, 25 states have adopted these core procedural reforms, including Texas in 2011, one year after the investigation of Aaron Scheerhoorns murder. Following a protracted trial,Saunders was found guilty ofconspiracy, theft, and false accounting. Instructing an expert witness is not unusualthere are many much-publicised cases where the role of expert evidence has been significant. In one clip an unidentified Iranian woman can be heard saying: 'They are without shame and should be embarrassed. Its a stain on our justice system. Letters to the Editor: Yes, L.A. drivers are getting worse. 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. 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 Videos circulating on Twitter appeared to show dozens of UN diplomats walking out as he started to speak. 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. At his criminal trial, both parking lot attendants identified Miller as the perpetrator. 2023 Scientific American, a Division of Springer Nature America, Inc. Mugshots of Lydell Grant (left, in 2010) and Jermarico Carter (right, in 2007) show the men dont look very similar. By posting your comment you agree to our house rules. John Worboys was given an indeterminate prison sentence. He was 19 at the time of that attack. After . The testimony of an eyewitness could make up for many shortcomings in a case, such as the lack of any actual physical evidence. Thus, Chester was charged with three separate felonies as a way to overwhelm him and break him down. Consider, for example, the case of Gary Leiterman, who, in 2005, was convicted of murder and sentenced to life in prison following a cold case investigation in which his DNA was found on the clothing of a woman named Jane Mixer, who was murdered in 1969. 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. I believe the remaining 25 states should act swiftly to prevent additional miscarriages of justice. 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. Arnaud, Celia Henry. to select the person they believe to be a prime suspect. The reliability of these alleged identifications was suspect, since the officers would have had only a fraction of a second to observe the driver whizz by them at a high rate of speed at night. In recent years, more and more jurisdictions have come to accept expert testimony on the reliability of eyewitness identification. He was sentenced to 30 months in prison. Assessing confidence is critical because it provides direct information about the trustworthiness of the uncontaminated ID. 2 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. Arnold Schwarzenegger vetoed legislation that, among other things, would have set up a task force to examine eyewitness testimony and establish voluntary guidelines to ensure that it was accurate. 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. Column: 15 minutes of fame flies by. Historically, eyewitness testimony has been in use not only in the United States and our penal system but all around the world. The perpetrator had a brief conversation with the parking lot attendants and then fled the scene. Daryl G. Kimball and Frank von Hippel | Opinion. But theyve hit a snag. Compiled by Ann Njarara, Bree Peilen, Daniel Neuman, Emory Cook, Linda Lin, and Perrin Lowrey, Introduction 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. It was the right decision on the time. 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. 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. Are you a scientist who specializes in neuroscience, cognitive science, or psychology? Well ask you to confirm this for your first post to Facebook. Gov. My review of the transcripts from Grants trial suggests a simple explanation for these high-confidence mistakes: The police did not use scientific best practices for collecting the eyewitness identification evidence. It marks the longest-running anti-government protests in Iran since the 1979 Islamic revolution, with hundreds killed as a result. Knowledge awaits. Noxious fumes wafted into their classrooms, causing some to need hospital treatment after complaining of headaches, heart palpitations, lethargy and being unable to move. As with all indeterminate sentences, decisions around release are the sole responsibility of the Parole Board. Two police officers thought the sketch resembled Miller, a man they had questioned a few days earlier. The victim, a white female, parked her car in that garage every day and the attendants noticed that as the car approached there was an unknown black male driving the car. Prior to admitting eyewitness testimony, judges should make inquiries into the reliability of the eyewitness, looking for any indications of unreliability. 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. It is used to establish facts in a criminal investigation or prosecution. Often, it can be the strongest evidence in a criminal case even though it can also be the most unreliable. But. In other words, the confirmatory remark made the mistaken eyewitnesses just as persuasive as the accurate ones. Only radical intervention can save juvenile justice. 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. Nationally, more than 75% of convictions that have been overturned because of DNA evidence involved erroneous eyewitness testimony. 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. The psychiatrist found that she had an adjustment disorder at the time she killed her husband, enabling her solicitors to challenge her conviction for murder. 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. 31 Elizabeth Loftus, Eyewitness Science and the Legal System, 14 Annual Review of Law and Social Science 110 (2018). 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. Continue reading with a Scientific American subscription. 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