Eyewitness memory factors in plea bargaining decisions by attorneys

¶ … Eyewitness Memory and Identification

• Should eyewitness memory factors be taken into the consideration when making a plea bargaining decision in the courtroom?

Evidence has revealed that eyewitness memory can affect identification. This is because DNA has overturned more than 70% of eyewitness identifications.

• Age, race, and alcohol intoxication of eyewitness are the major factors affecting the eyewitness identification in the United States legal system.

The independent variables are age, race and alcohol intoxication, while the dependent variable is the eyewitness identifications. Thus, the independent variables can affect the dependent variables in the sense that older adults and children often face challenges in recollecting events thereby likely to make an eyewitness misidentification. People who are intoxicated with alcohol are more likely to incorrectly identify someone in a lineup or in court. Moreover, an eyewitness is likely to make a bias towards other ethnic groups thereby giving false eyewitness identifications.

Purpose Statement

This chapter explores the methodology used to carry out the study. The section will investigate the intent of the study based on the hypothesis that age, race and alcohol intoxication of eyewitness are the major factors affecting the eyewitness identification in the U.S. legal system. The study will identify the participants together with the materials and procedures be used in the study. Variables are elemental in their interaction to bring out the intent of the study. Moreover, the study section will explore the methods that will be used to analyze the data and present the data for further use in deriving conclusions and recommendations.

Participants

Convenience sampling was used to acquire the participants. The study has used a sample of 93 attorneys and 46 prosecutors with all from matched countries in California participating. The data needed to be warranted that they are obtained from a single state of California. Over a period of 18 months, the participants were contacted by email, telephone, and postal mail. Letters were written to the District Attorney and the Public Defender in all the fifty-eight counties in a request for the participation of the Deputy District Attorneys and the Deputy Public Defenders. Eight counties contributed a total of 93 Deputy Public Defenders and 46 District Attorneys (Pezdek, 2016).

Materials and Procedures

Questionnaires were used. Each participant filled a questionnaire containing four background questions. A mixed-factor design was used to carry out the study. One factor was considered to be varying, which was the prosecutor vs. defense attorney. A separate analysis was done on the responses to all the questions asked still with the use of the mixed-factor design. An essential pair-wise comparison was made in the conditions that included the significant interactions.

Five questions were used in each of the questionnaires from where the respondents were to give their procedural responses. Four question versions of crime scenario were also used. Each of the attorneys was asked to read four question versions of the crime scenario. After reading them, they were asked to respond to the five questions using the facts presented from the scenario. As part of the modification process, the grant proposal specified that 125 District Attorneys and 125 Deputy Public Defenders were to participate in the study. This was a confirmation, as those who participated were not the ones recommended for the study. The study, thus, used a small sample size but what was achieved was what the study wanted.

Data Analysis Plan

Statistical analysis has been conducted on the data obtained from the respondents. After collection, the data must be classified and analyzed statistically. This can be done using the central measures of tendency, obtaining the mean, mode, standard deviations, and correlation co-efficiencies. The data has been presented using tables and bar graphs indicating the different figurative values to be used to make conclusions from the study. Further, the data has been analyzed and presented regarding percentages for different ranges and values representing different special data used and obtained from the study analysis. As far as how the data will be analyzed and handled to get to the final data and graphs, means and standard deviations, as mentioned above, are a good guide. While this is perhaps a more simplistic and basic method of statistical analysis, it can still be very telling. The author of this study would add median to the group of figures calculated. Indeed, knowing the "middle" (median) value, the average value and how much variance there is within the values themselves (standard deviation) are all relevant. For example, it would be relevant to look at a number of people that pled guilty despite their innocence, how many of those cases involved eyewitness identification, how many of those cases did NOT involve eyewitness identification, how many people rolled the dice, so to speak, about getting an innocent plea and lost, how many convictions were overturned due to faulty eyewitness testimony and so on. In general, there will be a focus on the aggregate data and what it says rather than being too specific to a particular case. There will always be outliers and oddities in a sample. The size of the sample is the primary way to smooth out such data points.

Results

The results from the study, as noted above, came in large part in the form of several tables and graphs. Those results are as follows:

(Pezdek, 2016).

As can be seen from the above, there was no statistical difference between prosecutors and defense attorneys. Below is the second table for this study and its results:

(Pezdek, 2016).

The above results reflect that there was not a significant interaction when it came to the cross-race condition that was being assed. There was also not a significant interaction between that race/condition familiarity and the attorney group. Below is the third table:

(Pezdek, 2016).

The above was consistent with the expectations of the study's creators and authors. The below, in sequence, are the responses to each of the survey questions...starting with the first. The results for the prosecution are on the left and the defense attorneys' responses are on the right.

(Pezdek, 2016)

Discussion

In the end, the results of this and similar studies on the same subject have yielded mixed results. Indeed, prosecutors seem to be less adept and more bumbling in general while defense attorneys are at least more consistent when it comes to plea bargaining practices and with racial matters. Prosecutors were more likely to think the defendant was guilty than defense attorneys. Also, prosecutors felt as if they were more "in control" than their defense attorney counterparts. As one might figure out, this is all important when determining whether and how to go after a plea deal. The validity is strong for this particular study given that the same questions were asked of both sides and a direct compare and contrast was drawn from the same. This research was a little weak in that it only drew from two eyewitness factors and it would perhaps be wise to expand that to three or four, at the very least. At the same time, keeping things simpler and more focused can provide greater relevance and validity to the results garnered. The other side of that coin is that excluding some factors may lead to incomplete or incorrect results. The ethical implications of the research as well as the practice of law itself as rendered by the defense attorneys and prosecutors covered in this study are significant. Regardless of who and what is being studied, the authors of this and future studies have to be careful when extrapolating and asserting results. It is important to figure out what deficiencies exist but false positive and non-valid results can make things more nebulous and complex (Pezdek, 2016).