Wrongful Convictions Based on Eyewitness Accounts Imagine

Wrongful Convictions Based on Eyewitness Accounts

Imagine if you will this hypothetical scenario -- you are walking to your car in a parking garage after a long day at work. You are tired and thinking of what is waiting for you on your desk tomorrow and what you will have to eat when you get home. Suddenly, a man jumps out from behind a parked car and points a gun at you, asking for your money. You are terrified and give him your wallet. He runs away and you call the police. They arrive and you give a sketchy description of the guy who robbed you. He was Hispanic, was wearing a dark jacket and jeans. You can't remember how tall he was and couldn't see the color of his eyes. You didn't see any tattoos, just the gun, which was huge. The police call the information in and another squad car on the way to the scene sees a Hispanic man a couple of blocks away and when he sees the squad car, he starts running away. They chase him and catch him, they pat him down and discover a switchblade knife on him. He's wearing a dark jacket and jeans, but doesn't have a gun. They handcuff him and have you drive past him to see if you can identify him as your robber. You see a Hispanic man standing with two or three policeman around him, with his hands in handcuffs and he's wearing a dark jacket and jeans. You assume that they have the right guy and so you identify him as your robber. He is charged and goes to trial. You are not informed that he did not have a gun on him, and the police were not able to find a gun where he might have disposed of it between your parking garage and where they picked him up. He is convicted of robbery based solely on your testimony.

This happens every day many different times a day in every city and every state and probably in every country -- wrongful convictions based on faulty identification. When you are the victim of a crime, most of the time you are in panic mode and you are not focusing on the assailant to find identifying details. Alarmingly, research has shown that more than forty percent of eyewitness accounts are wrong and it has been estimated that more than ten thousand (10,000) people a year are wrongfully convicted due to faulty eyewitness accounts. (Cicchini, p. 386)

The Supreme Court has not rendered a decision on eyewitness testimony since 1977 and even though it is notoriously unreliable, it is usually permissible in court proceedings. It has been suggested that expert testimony be given explaining to the jury how unreliable eyewitness testimony usually is, but that in itself is a slippery slope. The jurors can take exception to 'expert' witnesses and believe that they are treating the jurors as lacking in common sense and also they can think the defense is making too big a deal about it, and consequently put more stock in the eyewitness testimony, especially if, as is usually the case, the eyewitness is confident in their own testimony. (Wise, p. 453)

There are three primary factors that are responsible for the unreliability of eyewitness accounts.

1. People do not record what is happening as though using a video camera. We record, if you will, certain things in the environment that catch our attention and fill in the blanks later due to our expectations and experience.

2. Human susceptibility to suggestion. This can be a purposeful suggestion or accidental suggestion. For example, say a suspect has gotten away with a crime more than once, the police officers can suggest that he or she is the culprit by body language or making his picture stand out in a pictorial line-up or even making the others in the line-up look totally different from the suspect, so that he is the only one that matches with the eyewitness' account.

3. The judge and/or jury usually gives more weight to an eyewitness account in the court proceedings. Having someone point to the defendant and say "That is the person right there that did this crime," has a lot of psychological weight attached to it. (Greene, p. 395)