Eyewitness Testimony Case Study

Eyewitness testimony is being able to choose the suspect out of a lineup or an array of photos. Sometimes the witnesses' testimony is not always accurate. When a witness falsely testifies they can send an innocent person to prison. An example of a case where the eyewitness testimony was incorrect was in the murder of 78-year-old Jack Sasson. The man who was convicted of the murder of Mr. Sasson was 18-year-old Kash Register. On April 6, 1979 in the middle of the afternoon, a 78-year-old white man by the name of Jack Sasson was found by his wife, Reene, gunned down in his blue Chevrolet in front of his house in West Los Angles. Mr. Sasson died three weeks later from five close range gunshot wounds. The two eyewitnesses were 18-year-old Brenda Anderson and 31-year-old Elliot Singleton …show more content…
Three days passed and the police came back with a photo array of African American men that lived in the area. Both Brenda and Elliot picked out Kash Register as the shooter from the array of photos. The police then searched Mr. Register’s house and found the clothes that Miss Anderson and Mr. Singleton stated that the suspect fled the scene in. When clothes were being processed, they found a tiny blood stain on Mr. Register’s striped pants. When the blood was brought to the lab and tested, it matched the blood type of both the victim Mr. Sasson, and the suspect. Mr. Register was then arrested for the murder of Mr. Sasson. Even with three people defending him, the police still charged him with the murder of Mr. Sasson. Dorothy MacEntire, an employee at the California Employment Development department, helped Mr. Register look for a job all morning to support his family. Cheryl Perry, his pregnant girlfriend at the time said, that he was at home for the rest of the afternoon with her. Sheila Vanderkam who was the sister of Brenda Anderson, contradicted her sister’s story by saying that