Eyewitness testimony

evidence or physical indications of a crime, therefore relying on the child’s eyewitness memory (Hobbs et al., 2014). Ever since colonial times in the United States, there has been a great deal of skepticism about the testimony of child witnesses, until the 1970s and 1980s when there was an increase in empirical research on the credibility of child witnesses (Ruby, 1997). It was also during…

Common criminal cases rely heavily on eyewitness memory resulting in inaccurate prosecutions. According to memory researcher Elizabeth Loftus, a person can develop false memories, but believe them to be accurate. Elizabeth analyzed one case where a man was falsely convicted of rape because a woman identified him as “the closest” looking to the rapist. Eventually, a journalist studied the man’s case and found the real rapist that had committed fifty or more rapes in that area. About three hundred…

The testimony given the child and conducted by Kelley is one that should not be admissible in a court of law in today’s world. The testimony is filled with red flags that warrant for the label of misinformation effect. Dr. Bruce Goldstein defines the misinformation effect as “misleading information presented after a person witnesses an event changes how the person describes that event later.” This can effect can be seen most of Kelley’s remember/know procedural questions such as, “Now, pretend…

Essay #1 “Eyewitness Accounts of the Haitian Revolution One of the key contributors to the expansion of the French Empire is the Haitian colony of the Caribbean. After the invasion of Haiti by the French in the mid-16th century, permanent settlements were then developed including enclave trading colonization when the French Indies Corporation was founded in the 1660s. With international trade underway slave labor was needed to cultivate the plantations within the colonies. The black slaves bore…

When a conviction depends completely on whether or not an eyewitness can select the correct suspect and not one of the foils, known non-suspects, out of a lineup is where many cases of wrongful convictions can begin. For example, in many cases it appears juries believe a witness who can correctly identify a defendant from lineups, even when other sources of evidence are contradictory to their statements (“Eyewitness Identification” 1); therefore, proposing a possibility of bias towards…

but now I must add on ‘we believe what we want to believe’; we have free will. The jury wanted to believe the men were guilty since they were all southern males who did not favor people of color as well as there was an ‘eyewitness’. In addition I relate the way ‘eyewitness testimonies’ are talked about as a science experiment. The person starts of with a hypothesis (in Thompson it was an idea of who it was), then they perform the experiment and come up with results ( study the picture and choose…

Eyewitness testimonies provide crucial evidence in pinpointing the identity of the perpetrator in order to solve a crime, thus the criminal justice system depends upon the accuracy of eyewitness identification to investigate and prosecute criminals. However, eyewitness identification is imperfect and the leading cause of wrongful convictions (Huff, Rattner, & Sagarin, 1996; Scheck, Neufeld, & Dwyer, 2000). One prominent method of eyewitness identification is a line-up procedure during which “A…

opinions based upon testimonies (Burnyeat and Barnes 178). Within a court of law knowledge and true opinion are seen as two different classifications, where knowledge provides people with…

There are two variables that contribute both good and bad things that contribute to help an eyewitness to identify a suspect. These two variables are estimator variables and system variables. Estimator variable are external factors that influence eyewitness testimony. They also show how accurate the recollection of the events is. Examples of a estimator variable would be things such as if the victim and the suspect are of different races. However, estimator variables can not be controlled by…

Throughout this semester, I have learned and obtained an abundance of new information that I did not realize was so informative in my life. I have already related the new learned concepts to my past, present, and future. I learned concepts that I was already aware of but now a more in depth version of itself. Concepts that have helped me through this journey of learning was the assignments, videos, and discussions inside/ outside of the classroom. All of the following has helped me breach a new…