Personal identification

prediction of eyewitness accuracy in actual criminal cases” (Geoffrey M Stephenson, 1993, p161.) The findings a this study into reliability of eyewitness shows that 40 wrongful conviction cases in the USA 36 of them (90%) involved faulty eyewitness identification evidence (Ronald P. Fisher,…

In one particular case, State v. Henderson (2011), James Womble witnessed the shooting of Rodney Harper. On January 1st, 2003, Harper and Womble were together at a friend’s apartment. Two men forcefully entered, one of which was George Clark, whom Womble knew. Clark and Harper stepped into another room while the other man held a gun to Womble, making sure he did not follow them. The ensuing argument in the other room resulted in Harper being shot by Clark, who then threatened Womble. The…

that were asked the later of the two questions, always picked a suspect, while not always the same one. A study done by psychologists included the following: First, memory is a reconstructive process; thus, once it is altered by a suggestive identification procedure, it is unlikely that the eyewitness's original memory can be restored. So just by changing a few words in a question, who or…

Even if the person is 100% sure, the brain can change its memories. " The human memory tends to reconstruct incidents because humans do not have the capability to record memories like a video recorder." (Bonaguidi). Another cause of eyewitness identification is the…

Wrongful Conviction On the morning of August 10, 1984, Deborah Sykes was brutally stabbed, sexually assaulted, and eventually killed in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. The man convicted for her murder was Darryl Hunt, a 19 year old boy that would go on to spend 20 years in prison for a crime he did not commit. Hunt was convicted based on eye-witness testimony and informants, but was later exonerated based on DNA evidence that matched a man that was caught just a few months after the murder took…

INTRODUCTION Eyewitness testimony, which depends on the precision of human memory, enormously affects the result of a trail. For instance, In 1984, American College Student Jennifer Thompson was assaulted at knifepoint by a man who burst into her dorm. Amid her difficulty, Jennifer focused on everything about her aggressor so she could later precisely identify him. Soon thereafter, she worked with law enforcement to make a precise representation out of an attacker. A couple days after the fact…

Eyewitness testimony can become very controversial, sometimes even contradictory. In some cases, people are willing to lie to help others, and in some, they may genuinely believe false statements. However, testimony from witnesses can be necessary in determining the facts of specific cases. Though it may be necessary, it usually does not help in determining the genuine truth. In most cases, eyewitness testimony is invalid. The case in the video is one of the many examples of how eyewitness…

Throughout the history of the United States’ judicial system, eyewitness testimonies — accounts of a crime or accident that involves a witness narrating their firsthand experience of the incident to a court — have been used as primary evidence for courts to indict a defendant since biological evidence may not always be available or easily analyzed (Myers 350). One of the major problems with these testimonies is that it requires perfect recollection of the events so that the courts can piece…

When one thinks of memory, they usually think of past events that happened or something that they had learned. Although one can recall certain memories, can they recall every single detail? This semester, we were asked to recall the events of a day that happened six weeks prior to the beginning of class. While some students could explain some details of what they had done that day, not all could be certain. Details may not seem to be that important when telling a story from a childhood…

If you have been charged with a criminal offense in Pennsylvania, or elsewhere, then you know that your arrest may have been based on eyewitness testimony. Identifications and testimony given by eyewitnesses have long been considered one of the most reliable types of evidence. More and more, however, it has been shown that eyewitness recall might not be as accurate as it was once thought to be. In fact, Science magazine reports that eyewitness testimony was the basis for approximately 75 percent…