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DNA overturns wrongful convictions! How to expose false eyewitness identifications?
In criminal law, eyewitness testimony is often considered key evidence. However, as DNA testing technology has improved, many false eyewitness identifications have come to light, resulting in innocent people becoming inmates in prison. According to the Innocence Project, eyewitness misidentification is the largest cause of wrongful convictions nationwide, affecting more than 75 percent of convictions overturned by DNA testing.
"Eyewitness misidentification is the largest cause of wrongful convictions nationwide, affecting more than 75 percent of convictions overturned by DNA testing."
The late U.S. Supreme Court Justice William J. Brennan, Jr., noted in 1980 that eyewitness evidence is inherently dubious, describing it as “notoriously dubious.” reliable". This view applies not only to the United States. The UK's Criminal Law Review Committee has also mentioned that cases of misidentification "are undoubtedly the greatest cause of actual or potential wrongful convictions." These criticisms reflect that when an independent witness takes the stand and identifies a defendant in a direct manner, that evidence is often more convincing than other evidence, even if that evidence proves the defendant's innocence.
The Innocence Project has overturned the convictions of 214 men who were wrongly convicted based on inaccurate eyewitness evidence. Some of these cases have received widespread media attention because of their shocking circumstances. In 1984, at Georgia State University in North Carolina, student Jennifer Thompson was attacked and raped by a man in her apartment. She went to great lengths to memorize her attacker's face and even helped police draw a sketch of the suspect afterward. Unfortunately, Thompson's memory was inaccurate, and she ended up identifying an innocent man - Ronald Junior Cotton. Not only did this incident result in an innocent man being sentenced to 11 years in prison, Thompson himself felt deeply guilty about the wrongful identification.
"I learned every detail, and when I survived, I made sure he went to prison and rot there."
As a result, there is now a subfield of psychology that studies eyewitness memory and analyzes the root causes of eyewitness identification errors. In these studies, scholars proposed that a variety of factors affect the accuracy of identification, which can be divided into "system variables" and "estimated variables".
System variables (police procedures)
Research shows that the procedures police use in collecting eyewitness evidence can have a significant impact on eyewitnesses' conclusions. These procedural factors are called "system variables." For example, when a suspect is absent from a police photographic lineup, eyewitnesses are likely to misidentify someone other than the criminal. In addition, providing advance instructions to eyewitnesses during the identification process can help reduce the probability of errors.
"When the actual criminal is not present in a police camera lineup, the likelihood of eyewitness misidentification increases significantly."
Estimation variables (environmental factors)
In addition to system variables, environmental factors can also affect eyewitness accuracy. Studies have shown that in cross-racial identification, eyewitnesses often make identification errors due to racial differences. This phenomenon is called "cross-race identity disorder", and the study found that the proportion of identification errors increased significantly regardless of race.
"Studies have shown that eyewitnesses are significantly less accurate at identifying suspects of a different race than themselves."
In addition, emotional stress also plays an important role in affecting the accuracy of eyewitness memory. In high-pressure situations, police investigations of witnesses may be affected by the witnesses' anxiety, resulting in a significant reduction in the accuracy of their identifications. Research supporting this point found that in eyewitness identification tests conducted under high-pressure situations, subjects had a 68% misidentification rate.
However, efforts to improve eyewitness identification procedures can not only prevent innocent people from being wrongfully convicted, but also enhance the fairness and credibility of the entire criminal justice system. As society becomes more aware of this issue, will it be possible to reach more effective reforms in the future so that the legal system can better protect the human rights of innocent people?
