Eyewitness Testimony Research Paper

Eyewitness testimonies have been a part of court cases for very long time. Along with evidence, testimony from a witness, could be what locks a criminal up for life. Sometimes where there is a lack of evidence, we can rely too heavily on the eyes of an eyewitness. What we see may not always be what actually happened. In moments of stress or traumatic situations, we may see things that really were not there. In many cases those who have testified, testified to what they believe they saw, but what they saw was actually incorrect. Due to errors of what they saw innocent people were put in prison for crimes they didn’t commit. This has happened in numerous cases, which have led us to question whether or not eyewitness testimony is reliable. According
According to Clare (2012) photos used for lineups of suspects should look all the same. One headshot should not be bigger than the others or have different lighting (para. 8). In 2011, the Innocent Network Report, contained 21 cases of exonerations in the United States. Of those 21 cases, 19 of them were wrongful convictions due to misidentification (Clare, 2012, para. 1). The majority of these cases have been over turned due to DNA evidence. Eyewitness testimony is not as reliable as we may have thought it was. Eyewitness statements can be interfered with by many factors and if used in the court of law, the procedures should be strict and beneficial. Eyewitness identification is not a reliable source of
Anderson spent fifteen years of his life in prison because a black man broke into a woman’s house and raped her. Anderson never got in trouble with the law before that crime occurred. For a photo lineup of the suspects, police used mug shots of other men and Anderson’s work photo, which was in color. The woman quickly identified Anderson as the rapist. After, the police had Anderson stand in a lineup, again the woman identified Anderson as a rapist. The woman was sure that Marvin Anderson had committed that crime. Police immediately arrested Anderson; he was tried and convicted of the rape, forcible sodomy, abduction and robbery. He was sentenced to 210 years in prison. Anderson served 15 years behind bars and five years on parole. Later, Anderson was proved he was not guilty when a DNA test was done and showed that he was not the rapist. DNA evidence proved a different man had committed the crime. The real rapist’s DNA was already in Virginia’s database from a prior crime (Innocence Program, 2015, n.p.). The woman was so sure of who committed the crime, that the police never followed the DNA evidence in the