Eyewitness testimonies are considered unreliable and were neglected for helping gather evidence in Steven Truscotts case. There are two witnesses that provided evidence that indicates that a car could have been present where Lynn Harper was rapped. George Edens found Lynn Haper's body and said you could see car skid marks. Bob Lawson said he saw a car parked near spot but he had never seen a car there before. This all corresponds with Steven Truscotts statement that he left Lynn Harper near highway 8 and saw her get into a car. Jocelyne Godette who was 13 provide the police with evidence that did not match up. She testified that she went to the bush looking for Steven that evening because they had a date. But previously she had said she went looking for Lynn. She also asked a local farmer to change his stament to match up with hers. People believed Jocelyne even though her evidence was false and made Steven look responsible . Gordon Logan who was 12, told police he looked up from fishing and saw Steven and Lynn ride across the bridge. Then, shortly afterwards he saw…
Many eyewitnesses are called to testify because they have witnessed a crime, accident or incident. The anxiety if this may cause an affect on the reliability of their EWT.…
|Ashley placed the tree in the position it was to be planted. Once the position was selected he marked the area of the hole around the base |…
People who report on events use many different ways to report on that event. Authors who cover events use either an objective or subjective point of view to describe an event such as a natural disaster. Both “The Story of an Eyewitness,” by Jack London, and “Letter From New Orleans: Leaving Desire,” by Jon Lee Anderson, both describe the effects of a natural disaster from an objective or subjective point of view. “Story of an Eyewitness” focuses on the initial earthquake and fires following it, while “Letter From New Orleans: Leaving Desire” focuses on the floods following the hurricane. Jack London wrote about the 1906 earthquake that took place in San Francisco, Jon Lee Anderson told about the flooding in New Orleans following Hurricane…
Memory and Eyewitness Testimony are two concepts which are studied within the topic of cognitive psychology. It is important to investigate these processes to aid in the understanding of how individuals cognitively process ideas and how this may affect specific behaviors. From a psychological perspective, memory can be defined as, “The capacity to retain and store information” (holah.co.uk, 2006). The further researches into the topic of memory allow it to greatly contribute toward societies' legal system, specifically in the sense of Eyewitness Testimony. Individuals may feel confident towards their memory abilities but according to many researchers, one's memory is not always reliable. (Bartlett, 1932) believed that memory is unreliable due…
In society it is substantially common for people to be exonerated for a crime they did not commit. Unfortunately it is even more common for that to happen when they are incarcerated due to inaccurate eyewitness testimonies. Eyewitness research has demonstrated that there are a multitude of ways to conduct identification processes, however, the processes that police often use today are more likely to encourage inaccurate identification. In addition there have been many case studies of exonerated people that show the downfalls of eyewitness testimony. Wrongful incarceration has consistently demonstrated that inaccurate identification carries a big weight when it comes to wrongful identification, in fact, in the article Contamination of Eyewitness Self-Reports and Mistaken-Identification Problem by Laura Smalarz and Gary L. Wells, they state that there is an average of thirty three percent of witnesses who make an identification from a lineup identify a known innocent filler. There is a lot of thought behind the processes of identification but there are so many variables that can taint a subject’s confidence.…
The forensic technique eyewitnesses is a term meaning a person who has witnesses an event that is important to a criminal investigation or criminal justice trial. The eyewitness will at first tell a police officer what he or she have witnessed, but after telling the police officer the eyewitness may be required to do other things to help the investigation or trial as well. Nowadays the most normal thing a eyewitness will do is to point a person out in a line-up, but a eyewitness can also be required to witness at court and tell their story about what he or she witnessed. (http://www.simplypsychology.org/eyewitness-testimony.html). Eyewitnesses has always been used to help investigations and in the criminal justice system.…
If the police officer knows who the suspect is in a photo or lineup it might influences the witness to pick that person (eyewitness identification, 6-12 paragraphs, n.d.)…
Overall eyewitness evidence strength was further examined across prosecution outcomes in the eyewitness identification alone cases” (Flowe, 2011). When it comes to being a creditable source of being an eye witness there are many things that, factor how using someone’s testimony as accountable source. When it comes to linking and eyewitness testimony and the accusing someone under false pretenses there has been amplitude of research that has being placed into forensic psychology to help see how useful resources are when it comes to taking an eyewitness word. “The connection between erroneous eyewitness identification evidence and wrongful convictions has been the motivating force behind much research in forensic psychology” (Wells, 2006). When…
Eyewitness testimony has been used frequently over time in various situations. It sometimes holds more merit then some facts or evidence. Yet it is also the reason why many innocent people go to jail and criminals still walk free. Eyewitness testimony has been used for over 100 years. It has played a major part in convicting criminals, from the common thief to the most dangerous murderer. However, with the time between incident and testimony or even report can vary drastically, the quality of eyewitness testimony wasn 't really recognized as an issue until the 1970 's. With plenty of unsolved crimes and not enough evidence eyewitness testimony was all that was needed. Now with psychologists holding scientific studies to see if it is reliable;…
High stress situations, such as an assault or robbery, may also impact witness reliability. This is particularly true in cases that involve weapons because witnesses often put the majority of their focus on the weapon, rather than the person holding it.…
I think that we should not go to war unless the United States’ military, citizens, or leaders are involved in the problem. A very good example of when we did help and it ended badly was what happened in Bosnia in 1992. Many different ethnic and religious groups lived together under a repressive communist government in Yugoslavia. In April 1992, Serbia set out to ethnically cleanse the Bosnian territory by removing all Bosnian Muslims, the Bosniaks, after the president Tito died in 1980. In 1993, The UN learned about this cleanse and made Sarajevo and many other places safe areas for Bosniaks. Slobodan Milosevic responded to the UN by attacking Bosniaks and surrounding Sarajevo. He blocked all roadways and closed down all the airports in Sarajevo. The Serbs then opened fire on thousands of UN peacekeepers and other citizens. This was the largest massacre in Europe since World War 2 by killing a rough total of 23,000 women and children and 8,000 men, which many were part of the UN aid. The UN tried to help again by sending thousands of flights to try and air lift the remaining people out of this unsafe area. In December 1995, the U.S. led negotiations that ended the conflict in Bosnia and provided a force to maintain the problems in the area until it was safe. Some could argue that the UN’s help was critical to stopping this issue, but I think it made it worst. I understand that the issue would have been terrible if no one stepped in but the Serbs didn’t actually do something until they noticed that the UN declared a safe zone. The UN making a safe zone made Milosevic angry and he then took over the safe zone. It was unnecessary for anyone to get involved in this issue besides the Serbs and Bosniaks. There were many deaths that could have been stopped if the UN just left the situation unfold by itself. I think that we should not go to war unless we are a part of the problem and this is a perfect example of…
Ever sense the 1960 they have problem's with used eye witness identification in the police department and it was strong testimony's of defant. However, justice department has developed scientific procedure now that it will speak truth to the investigation and the court. Scientific proof like DNA of sex and murder of the perpetrate which is more accurate in selecting the perpetrator.…
Eyewitness Misidentification alone is the greatest cause of wrongful convictions nationwide, playing a role in 72% of convictions. It’s unbelievable because research shows that memory is malleable and that an eye witness who is uncertain, can become much more certain over time. I also learned that when an eyewitness identifies a suspect it’s possible the police unconsciously provides information to them. Officers also try and use one suspect in multiple procedures with the eyewitness and that will increase the witness’s confidence to…
The goal of the criminal justice service is to protect the public, handle convicted offender in a proper way and give equal treatment. The United States has the largest incarceration rate in the world compared to other countries. More taxpayer is having to waste more money because of how much it cost to run the criminal justice system. The criminal justice system is ineffective because of bias law enforcement, mass incarceration and unfair court system…