The Importance Of Eyewitness Testimony

After reading the text and visiting some of the websites, I feel eyewitness testimony should hold minimal weight in a court of law. We can’t trust our memories; they’re weak and easily altered, occasionally without are notice. Though, testimonies sometimes can be critical or necessary to provide a better understanding of the situation, there needs to be more regulations on who is allowed to be an eyewitness, regarding their age, behavior and relation to the case, as well as an understanding that the testimony itself could be invalid. Juries when listening to eyewitness testimonies need to watch for their ease of recall, degree of confidence, and general knowledge about the subject, this can help detect more reliable and truthful testimonies.
However, I’m not saying testimonies haven’t and wont continue to provide important evidence and clues that would otherwise be unavailable, though, in some cases if the testimony is misinformed it could possibly destroy someone’s life or career on false pretenses. Overall, I think there is just too much at stake to rely on what one person thinks they saw or heard.