Eye Witness Testimonies
Crime scene investigation plays a critical role in unearthing some of the factors or individuals who are behind a particular crime. During a crime scene investigation, there is a lot of information that has to be relied on to find accurate results. Eyewitness is one of the ways that have to be employed when solving a crime. This method involves interrogating individuals who saw the crime happening and ask them to show the identification of a person who may have committed the offense. Many people rely on the eye witness memory in the event of a crime, but according to science, this is not reliable.
Eye Witness Memory
According to science, eye witness memory is not reliable because of the reconstruction of memory. The mind of human beings can easily reconstruct, which means various things can occur, causing it to change (Smalarz & Wells, 2012). The reconstruction of memories will then interfere with a series of events that the person had seen earlier. Therefore, when this person is asked to provide information about a specific occurrence, he or she may give false information. The false information is due to memory reconstruction, which has interfered with the events that the eye memory had captured earlier.
Secondly, eye witness memory is not reliable because there could be extreme pressure on the witness during an investigation or at the crime scene. During the investigation, the investigating officers may put a lot of pressure on the eye witness to point out a witness for them to solve a crime easily(Smalarz & Wells, 2012). In this period, most of the eyewitnesses will be under pressure to identify the correct person, and they may end up picking the wrong one. Also, during a crime scene, the eye witness may be under pressure, especially when he or she is running away from the crime. These people will find it hard to identify a person involved in the crime when they picked as the eye witness. Therefore, this pressure could lead to inaccurate information that may result in the arrest of the wrong person.
Thirdly, eye witness may not be reliable as the perpetrators may wear a mask during a crime. These masks will help to conceal the identity of a person (Doyle, 2012). The eye witness present during a crime may not be able to capture the real identity of the perpetrator. Therefore, if these individuals are picked as an eye witness and forced to identify the perpetrator, there is a high chance they will make a wrong selection. This incorrect selection will result in the conviction of an innocent person.
The fourth reason why using eye witness may not be reliable is because the perpetrator of the crime may lack distinctive features. People have unique features, such as heights and tattoos. During a crime, it may be easy for an eye witness to note these distinctive features. However, if the perpetrator may not have some of these characteristics, it may be hard to identify the right person who has committed a crime.
At times, there may be a short time given to the eye witness to identify the perpetrators of a crime. This period may not be enough for the eye witness to identify the perpetrator of a crime because the mind my take long to remember (Shell, 2013). Therefore, the short time given may force the perpetrator to identify a person who may not be the exact perpetrator of a crime.
Innocent Project
There have been various cases where investigative officers have relied on eyewitnesses to solve a crime, but it led to the conviction of innocent people. As a result, many innocent people have been put in jail for crimes they did not commit. This matter has led to the formation of the Innocent Project, whose primary purpose is to help people who have been imprisoned falsely due to false witness. An example of work that the innocent project has undertaken conducting post-conviction DNA testing (West & Meterko, 2015). Post-Conviction DNA testing has enabled the innocently accused person to go through the test to find out whether their DNA samples match with what has been found within the crime scene. This approach has helped many people because the DNA sample collected from the crime scene did not match their identity. Therefore, these individuals were proven innocent and released from prison.
The other activity that has been undertaken by the Innocent Project is false confessions. The innocent project has managed to bring eyewitnesses and ask them whether they told the truth when identifying a perpetrator (Johnson, McWilliams & Goodman, 2016). This action has shown that most of the eyewitnesses gave false confessions about the perpetrators of particular crimes. As a result, these individuals have been set free.
Also, the Innocent project has used misused forensic science to help set free innocent individuals. Some concepts in forensic science are not handled well during a criminal investigation. The innocent project has focused on misused forensic science to help identify whether a person was the real perpetrator of a crime. This approach has helped to set free innocent individuals.
References
Smalarz, L., & Wells, G. L. (2012). Eyewitness-identification evidence: Scientific advances and the new burden on trial judges. Ct. Rev., 48, 14. Retrieved from https://heinonline.org/hol-cgi-bin/get_pdf.cgi?handle=hein.journals/ctrev48§ion=7
Doyle, J. M. (2012). Ready for the psychologists: Learning from eyewitness errors. Ct. Rev., 48, 4. Retrieved from https://heinonline.org/hol-cgi-bin/get_pdf.cgi?handle=hein.journals/ctrev48§ion=6
Shell, E. G. (2013). A recipe for mistaken convictions: why the federal rule of evidence 403 should be used to exclude unreliable eyewitness-identification evidence. Suffolk UL Rev., 46, 263. Retrieved from https://heinonline.org/hol-cgi-bin/get_pdf.cgi?handle=hein.journals/sufflr46§ion=15
Johnson, J. L., McWilliams, K., Goodman, G. S., Shelley, A. E., & Piper, B. (2016). Basic principles of interviewing eyewitness. In Forensic interviews on child sexual abuse (pp. 179-195). Springer, Cham. Retrieved from https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-319-21097-1_10
West, E., & Meterko, V. (2015). Innocence Project: DNA exonerations, 1989-2014: a review of data and findings from the first 25 years. Alb. L. Rev., 79, 717. Retrieved from https://heinonline.org/hol-cgi-bin/get_pdf.cgi?handle=hein.journals/albany79§ion=28