Second, the police lineup has to be fair (that is, the suspect should not stand out). The modern test for the admissibility of eyewitness testimony at a criminal trial under the Due Process Clause was established by the U.S. Supreme Court in Manson v. Brathwaite in 1977. When proper procedures are not followed, the potential for error exists. The processes at play in Lydell Grants case are predictable and unfortunately common. Recently, up to 400 female pupils from around 30 schools were subjected to poisoning attacks in what is believed to be an attempt to stop them getting an education. U. L. Rev. Yet, based on, among other things, this powerful purported eyewitness evidence, Heidelberg was convicted. cases where eyewitnesses were rightammo donation to ukraine. Thanks for reading Scientific American. The parking lot attendants provided a description of the driver to a police sketch artist and the sketch was published in a daily police bulletin. In one of the earliest studies of this misinformation effect run by Elizabeth Loftus, subjects were shown a slideshow of a red car passing a stop sign and hitting a pedestrian. [Youre smart and curious about the world. Juries are particularly prone to being swayed by eyewitness testimony, as evidenced in the Curtis Flowers case. The variables include: viewing conditions (lighting-distance-duration), distracting stimuli (weapons-loud noises) and internal states of the observer (attention-motivation-skill-prejudice). You have, Witnesses are Often Wrong: The Case Against Eyewitness ID, Florida City Creates Youth Curfew to Deter Juvenile Crime, Legislator Introduces Laws to Protect Law Enforcement After Temple University Cop is Killed in the Line of Duty, Oversight Report Shows Issues with DOJ Collection of Deaths in Policy Custody Data, Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License, New York-Based Chinese Gang Steals 3,000 Texas IDs in Cyber Fraud Case, Murdaugh Murder Trial Jurors to Visit Crime Scene, Heartbreakingly Evil: DOJ Strengthens Fight Against Elder Fraud, Sex Abuse of Athletes: Dont Tell is No Longer an Option, Criminal Justice Journalism Wins Pulitzer Prizes, View from the Trauma Center: Why Gun Violence Persists. Years later, in 1967, the U.S. Supreme Court highlighted the danger of erroneous eyewitness identification in United States v. Wade, stating, The vagaries of eyewitness identification are well-known; the annals of criminal law are rife with instances of mistaken identification.23 The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) estimates that U.S. law enforcement made 12,196,959 arrests in 2012. Last updated: 27 February 2023. This decision attracted intense media attention and was seen to be a controversial decision due to the nature and severity of his offences. Eyewitness Testimony: Recommended Practices, Eyewitness testimony continues to be commonplace in law enforcement and trials. The Louisiana Supreme Court remanded the case based on prosecutorial and police misconduct, including improper argument at the trial and failure to disclose the existence of exculpatory witnesses. Examples of when an expert witness may be needed include: To hire an expert witness, you may make contact with us via our simple online contact form, call us on 01865 587 865 or by requesting a call back from our team via the link below. In this case, the defendant was charged with first degree murder and the only evidence against him was the testimony of two eyewitnesses. In much the same way, an eyewitness can be led to falsely remember someone committing a crime that was actually committed by someone else. He did it and was fortunate not to be sentenced to death in that era. Not so with eyewitness memory. Instead of concluding that DNA evidence is inherently unreliable because of the contamination that apparently occurred in this case, a more reasonable conclusion would be that for DNA testing to be reliable, proper protocols must be followed. Given the prevalence and impact eyewitness testimony can have within a criminal case, it is important to take steps to make it a more reliable practice. 24 Federal Bureau of Investigation, Crime in the United States 2012: Persons Arrested,. There, the prosecution claims that Flowers killed the people inside Tardys, stole money from the stole, and then went back home, stopping to buy chips and beer at a convenience store on Highway 51 on the way. They found that when showing violent and non-violent crimes on videotape to subjects and then prompting them with questions later, the witnesses had more and more difficulty remembering certain details as the violence in the video went up.8. Additional Reading: Truth, Lies and Police Lineups, The Crime Report, May 5, 2021. Of course, he knew that Lydell Grant was the one under suspicion. Police lineups have evolved over time, but some states still need to catch up. Save my name, email, and website in this browser for the next time I comment. If the contaminated evidence is relied on to establish guilt versus innocence at a trial, the risk of a wrongful conviction is high. Therefore, when John Warboys applied for parole, an independent psychologist was instructed by his legal representative to assess his risk. First, the judge must determine whether the procedure used by law enforcement officials in obtaining the proffered eyewitness identification (e.g., photographic array or lineup) was unnecessarily suggestive.11 The judge must then weigh this determination against the following five factors to assess the reliability of the identification: In practice, therefore, the test is flexible. Incredibly, prior to Heidelbergs sentencing, the real shooter, James Clark, confessed to the crime, but the confession fell on deaf ears and Heidelberg was sentenced to 99 to 175 years in prison. A judge can review the footage to see if claims of witness tampering are true, or if the witness shows significant doubt while identifying the suspect. As with DNA evidence, eyewitness evidence needs to be safeguarded against contamination. The victim, a white female, parked her car in that garage every day and the attendants noticed that as the car approached there was an unknown black male driving the car. An Iranian girl passed away and we were all very sorry about that. The transcript from Lydell Grants trial revealed that the homicide detective in charge of investigating the case administered the lineup to the eyewitnesses. While 30+ years of research is too much to summarize in a few paragraphs, we will outline the general problems with eyewitness testimony as well as some of them more major research that has been performed on the subject. He is the founder of Hale & Monico, Americas Justice Attorneys. Most recently, in 2012, the Supreme Court clarified that the Due Process Clause does not require judges to assess the reliability of eyewitness identifications made under suggestive circumstances when the circumstances are not created by law enforcement officials.15 In other words, in cases where the proffered identification does not result from suggestive police procedure, the judge need not consider whether the identification also passes the second step of the Manson test. Some professionals have questioned whether this case has led to heightened caution when considering capacity and fitness in cases where dementia and cognitive impairment are diagnosed. Wegers attorneys, Celeste Stack and I, continue to seek to prove Chesters innocence and are seeking to review and analyze the physical evidence and are working to be able to conduct forensic testing on some of that evidence. In assessing the reliability of eyewitness identification, federal and state courts are still divided on (1) whether expert testimony on eyewitness identification should be allowed under either Daubert or Frye and (2) the proper exercise of trial court discretion when deciding whether to admit such expert testimony.18 Once a suspect has established that he was the victim of suggestiveness, a pretrial hearing will be held in which the full range of reasons for possible misidentification are examined. By the way, Weger signed EVERY SINGLE PAGE of the FIRST confession which was transcribed by a court reporter who testified under OATH Weger was not threatened or harmed when he made his damning statement. Sally Challen claimed she experienced years of emotional abuse before killing him with a hammer. Unfortunately for Lydell Grant, these reforms came a year too late. Arnaud, Celia Henry. It is used to establish facts in a criminal investigation or prosecution. It does make sure that photos in a lineup resemble one another.) A new version of that legislation, AB 308, is pending in the state Senate, though passage in this session is unlikely. The witnesses trial testimony reveals a simple explanation for these high-confidence errors: All of the eyewitnesses received confirmatory feedback following their identification of Grant. 'And that's why peaceful protests ended up becoming violent - because of the foreign intervention. 'Do you ask other countries? 21 Commonwealth v. Walker, 625 Pa. 450, 47678 (2014). Mr. 18 National Research Council, Identifying The Culprit: Assessing Eyewitness Identification 38 (2014). Eyewitness misidentifications are known to have played a role in 70 percent of the 349 wrongful convictions that have been overturned based on DNA evidence (so far). Many eyewitnesses testified with high confidence despite earlier expressions of uncertainty.28. But a comparison of the pairs mugshots reveals that they bear little physical resemblance to one another beyond both being Black men. The puzzling question in this case, though, is why did six eyewitnesses independently identify Lydell Grant as the killer and then confidently testify in court? Research has repeatedly demonstrated that simple confirming comments such as these have dramatic effects on eyewitnesses testimony. Pay farmers handsomely to give up their water rights. But in 2006, DNA testing on the victims slip exonerated Miller and established the identify of another man, Robert Weeks, as the real perpetrator. For example, in cases where a mental disorder is an issue, the evidence of a psychiatrist may influence the conduct of legal proceedings, it may help to adduce medical evidence relevant to trial and may be the deciding factor between imprisonment and mental health treatment. Historically, eyewitness testimony has been in use not only in the United States and our penal system but all around the world. Now the influential New Jersey Supreme Court has instructed police and judges to take into account an array of responses that might prevent mistaken identifications. Albright explains that witness misidentifications are essentially failures of visual perception (seeing things accurately) or failures of memory (lack of precision in storage and recall). . All six of those eyewitnesses were wrong. Videos circulating on Twitter appeared to show dozens of UN diplomats walking out as he started to speak. But eyewitnesses allege she was severely beaten and died as a result of police brutality. Judges should include within jury instructions clear and concise instructions on how to evaluate and make use of eyewitness testimony during their deliberations. This allows jurors to make more informed decisions while evaluating particular eyewitness testimony. This can be true even in situations where the witness has an ample opportunity to observe the offender. In 2011, Sally Challen was convicted of murdering her husband before Guildford Crown Court. Expert witnesses are often instructed in cases where expert evidence is necessary to enable the court to understand specific issues, such as capacity, intent, causation etc. bn. According to the trial transcript, most of the eyewitnesses testified to having been positive when they picked Grant out of the lineup. (Joshua Boucher/The State/AP) To see why, let us revisit those DNA exoneration cases that so often involve eyewitness misidentification. Chester Weger was convicted in 1961 of the notorious Starved Rock Murders, in which three women were brutally killed and their bodies left in a park located in LaSalle County, Illinois about two hours southwest of Chicago. Marilyn Stowe instructed a pathologist to review the medical notes of both infants. Scientific best practices for conducting eyewitness lineups require that the person administering the lineup not know who the police suspect. I can vouch for the truth of his observations, having been involved in several cases dealing with witness misidentifications while representing both plaintiffs and defendants. Continue reading with a Scientific American subscription. After his conviction at Croydon Crown Court, several more women made allegations of sexual assault against him. After . The perpetrator had a brief conversation with the parking lot attendants and then fled the scene. Just as double-blind clinical trials in medical studies are intended to prevent patients and doctors expectations from affecting outcomes of the clinical trial, double-blind lineups aim to prevent witnesses and administrators expectations from influencing the outcomes of the identification procedure. Psychologists have learned a lot about why such errors happen. They found that the odds of a false identification were 1.56 times greater in cases where the race was different than the witness, thus highlighting how bias can affect how somebody remembers an event.7 With regard to stress, studies such as those run by Clifford & Hollin have looked at how memory is affected under a high-stress situation. The lineup photo from one of these lineups shows how suggestive it was: The other four men in the lineup were much older and bigger than Chester. Published: 00:56 EST, 2 March 2023 | Updated: 01:01 EST, 2 March 2023. John Worboyss victims alleged that he assaulted them after offering them champagne which he had spiked with drugs. Get in touch with our team of experts today! Sally Challens appeal demonstrated the importance of expert evidence in establishing the correct outcome for a mentally disordered offender. Having served 10 years in prison, the psychologist recommended his release from prison. The appeal was successful and the conviction was quashed. 70 percent of the 349 wrongful convictions. He added: 'I can tell you this in full confidence that our police and the security forces in Iran have not killed anyone with bullets or any other means in these riots.'. Psychological experiments have shown that lineup administrators who know who the suspect is end up cuing witnesses toward that person. Law enforcement officers, prosecutors, attorneys, and jurors need to realize that just because a witness says so does not make it so. My review of the transcripts from Grants trial suggests a simple explanation for these high-confidence mistakes: The police did not use scientific best practices for collecting the eyewitness identification evidence. Pregnant), Left and got about 1-2 blocks away and saw a man running west, away from downtown, it was her neighbor Flowers, Clemy pointed it out to Roy but Roy did not recognize him, Couldnt remember his clothes or shoes, did not describe seeing blood on him, Latarsha, Clemys cousin, remains convinced that Clemy made up the story because she felt pressured by law enforcement and because she might be able to get money Latarsha was also taken by the police at 19 to be asked questions and Johnson implied that she might get some of the reward money (30k) if she corroborated, Saw a man running across the street 1-2 blocks away that day of the murders, he was alone (not with Clemy) and it was earlier in the morning and when he was with Clemy later, they did not see anybody running, Law enforcement came and found Roy and he ended up giving a statement to John Johnson, Was shown Flowers picture (school picture) ONLY Flowers asked if that was the person Roy saw running Roy said no and John Johnson pushed Roy that it was Flowers and that Clemy was with him when it happened eventually Roy said he broke down and agreed to the story because he wanted to get out of there (he was afraid of Johnson), After that, Johnson recorded Clemy telling her story of seeing Flowers running away from downtown. Chester denied having anything to do with these other crimes but was identified by the victims based on these suggestive procedures. "Double-Blind" Process for Lineups and Photo Arrays. The same is true of eyewitness memory: memory can be contaminated with the trace of an innocent person, but under proper testing conditions, eyewitness evidence is highly reliable. During the meeting Amirabdollahian said Irans government was committed to upholding human rights. In 2009, he was charged with assaulting 12 women. Iran's foreign minister could not stop smirking as he was grilled about his country's record on women's rights in a combative interview with CNN's Christiane Amanpour on Wednesday. Once this fact is appreciated, then proper testing protocols can be put in place to minimize the likelihood that the original memory trace is contaminated. At the time of his release, Jerry Miller had served over 26 years in prison for a crime he did not commit. Please send suggestions to Mind Matters editor Gareth Cook. 2023 Scientific American, a Division of Springer Nature America, Inc. Arizona State University provides funding as a member of The Conversation US. Even if he allows it, he will have to instruct the jury about the variables that can lead to misidentification. Assessing confidence is critical because it provides direct information about the trustworthiness of the uncontaminated ID. Eyewitness testimony can hold a lot of weight with jurors. Another stated that the killers face was burned into [her] memory immediately.. Therefore, it is important that the individuals allowed to testify are accurate in their recollections. Arnold Schwarzenegger vetoed legislation that, among other things, would have set up a task force to examine eyewitness testimony and establish voluntary guidelines to ensure that it was accurate. The way to avoid these problems with eyewitness testimony is for police to adopt best practices based on the psychological research. There are a few ways in which eyewitness testimony can be inaccurate. To do this we will link your MailOnline account with your Facebook account. Widespread civil unrest broke out in Iran following the suspicious death of Amini on September 16, 2022. In Manson, the Supreme Court highlighted reliability as the linchpin in determining the admissibility of identification testimony and adopted a totality of the circumstances test to assess reliability in this context.10 Instead, they asked that the six eyewitnesses who originally testified against Grant respond to his claims of innocence. On the strength of six eyewitnesses lineup identifications, Lydell Grant was sentenced to life in prison in 2012 for the murder of a young Texas man, Aaron Scheerhoorn, who was stabbed to death outside a Houston nightclub in 2010. 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