Eyewitness Reliability Flashcards
Leading contributing cause for wrongful convictions?
77% are eyewitness
When does acquisition or encoding take place in an investigation for an eyewitness?
during the crime
When does storage take place
up until testifying
When does retrieval occur?
Recall; during police interview, recognition; lineup
Acquisition
the process by which people notice and pay attention to information in the environment
Encoding
driven by attention
own race bias
people are more likely to recognise people from their own race
storage
the process by which people store in memory information that they have acquired from the environment
Retention interval
- ebbinghaus forgetting curve, immediately after receiving info memory degrades quickly and then levels off. (30% in first day)
Misinformation Effect
The tendency for false post-event information to become integrated into people’s memory of an event
Loftus et al. 1987 classic misinformation study
- post - slide presentation interview; plant misinformation about event
Sources of contamination
Police - leading questions, suggestive questions. Other witnesses- discussing the events etc
Ways to avoid misinformation?
- Isolate witnesses as soon as possible
- Ask open-ended, non-leading questions
Factors that influence memory
estimator variables, system variables
Estimator variables
Factors that the criminal justice system has no control over
System variables
can be controlled by criminal justice system
Estimator variables (examples)
- presence of weapon
- length of exposure
- viewing conditions
- race of victim & perp
- Age of witness
- Presence of disguise/ Change of appearance
System variables (examples)
- Who administers the lineup
- lineup presentation
- selection of foils
- instructions to witness
- feedback to witness
Target
perp
Single-blind administration of line-up
- police officer involved in case
- may influence eyewitness
- observers rated administrator as more biased (Greathouse & Kovera, 2009)
Double-blind Administration of line-up
- Independent investigator or computer
- Cannot influence eyewitness
- inform eyewitness to prevent search for cues
Simultaneous lineup false ID rate (Steblay, Dysart & Wells, 2011)
28 %
Simultaneous correct ID rate (Steblay, Dysart & Wells, 2011)
52 %
Sequential false ID rate (Steblay, Dysart & Wells, 2011)
15 %
Sequential correct ID rate (Steblay, Dysart & Wells, 2011)
44 %
For a fair lineup, what is required?
Foils should resemble/match description of suspect
How does confidence impact jurors belief in witness?
Jurors are more likely to believe witnesses who are 100% confident than witnesses who are 80 % confident
Neil vs Biggers (1972) case changed eye-witness cases
Even if suggestive procedures used as long as criteria fit: - opportunity to view - attention paid by eyewitnesses - Accuracy of description - Certainty - Time between event & ID
NJ vs Henderson (2011) shift in procedures
- Special Master Review of 2,000 pages of scientific findings - rewrote judicial instructions to address system variables - system variables looked at also :)
Oregon vs Lawson (2013)
- Revised Judgement Process - Onus shifted from defense to prosecutor to demonstrate not a suggestive procedur - Focus on system variables
Common eye-witness safe guards
- Suppression hearings (evidence thrown out of court) - Judicial Instructions - Expert Testimony (expensive)
Novel eye-witness safe guards
- Juror training - Presentation of ID video
