Miscarriages of Justice Flashcards
When did studies on eyewitness begin?
With Loftus in the 70’s and biggest boost came from DNA testing
What percentage of cases were a miscarriage of justice in Innocence Project (2015)?
72%
What is the CJS challenge for witnesses?
Develop policy to minimise mistaken ID + enhance probative value of EW ID evidence
What is memory made up of?
Encoding, Storage and retrieval
What is encoding made up of?
Perception, attention and processing
What is storage made up of?
Decay and interference
What is retrieval made up of?
Characteristics and types of recall (free and cued recall)
What is an estimator variable?
Variables that the CJS has no control over e.g. Witness, perpetrator, scene, weather, light
What is a system variable?
CJS has control over e.g. Questioning technique, identification process
What are the two types of interrogation techniques?
Information gathering (PEACE model) and Accusational (REID)
What are the 9 steps of interrogation in the REID model? (Inbau, Reid and Buckely)
- Direct confrontation
- Shift blame
- Discourage suspect
- Should give reason- move towards confession
- Reinforce sincerity
- Offer alternative question
- Pose alternative question
- Lead suspect to repeat guilt.
- Document suspect’s confession and have them prepare recorded statement
Criticism of the REID model
Creates false confessions
Types of identification parades
Video parades or still photographs
Target present or absent
What has been found in absent-target identification parades?
Leads to false identifications
Research on eyewitness memory includes
Weapon focus, stress, social influence and misleading information
Weapon- Hope & Wright (2007) found
Novelty & perceived threat of weapon= distraction of attention
Fawcette et al (2013) meta analysis:
Weapon focus greater than recall of culprit
Hulse & Memon (2006) no weapon focus, BUT:
Less likely to accurately recall target detail and less confident compared to weapon detail
Social influence on memory
James newsome convicted for 15 years as Anthony Rounds forced to falsely confess by Chicago police
Stress on EWT- Deffenbacher et al (2004)
High stress negatively impacts recall and larger effect in target present than absent
Morgan et al (2004) military study
Ptps detained in mock prisoner camp 12 hours. Recognition of interrogator 30% high stress, 62% low stress
Criticism of Morgan et al (2004)
Interrogator working at camp
Valentine and Mesout (2004) field study
Recognition of scary person in London dungeon. 75% low state anxiety (in labyrinth) 18% high state anxiety
Misleading information- discrepancy detection
More likely to be accepted if witness doesn’t detect a discrepancy between the misleading information
Trace strength
Effect of misleading info depends on the strength of the memory traces of the original and misleading information
Source attribution
Distinguish info from original event and post-event and attribute it to the correct source
Fuzzy trace theory
Memory of events may be imprecise and only a gist retained. Misleading info may be accepted if compatible with schema
Oklahoma bombing case
Source confusion error of shop owners after discussions and could not recall John Doe 2
Gabbert, Allen & Memon (2003)- source misattribution and weak trace strength:
Girl note in bin, steals £10. Co witnesses led to believe all saw her steal: 61% young, 67% old (age) whereas only 12% individual incorrect recall
Sam Hallam
17, Hoxton, street fight & murder, convicted on 2 contradictory statements (estimator: age, time, location)
Jill Dando
Celebrity, killed late on street, 4 witnesses, only 1 identified Barry George. Shared taxi from police station to court(system variable). CJS said all unified. 2007- quashed
Kenneth Adams (innocence project)
18 years until exonerated, false tip from witnesses led to arrest of 4 AA’s. Gray questioned for 2 days (no legal counsel, mentally retarded, young)- 1 month later, recanted statement as she was drugged and forced to say that
Jailhouse informant tipped
Attorney Weston failed to point out time inconsistencies in EWT
What is a crime?
An offence against the law. Subjective (Zedner, 2004)
