Miscarriages Of Justice

Question 1

Miscarriages of Justice Research

Answer 1

Christiansen: 42 cases of innocent convictions

Columbia: 68% death row verdicts reversed, 199 murderers exonerated, 125 rape suspects exonerated

Andrew Mallard example of Australian miscarriage of justice

Question 2

Eyewitness testimony miscarriages of justice

Answer 2

Griffith Innocence Project: 344 DNA exonerations, EWT played a role in over 70%

EWT Major cause of false conviction

Frank Button - Falsely convicted of rape, served 12 before DNA proved him innocent- lasting effects

Question 3

Ronald Cotton

Answer 3

Rape victim wrongly identified Ronald Cotton as her rapist

Sentenced to full life term + 54 yrs

Exonerated after DNA evidence

Question 4

Human perception

Answer 4

Perception = what a person sees, senses and experiences - requires interpretation

Inputs are affected by individual differences

Interpretation affected by past experiences (usually non-conscious)

Question 5

Human memory - 3 stages…

Answer 5

3 stages:

Acquisition - encoding of stimuli

Retention - storage of info (codes into existing info if it exists)

Retrieval - accessing and communicating stored information

Question 6

Suggestibility and memory

Answer 6

Memory is vulnerable to suggestion

Susceptibility to misinformation effect varies according to:

• age and individual factors
• immediacy of memory
• perceived reliability of misinformation source (the more reliable you believe the source to be the more you will believe what they say)

Questioning can be a source of misinformation

Question 7

Factors affecting EWT

System variables (controllable by CJS)

Answer 7

System variables cans be changed/manipulated

Related to retrieval phase

Examples:

• no. of people in lineup
• who is in the lineup
• what instructions are given
• how police interview witnesses

Question 8

Factors affecting EWT

Estimator variables (within the individual, outside of CJS control)

Four types:

• individual factors
• temporal factors
• situational factors
• detail significance

Answer 8

Individual - e.g. stress

Temporal - e.g. length of exposure, frequency of event

Situational - eg lighting, field of view

Detail significance - eg weapon focus, significance of event, level of violence

Question 9

Problems with line-ups

Answer 9

Inadequately matched fillers

Physical or bias (odd one out)

No double-blind procedure (officer shouldn’t know who the suspect is)

Unconscious transference (innocent bystander)

Question 10

Relative judgement theory

Answers question of how an eyewitness chooses a culprit and how some choose a culprit when the real culprit is not there

Answer 10

Wells study - TA line-ups 32% failed to choose, 68% chose someone else

To improve outcomes (check susceptibility to relative similarity):

• use dual line up
• use sequential line-up
• use ‘show-up’ (quickly show each)

Question 11

Improving line-up validity

Answer 11

Wells et al’s 4 principles:

1. Officer should be unaware of suspect
2. Eyewitness should be told officer doesn’t know
3. Suspect shouldn’t stand out
4. Obtain a clear statement at time of lineup about witness’s confidence

Other: tell witness the offender may NOT be there

Question 12

Loftus - fallibility of memory

Answer 12

• memory is constructed, reconstructed
• you can contaminate/distort memory with misinformation
• 1990s trend of false memories after therapy
• more recent memories can contaminate older memories

Question 13

Brewer’s research…

Answer 13

Fast decisions are better than slow ones

Proposes rating by confidence when taking seconds to look at it (67% accuracy)

Tested after a week with little affect (except for slight increase in accuracy)