Eyewitness Testimony

Eyewitness Testimony

1. Problem when victim and offender are strangers

2. Wells et al (1998) 40 cases of wrongful convictions, 90% were influenced by eyewitness testimony

3. Wells et al, the case of Ronnie Cotton. Wrongly convicted due to photo lineup and identity parade. Spent 10 years in prison.

4. The actual criminal Poole confessed but had no effect on Cotton's release.

5. Eyewitnesses believed around 80% of the time. Most influential in a case.

6. Scripts and schemas can influence eyewitnesses, leads to memory distortions

7. Not accurate during photo lineup because witness may think the police already suspect the person in the photograph or be afraid to say they dont know who it is incase of letting police down, or could have seen them somewhere else.

8. Survey of british police, majority think eyewitnesses are correct

9. Memory, encoding, storage, retrieval. Effects of type of crime. Witnesses of violent events less likely to recall details accurately than less violent crimes. Clifford and Hollin 1981.

10. Violent crime witnesses more likely to have narrow focus of events such as weapons and immediate action rather than peripheral things such as clothing and over time, storage of memory is under various influences and small details are lost but main events still remembered.

11. Loftus and Palmer 1974, speed of crash estimates when different words were used such as collided, bumped, crashed etc.

12. Type of questioning, speech and tone can impair accuracy of eyewitnesses.

13. Characteristics of the witness, no effect of gender, people more likely to identify own race, older no better than younger, but older more confident, doesnt however mean more accurate. But over 60s seen as less relliable.

14. Distinctive, very or very unattractive faces more easily recognised.

15. Making personal inferences about a face such as is this person honest makes it easier to recognise than simple physical inferences such as features

16. Quick identification in line up is good indicator of accuracy.