Kirk Bloodsworth's Five Eyewitness Testimony

Eyewitness accounts play a huge role in general in trials and verdicts, but may be unreliable many times, with certain views placed on evidence provided by children. Unreliability may arise from not being able to recount the identity of the accused, the actions and speech occurring during that time, the relationship of individuals towards the person in question, and many

Innocence Project Report on the Case of Curtis Jasper Moore Tommy Warrick Drake University According to the Innocence Project one of the greatest causes of wrongful conviction is due to eyewitness misidentification. They state that 72% of cases where defendants have been exonerated eyewitness misidentification played a role. Even though eyewitness testimony has been proven inaccurate numerous times, it can still be the decisive evidence in a court of law. This is because the law views the human memory as a camcorder which can record and repeat whatever it sees.

Leonard Peltier’s Innocence Leonard Peltier was a Native American man arrested for supposedly killing two FBI agents on Pine Ridge Reservation of South Dakota. There have been many debates about the integrity of the court cases and the lawfulness of Peltier’s arrest. Many FBI supporters would claim that there were eyewitness accounts and various other pieces of material evidence that show that Peltier was the culprit. However, Peltier supporters would rebut the evidence, saying that the eyewitness accounts aren’t legitimate and the court decision was politically influenced. I will consider both sides of the argument, and show that Peltier’s innocence is evident because the evidence provided against Peltier was falsified and the FBI used disingenuous methods in charging Peltier for murder.

However, these two men would not have suffered what they never deserved to if there were enough strong evidence their innocence. According to a survey of Ohio State University, there are about 10,000 people in the United States might be wrongfully convicted of serious crimes each year; also, this survey points out that there are more than half of those wrongfully convicted cases (52.3%) were built on eyewitness misidentification (Tom Spring). Unfortunately, Ronald Cotton was one of victims of those wrongfully convicted cases. The book tells us that after spending 5 minutes of studying mug shot photos, Jennifer, who was a victim of rape, picked Ronald Cotton who was one of the pictured; second, during the lineup, she picked him again without

After investigators begun to suspect arson was in play, the testimonies turned into accusations and assumption of Willingham’s guilt. David Grann wrote, “Dozens of studies have shown that witnesses’ memories of events often change when they are supplied with new contextual information”, suggesting that after a certain period of time into an investigation, all testimonies should be taken with little confidence (Grann, “Trial by Fire”). If the witnesses and testimonies were taken from individuals who know nothing about the

The article “When Our Eyes Deceive US” speaks about the wrong decisions that can lead to a wrongful conviction. This particular article decided to focus on cases of wrongful convictions of sexual assault. The first case mentioned was that of the wrongful conviction of Timothy Cole. His victim positively identified him three times (twice in police lineups and one in person at the trial), he was exonerated by DNA testing. To the utmost misfortune, the real rapist had been confessing to the crime for nine years.

The Thin Blue Line" is a 1988 documentary film directed by Errol Morris, which investigates the case of Randall Dale Adams, a man who was sentenced to death for the murder of a police officer in Dallas, Texas. The film presents evidence that suggests Adams was wrongfully convicted and that another man, David Harris, was actually responsible for the crime. The thesis of "The Thin Blue Line" is that the criminal justice system can make mistakes and that the power of the law can sometimes be abused by those who are supposed to uphold it. Morris argues that the investigation and trial of Adams were flawed and biased, and that Harris, who had a history of violence and had been stopped by the police on the night of the murder, was the real perpetrator.

A story that seems highly improbably or impossible is likely to be so. The bigger the embellishments the more likely it is that the testimony is false, the same could be said of minimizing a story. A testimony that casts a witness in a near perfect light lends to their lack of credibility. In R. v. McKay, there were special scrutiny both as a result of judicial experience and as a matter of law. Accomplice evidence is recognized to be potentially dangerous because an accomplice may be motivated to shift blame away from him or herself to otherwise distort evidence to gain advantage.

All over the United States 329 people have been exonerated from their sentences. Mostly because of an error that led to another discovery and that same initial error resurfaced later on. States started to present ideas to battle such flaws (Dwyer, 2015, para. 11, and 12). Lobbyists for new rules urge opposing forces to look back on how the DNA testing improved the accuracy of investigations.

When one is victim of or witness to a crime, it is expected that said person is brought into the police department to be questioned by the police. During this line of questioning it is possible that the victim or witness take part in suspect identification procedures. Such procedures include the use of lineups, showups, photo arrays and others. These procedures are referred to as system variables. These system variables are factors under the control of the investigators that have a demonstrated effect on the accuracy and reliability of eyewitness testimony.

After a twelve-hour interrogation, Brenton Butler confessed to the murder of Mary Ann Stephens. A key claim made by the defense attorneys in this case was that this was a false confession, and after reaching a verdict of not guilty, the jury clearly agreed. The factors that led the false confession were laid out in a scene during the documentary. Instead of using the interview to discover the truth, the interrogators specifically sought out a confession from the suspect. They began the interrogation with the presumption that Brenton Butler was guilty.

Since the founding of our judicial system there have always been individuals claiming innocence to a crime that they have been found guilty of, traditionally, after their sentencing no matter how innocent they may or may not be would have to serve, live and possibly die by the decision of their peers. The Innocence Project, founded in 1992 by Barry C. Scheck alongside Peter J. Neufeld faces this issue by challenging the sentencing of convicted individuals who claim their innocence and have factual ground to stand upon. The Innocence Project uses the recent advances in deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) testing to prove their client’s innocence by using methods that were not available, too primitive or not provided to their clients during their investigation,

Eyewitness misinterpretation is the highest contributing factor to wrongful convictions. The majority of the wrongful convictions have been corrected by DNA. Exoneration cases that have involved convictions are based on mistaken identification and/or mistaken or overlooked evidence. While there had been evidence in the book “The Picking Cotton,” of police misconduct/ biased based on race. While prosecutors and law enforcement officials are expected, to be honest, uphold the law, have the best intentions to protect society and act with integrity but the pressure to get the right perpetrator my lead police to act inappropriate, unfair or in an unlawful manner, government misconduct can include withholding or fabricating evidence, suggestive ways

Convicting the Innocent: Where Criminal Prosecutions Go Wrong In Brandon L. Garrett 's book, Convicting the Innocent: Where Criminal Prosecutions Go Wrong, he makes it very clear how wrongful convictions occur and how these people have spent many years in prison for crimes they never committed. Garrett presents 250 cases of innocent people who were convicted wrongfully because the prosecutors opposed testing the DNA of those convicted. Garrett provided simple statistics such as graphs, percentages, and charts to help the reader understand just how great of an impact this was.

In the novel To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee the term mockingbird symbolizes innocence in a person. In the novel it focuses on the fact that innocence, represented by the mockingbird, can be wrongfully harmed. There are two characters: Tom Robinson and Arthur “Boo” Radley that are supposed to represent the mockingbird. In the novel, Tom Robinson is the best example of a mockingbird because he is prosecuted for a crime he did not commit. Also, he was judged unfairly based on the color of his skin in his trial.