Question

Suppose that you have been called as an expert witness for a defendant accused of robbing a bank. Prior to your being called as a witness, two bank tellers confidently identified the defendant as the robber. What research evidence might you introduce to the jury to caution them about assuming that the defendant must be guilty because he or she was identified in court?

Answer 1

In most of the cases of eyewitness testimony being accepted in courts, it has been found that such testimonies may be incorrect. There are certain processes which may inflrunce eyewitness testimonies. These are-

1. Constructive processes in memory- Human memory has a tendency to be influenced by constructive processes. In other words, it means that during the encoding and storage of various information, if certain parts of the information are missing, they will be constructed by the memory to give a complete picture of what was there. This means that there is a tendency of adding information to what actaully is there, to complete the puzzle.

2. Individual factors like stress and anxiety of the witnesses.

3. Racial disparities. The eyewitness of a crime may be racially different from the perpetrator of the crime. There may be stereotypical and prejudiced thinking of the eyewitness who may thus wrongly identify the culprit. These are difficult to account for and prove but can greatly influence the accuracy of the eyewitness.

4. Lack of distinctive characteristics- If the accused lacks in distinctive characteristics, it's also hard for an eyewitness to come up with a positive identification.

Therefore, the above factors must be kept in mind while judging the crime as done by the accused.