Question

Suppose professor Will Fail has been murdered at XXX University. The professor was found stabbed to death in his office. The police suspect Anne Tagonist is the culprit because Anne recently took Dr. Fail’s class and received an F. Anne is normally an A/B student and was extremely upset by her grade. Rumor has it she even threatened Dr. Fail saying he “would be sorry” he gave her the F. Anne has not been seen since the murder so the police broadcast a picture of her on the local news and put her picture on local billboards to try and find her. Meanwhile, to gather more evidence the police start talking to other students asking if they noticed anything suspicious at the time of Dr. Fail’s murder. One student, who was in Dr. Fail’s class the same semester as Anne, says he saw someone running out of Dr. Fail’s office with some kind of oddly shaped object in hand the day of the murder. To check out their suspicions regarding Anne the police start asking the witness whether the person he saw was female, was about 5’-3” tall, had a red backpack, and wore glasses. They ask these questions because Anne has all these characteristics. Later the student goes to the police station and is asked to pick out the person he saw from a photograph “lineup” of 8 pictures all spread out on a table. The student picks out Anne’s picture. At this point the police are confident Anne is the murderer and prepare to take their evidence to the District Attorney so he can begin putting together his case to prosecute Anne for first degree murder.

Did the police do anything wrong during their investigation? If so, what did they do incorrectly? (2 points)

Should we have any reason to doubt that the student did see Anne running out of Dr. Fail’s office even after the student picked Anne out of the lineup? Whether you answer yes or no, explain why we should/should not have confidence in the student’s identification of Anne from the lineup. (2 points)

Answer 1

Yes the police missed some important parts during the investigation. The police did the following things incorrectly:

? The police should have cross check the information given by the student with other class members or staff members before jumping to the conclusion on the basis of only one evidence.

? it might also be possible that the particular student has given wrong information to the police regarding Anne because of some personal grudges or conflicts between the two.

? police should have taken into consideration the statements and information of Anne's family members also

? police should have cross checked the information with the help of CCTV cameras placed at the college and the class

? police should have approached Dr. Fail's family to find any information or any person his family be suspicious about.

Yes, it is very obvious to still doubt the information given by the student because the student might have given the information as a result of suggestibility by the police members during the investigation. To avoid suggestibility, the police members should have first collected the information in students words including describing the whole scenario happened in the class till the end without informing him the physical characteristics of Anne. So the information given by the student may be the result of suggestibility and not the real observation.