Eyewitness Misidentification

Professor of Forensic science/ WA police advisor

"I think eyewitness identification and sequence of what happened has been comprehensively discounted across the whole world now, by lots of academic surveys.... I think it's been recognised across the world that eyewitness evidence both of identification and as to what's happened is very unreliable."

Australian story interview 2006

Eyewitness Misidentification

Research in the United States reveals that 75% of convictions overturned through DNA testing is due to eyewitness misidentification; which is the single greatest cause of wrongful convictions in the USA. (innocenceproject.org)

The human mind is unlike a tape recorder and it is impossible for the human mind to record or retell events exactly as we see them. Unlike a tape recorder we can not rewind in order to review our recollection's accuracy.

Further witness memory is like any other evidence at a crime scene; it must be preserved carefully and retrieved methodically, or it can be contaminated.

While eyewitness testimony can be persuasive evidence ,research has proven that eyewitness identification is often unreliable and can lead to miscarriages of justice in some cases.

Causes of eyewitness error:

System variables are those that the criminal justice system can and should control. They include all of the ways that law enforcement agencies retrieve and record witness memory. Such as lineups, photo arrays and other identification procedures.

System variables that substantially impact the accuracy of identifications include the type of lineup used, the selection of “fillers” (or members of a lineup or photo array who are not the actual suspect), blind administration, instructions to witnesses before identification procedures, administration of lineups or photo arrays, and communication with witnesses after they make an identification.

Estimator variables are those that cannot be controlled by the criminal justice system. They include simple factors like the lighting, the time elapsed from when the crime took place, the distance from which the witness saw the perpetrator or event.

Estimator variables also include more complex factors, including race (identifications have proven to be less accurate when witnesses are identifying perpetrators of a different race), the presence of a weapon during a crime and the degree of stress or trauma a witness experienced while seeing the perpetrator.

T H E I N N O C E N C E P R O J E C T WA

THE FACES OF

EXONERATION

Professor David Barclay