Eyewitness testimony [EWT] is evidence of
events that occurred, actions that were performed or words that were spoken,
given in court by a person who observed the events or actions at first hand or
heard the words being spoken. (Colman, 2015, p. 269)
EWT is a legal term that critically important
in the justice system. It is essential in all criminal trials to recreate evidences
from past events. US Psychologist Elizabeth F. Loftus has been studied and
discussed in her book “Eyewitness Testimony” (Loftus, 1996) how subsequent
information can affect an eyewitness’s description of an event. Her main focus
has been on the influence of misleading information in terms of both visual
imagery and wording of questions in relation to EW. In her original
experiment, participants view a video recording of two cars colliding and they
were asked how fast cars were going when they hit.
Experiment 1
Here participants used the word smashed,
collided, bumped or contacted instead of hit. EW might be biased by the way questions
are asked after accident. The misleading information may have simply influenced
the answer a person gave. Some critical words would lead to have a perception
of the accident being more serious. When participant hearing the word
‘smashed’, actually imagine the accident as more severe than the participant
hearing the word ‘contacted’.
Experiment 2:
Students were shown a video of a multiple car crash. One week later they were called back and asked was there any broken glass? (No broken glasses in the video). Memory is easily misleading by questioning technique and information acquired after the event can merge with original memory affecting inaccurate recall.
Links which are related to the Case Study:
1.
https://www.law.umich.edu/special/exoneration/Pages/casedetailpre1989.aspx?caseid=331
1.
https://www.seattleweekly.com/news/when-30-year-old-steve-titus-was-arrested-for-the-rape-of-a-teen/
3.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PB2OegI6wvI
Image: Steve Titus
On October 12, 1980, a 17 years old female
traveler called Celia Dalton was raped near the Seattle International Airport,
Washington. Seattle Police described the rapist as around 30 years old, who
has a royal blue car with temporary license plates and that car should have
seat covers which made by fabric. And rapist was having a beard also. Steve
Titus was arrested by Port of Seattle police and identified by the victim from
a group of six photographs containing front and profile shots of Titus and five
other people.
Such lineups are supposed to include people
of the same race and who are not so obviously different from the suspect that
the latter would stand out as the only possible perpetrator. However in this
situation Titus’s photo were a different size compare to other pictures and it
was the only picture in which showing a smiling face. And also it was the only
picture which was a full face shot that was not separated by a black line.
After looking at the photo lineup victim pointed at the picture of Titus. But
she hesitantly said “This one is the closest one” and again added “it has to be
this one” (Olsen, 1991)
Therefore Steve Titus was wrongly convicted
in March 1981 of raping Dalton. Titus was tried and convinced based on the unverified
testimony of the witness. He remained free on bail while protesting his
innocence and was waiting for sentence to be imposed.
Seattle Times reporter Paul Henderson became
interested in Titus' case and reporter Henderson's investigation found evidence
that another girl had been attacked by serial rapist Edward Lee King recently,
who lived in few miles from the airport. In July 1981 King was charged with
three rapes, including the one Titus had been imprisoned. When the victim,
Dalton recognized her mistake, she broke down and cried, apologized for having
made such a serious misidentification. However Titus has lost faith in the
justice system, lost his job and girlfriend. He became obsessed with what had
happened to him. He died of a stress related heart attack at age 35.
Human memory is not an exact mirror of our
experience And Titus case as an example of how careful we must be when human
memory is involved in a law suit." (Henderson, 1981)
“These things just don’t happen accidentally.
There’s always an element of misconduct”, said by Paul Henderson. (Anderson,
2013). The victim identified Titus in court, and Port police attached series of
events and EWT that linked Titus and his car to the crime scene. Therefore it
had enough evidence to prove that Titus is guilty. Henderson learned that the
victim’s memory of her attacker was not clear, and that she had been directed
by police to identify Titus as the perpetrator.
Elizabeth Loftus is an American cognitive psychologist and expert on human memory. In her TED Talk she focuses on false memories. Titus was arrested as his vehicle and physical appearance were similar to the actual culprit. By the time trial came up, victim altered her testimony and said she was “absolutely positive that’s the man,” referring to Titus. Based on this EWT, a jury imprisoned Titus. Loftus’s question is how the victim’s memory went from ‘closest’ to a ‘positive’ identification? Here the eyewitness is looking to find nearest match to the person they saw, not the actual one.
Loftus has found that many people believe
that their memory works like a recording device, where you can call it up and
replay it. But it is actually like a Wikipedia page, misinformation is
everywhere and anyone can change it. During the EWT, misinformation generates due
to the seriousness of crime, environmental conditions, lengthy view of crime
scene, illumination, arousal level and time delay between the witnessing of the
crime and testifying. When someone is fed misinformation, their memory can be inaccurate
and fabricated.
We still believe EW as one of the most convincing
methods of evidence presented in court. But if individuals are failed in
recalling how accurate can EWT be? There various factors contributing to the unreliability
of eyewitness identification have been explored by Loftus, 1979. There are 3
main factors contributing to misidentifications. First, there are psychological
factors of the witness such as anxiety/ stress, reconstructive Memory, weapon
Focus, leading questions.
Second, there are systematic factors related
to functions of the criminal justice system including procedures used for
lineup identification and suggestions that may be introduced during
investigation and identification.
Third, there are faults in eyewitness
identification influence by social and cultural expectations and difficulties
with cross-racial identification, which may introduce confusion even there is
no bias. All three of these factors contribute to the administration of
criminal justice and persuasions of the guiltiness.
However the psychological research has suggested best way to improve the accuracy and fairness of EWT using cognitive interview (CI). In CI; eyewitness should reports everything they can think relating to the incident, the eyewitness tries to recreate mentally the setting that existed at the time and their state of memory, report in several different sequential orders moving backwards and forwards in time, the eyewitness is encouraged to report the details from different perspectives. These techniques all designed to enhance retrieval of the original memory and to provide extra clues that might help to push witnesses’ memory. And to improve the EW justice, it should educate judges and juries about the science so they can better evaluate eyewitnesses who testify in court as well.
References
Anderson, R. (2013, May 2). When
30-year-old Steve Titus was arrested for the rape of a... Seattle Weekly.
https://www.seattleweekly.com/news/when-30-year-old-steve-titus-was-arrested-for-the-rape-of-a-teen/
Colman, A. M. (2015). Eyewitness
Testimony. In Oxford Dictionary of Psychology (4th ed., p. 269). Oxford
University Press.
Cousino, M. B. (n.d.). Steve Titus
- National Registry of Exonerations Pre 1989. The National Registry of
Exonerations. https://www.law.umich.edu/special/exoneration/Pages/casedetailpre1989.aspx?caseid=331
False Memories and Memory Errors (The
Mandela Effect!).
(2019, November 14). [Video]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=21&v=S2FUCZpT-_Q&feature=emb_logo
Henderson, P. (1981). Titus Smile
[Image 4]. The Seattle Times.
https://special.seattletimes.com/o/news/local/tituscase/lookingback.html
Henderson, P. (1981, July
2). Looking back at Titus case. The Seattle Times. https://special.seattletimes.com/o/news/local/tituscase/lookingback.html
Huff, R. C., Rattner, A., &
Sagarin, E. (1996). Convicted but Innocent: Wrongful Conviction and Public
Policy (1st ed.). SAGE Publications, Inc. https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=EpI5DQAAQBAJ&pg=PA85#v=onepage&q&f=false
How reliable is your memory? |
Elizabeth Loftus.
(2013, September 23). [Video]. YouTube.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PB2OegI6wvI
Loftus, E. F. (1996). Eyewitness
Testimony: With a New Preface (With a New Pref ed.) [E-book]. Harvard
University Press.
May, K. T. (2013, June). The
fiction of memory: Elizabeth Loftus at TEDGlobal 2013. TED Blog. https://blog.ted.com/tk-elizabeth-loftus-at-tedglobal-2013/
[Misinformation
effect]. (n.d.). Slideplayer. https://slideplayer.com/slide/10254938/
Olsen, J. (1991). Predator: Rape,
Madness, And Injustice In Seattle (First Edition). Delacorte Press.
Speed
estimates in mph according to verb used. (n.d.). [Image 1,2].
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