In September 1969, the city of California was riddled with the disappearance of an 8 year old girl. After 20 years of lack of any substantial leads, Eileen Franklin- Lipsker reported that she recalled that her father, George Franklin had murdered and raped the young girl. On the basis of her memory, George was arrested and charged with murder. 6 years after imprisonment, when the case was retried by the state Supreme Court it was revealed that the memory was recalled using hypnosis, deeming the testimony as unreliable. A single witness’s testimony retrieved 20 years after the event through the process of hypnosis was enough to land an innocent man in jail. This is just one of a plethora of cases wherein mistaken or perjured eyewitness testimony has landed innocent people in prison and even death row.
Eyewitness testimony often includes a recount of the witness’s experience and identification of the perpetrator. Studies show that jurors place more emphasis on eyewitness testimony than any other kind of evidence presented before the court. The heavy reliance of the justice system on eyewitness testimony is appalling. One must question the credibility and accuracy of such processes that lead to such gross negligence of the truth.
Memory Fallibility
Hugo Münsterberg was one of the pioneers in questioning the reliability of eyewitness testimony and he did so by alerting society about the fallibility of memory. Memory serves as evidence in several legal proceedings, and hence its limitations must be accounted for. The processes of encoding, organization, consolidation, and retrieval of memory can be influenced by several factors. According to the Innocence Project, these factors can be grouped into two broad categories:
Estimator variables that are outside the control of the legal system consist of the witness’s personal experiences. Past trauma, vision impairment, stress levels, and more are potential factors that can alter one’s perception and memory.
System variables are those that lie in the control of the legal system and consist of lineups, photo arrays, sketching, psychological tactics used to take statements, and more. These can be manipulated and have proven to have a much greater impact than any other factor.
Moreover, what we recall is often reconstructed to make up for any forgetting or interference in remembering. Similar manipulation also takes place in the process of integrating newer memories with pre-existing ones. These inherent flaws in the process of memory make it fallible and sometimes even unreliable. The fallibility of memory extends to the omission of details and the creation of memory illusions. When these memories are presented as concrete evidence in a court of law, it can lead to a miscarriage of justice. This was exposed by multiple studies conducted by Elizabeth Loftus in the 1990s.
Eyewitness Misidentification
Another important part of eyewitness testimony is the identification of the perpetrator. This can be achieved through the lineup process, sketching, photo arrays, and even a description of the perpetrator’s features. The Innocence Project claims that the identification of an innocent suspect as the perpetrator of a crime at the hands of an eyewitness has led to a majority of wrongful convictions. Some of the factors which could lead to misidentification are:
High-stress environment: When exposed to high-stress environments, one may lose their ability to accurately observe and recall events. Studies have also proven that high-stress conditions lead to a significant decrease in memory. One’s emotions may also hamper one’s ability to recall events. During the process of identification, the eyewitness is well aware of the pressures and stressors that they are exposed to. This environment can then cause them to misidentify the perpetrator.
Weapon Focus: An eyewitness’s decreased ability to give an accurate description of the perpetrator of a crime because of one’s attention to a weapon present during the crime. Stimuli such as the face, physical features, and clothing of the perpetrator are more likely to go unnoticed when the perpetrator is holding or using a weapon. Often, eyewitnesses testify with great certainty that they will never forget the face of the weapon wielder, but research has proven that this confidence can be misplaced.
Suggestive Identification: The involvement of a detective, investigator, or any other professional during the process of perpetrator identification can be more harmful than beneficial. Often, the composition of a lineup can lead to misidentification. Suggestive procedures used during lineups may include situations where the witness is familiar with all others except the suspect or when the suspect is characteristically different or dressed differently from others. A famous procedure that violates the suspect’s rights but places them in suggestive situations is the ‘Oklahoma Showup’. In this process, the suspect is ‘accidentally’ noticed by the witness in an incriminating context, such as wearing handcuffs.
Demographics: Age, gender, race, religion, and more demographic factors shared among the suspect and witness can be factors that lead to misidentification. Identification situations where the suspect has a different skin tone when compared to the witness, also known as cross-racial identification, have proven to be unreliable. Such biases may arise because of one’s prejudice or simply because of one’s capabilities. Studies have shown that children feel compelled to identify a suspect from a lineup, allowing a greater margin of misidentification when compared to adults.
A case where the misidentification of a suspect as the perpetrator of the crime led to gross injustice is the case of Arthur Lee Whitfield. In 1982, Arthur was found guilty of two counts of rape, sodomy, and robbery. He was sentenced to 63 years in prison based on the victim’s identification of him out of a live lineup. In 2004, after serving 22 years in prison, he was exonerated of his crimes due to much more substantial DNA evidence.
Must jurors accept eyewitness testimony despite its circumstantiality or lack of any other concrete physical evidence? Cases in India, like Daya Singh v. Haryana (conviction was pursued solely on the testimony of two witnesses, eight years after the crime was committed) and Ravasahebgouda Etc, v. Karnataka ( eight suspects were facing the death penalty based on a single eyewitness testimony) only prove the importance provided by the justice system to eyewitness testimony. There is a plethora of research and evidence that suggests that, despite the persuasive nature of eyewitness testimony, its validity and accuracy are dubious at best. Thus, procedures must be developed to ensure that mistaken or perjured eyewitness testimony does not hold the innocent accountable for crimes they did not commit.
Mahi Kashyap
