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Study Weighs In On the Reliability of Eyewitness Testimony
sciencehabit writes The victim peers across the courtroom, points at a man sitting next to a defense lawyer, and confidently says, "That's him!" Such moments have a powerful sway on jurors who decide the fate of thousands of people every day in criminal cases. But how reliable is eyewitness testimony? A new report concludes that the use of eyewitness accounts need tighter control, and among its recommendations is a call for a more scientific approach to how eyewitnesses identify suspects during the classic police lineup.
Being judged by your peers isn't about their ability to accurately judge, avoid bias, etc. (that's what juror selection, the judge's instructions, sequestration, etc. are for).
Being judged by your peers is about NOT being judged by a population of powerful/rich/elite fucks who absolutely have no idea what life is like for the people they are judging.
That was more a documentary on how police take innocent statements and turn them against you to make you look guilty. People should understand that when the police take his exclamation of disbelief and remove the context and emotion and read that back in court as an admission of guilt by the defendant that this is not only used in real life but used frequently and is precisely why you should never ever talk to the police without a lawyer present.
My psych research specifically investigated the impact of warning a jury about the impact of social contagion on eyewitness statements. It found if you warned jurors they actually take this on board and shift their judgment of the testimony appropriately. This suggests that jurors specifically aren't the problem as such it is more about education - it is a very commonly held belief that eyewitness testimony is strong because people themselves don't question the accuracy of their own memories and tend to apply this in assessing the memory of others.
The trouble with fighting for human freedom is that one spends most of one's time defending scoundrels. For it is against scoundrels that oppressive laws are first aimed, and oppression must be stopped at the beginning if it is to be stopped at all. - H. L. Mencken