CRM 1300 Lecture Notes - Lecture 12: Eyewitness Identification, Miscarriage Of Justice, Forensic Science
15 Apr 2016
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Document Summary
Wrongful conviction occurs when an individual has been arrested on criminal charges [and has] either plead guilty to the charge or [has] been tried and found guilty; and who, notwithstanding plea or verdict, [is] in fact innocent . More recent estimates are from a few cases to up to 20 percent of all convictions. Not one single mistake, rather, several systemic and individual factors alone or in concert. Could be eyewitness error, erroneous forensic science, false confessions, the use of jailhouse informants, professional and institutional misconduct and racial bias. Due to normal deficiencies in human memory, eyewitness identification is inherently unreliable. Most important factor of evidence for convictions, also leading factor for wrongful convictions. Suggestive police interviewing, unconscious transference and malleability of confidence accounts for eyewitness errors suggestive police interviewing occurs when police communicate information to eyewitnesses which influence their testimony. Unconscious transference is witness confusion between a person seen in one situation and a person seen in another.
