Constitutional Law

Eyewitness Testimony Scrutinized

A new study is focusing attention on the trust that juries place in eyewitness testimony. Slate's Dahlia Lithwick writes:

Our eyes deceive us. Social scientists have insisted for decades that our eyewitness identification process is unreliable at best and can be the cause of grievous injustice. A study published last month … reveals just how often those injustices occur: Of the more than 230 people in the United States who were wrongfully convicted and later exonerated by DNA evidence, approximately 77 percent involved cases of mistaken eyewitness identification, more than any other single factor.

Regarding the finding that eyewitness identification accounts for more false convictions than all other causes combined, the report's primary researcher Gary Wells said, 'Now that's been a surprise, I think, to the legal system.' Wells, a psychology professor at Iowa State University, added, 'It has to be a surprise for psychologists because we've been doing work well before forensic DNA testing came along to prove these cases on eyewitness identification.'

Wells urged reconsideration of the scientific underpinnings of Manson v. Brathwaite, a 1977 Supreme Court ruling that determined evidence produced by suggestive identification procedures (such as eyewitness testimony) may not be excluded so long as it is deemed 'reliable' by the court. As Lithwick put it, 'Wells' argument for reforming our eyewitness identification system is that the incentive for the police to subtly nudge our memories goes not only uncorrected by the justice system, but sometimes is rewarded by it.'

With a case challenging the scientific premises of Manson currently winding its way through New Jersey courts, the Supreme Court may soon have the opportunity to reconsider what some are calling an outdated precedent in favor of modern social scientists' recommendations.

Full post as published by ACS Blog on March 16, 2009 (boomark / email).