Home -> Law Blog Directory -> Criminal Law Blogs -> Crime & Federalism

Criminal Law

: Crime & Federalism

Facebook Saves Teen from Confirmation Bias and Flawed Eyewitness Identification

We got a black kid who was already in jail for armed robbery.  Therefore, he must be guilty of an unrelated armed robbery.  Oh, and we have an eyewitness identification.  Let's send him to prison!  Oops:For 19-year-old Rodney Bradford, a simple Facebook status update turned into much more: a rock-solid alibi after he was accused of a crime.Confirmation of the time stamp on the update and the location from which it was entered showed he could not have been at the scene of a robbery in another part of New York City. After he had spent almost two weeks in jail, the case against him was dismissed.Confirmation bias makes police work easy:The story began at 11:49 a.m. on Saturday, October 17, when Bradford was updating his Facebook status at his father's home in Harlem...continue to full post

Full post as published by Crime & Federalism on November 15, 2009 (boomark / email).