Home -> Law Blog Directory -> Criminal Law Blogs -> tcask:: on the road (to abolition)

Criminal Law

: tcask:: on the road (to abolition)

Eyewitness Testimony Lacks Reliability

By Tennessee Coalition to Abolish State Killing

60 Minutes aired a great story on last night's show concerning the increasing problems related to the reliability of eyewitness testimony. Leslie Stahl interviewed Jennifer Thompson and Ronald Cotton, both of North Carolina, whose lives are forever connected by Thompson's misidentification of Cotton as her rapist. After serving eleven years in prison, DNA evidence finally exonerated Cotton and identified the real rapist, a man already in prison but who had tragically raped more women before he was finally caught.Stahl tells viewers that of the approximately 230 DNA exonerations in this country in recent years, 75% of them were falsely identified by an eyewitness. She explores how susceptible memory is to suggestion and demonstrates how easy it is for our memories to be wrong...continue to full post

Full post as published by tcask:: on the road (to abolition) on March 09, 2009 (boomark / email).