Eyewitness Testimony CPS2822 PDF

CPS2822: Eyewitness Testimony Week 4 Dr.Dr. Kalliopi Eleni Megari Vazakidou Psychology Department...

CPS2822: Eyewitness Testimony Week 4 Dr.Dr. Kalliopi Eleni Megari Vazakidou Psychology Department 1 Outline Eyewitness testimony (EWT): importance and issues The accuracy of EWT Memory stages and potential errors Later intrusions into eyewitness memory Improving the validity of line-ups Critiques of expert evidence at court How does EWT help? The reported information from eye witnesses can aid an investigation in a number of ways – It helps in the choice of the offence to be charged – It helps in the selection of suspects and defendants – It outlines the points that are required to be proved – Helps in the planning and preparation of the interview of the suspect/s  EWT and the Criminal Justice System - witnesses are perceived as providing the central leads in most criminal investigations -information gained from witnesses often forms the cornerstone of an investigation Eyewitness testimony as central issue A common perception is that human memory is infallible! According to the Innocence Project (2017), eyewitness misidentification played a role in over 70% of proven (DNA exonerated) cases now known ▪ DNA exoneration refers to false convictions established in US courts using DNA testing. ▪ Serious miscarriages of justice. Ronal Cotton Case Ronald Cotton case – July, 1984: Two separate rapes were committed – August, 1984: Ronald Cotton was arrested for the rapes – 1st trial (Jan 1985): he was convicted of one rape and one count of burglary – 2nd trial (Nov 1987): he was convicted of both rapes and two counts of burglary – Sentence: Life plus 54 years in prison Ronald Cotton case A photo identification was made by one of the victims A police line up identification was made by one of the victims A flashlight found in Cotton’s home resembled the flashlight used by the rapist Rubber from Cotton’s shoe was consistent with rubber found at one of the crime scenes https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u-SBTRLoPuo Ronald Cotton case Cotton had an alibi that was confirmed by his family The second victim failed to pick Cotton out of the police photo array OR the police line-up ▪ This evidence was not admissible at the original trial! An inmate, who was serving a sentence for committing similar crimes, confessed to the crimes ▪ This was also not admissible at the original trial! DNA testing in 1995 confirmed that semen from one of the victim’s vaginal swabs and underwear DID NOT match Cotton’s DNA profile.  Cotton was exonerated in 1995 after serving 10 years of his sentence! The accuracy of witness evidence Very little research is available that compares the characteristics of offenders with those descriptions given to the police. – evidence suggests that witnesses can be accurate in terms of describing individual characteristics, but not invariably so One of the best large-scale studies was carried out in the Netherlands (Van Koppen and Lochun, 1997). Data were obtained from official court records in store at the offices of prosecutors (400 cases). – offences involving robberies of commercial buildings and dwellings – vast majority of witness statements had been collected within two days of the crime – There were 1300 witnesses and 2300 offenders involved. The accuracy of witness evidence Correspondence between the witness description and the police description of the suspect varied according to the physical feature under consideration : – sex (100 per cent agreement); eye shape (100 per cent); hair colour (73 per cent); face shape (69 per cent); race (60 per cent); height (52 per cent); ears protruding (50 per cent). Out of the maximum of 43 different characteristics that could be mentioned, on average each witness mentioned only eight features. Variables that predicted eyewitness accuracy: – longer the statement, the distance between the offender and the witness, the duration of the crime, the physical position of the witness in relation to the offender, the feelings of threat experienced by the witness – Counterintuitively, the longer the delay between the crime and the statement by the witness, the better was the accuracy of the witness’s description. Rather vague descriptions (e.g. the offender’s sex, race, height and age). The witnesses were accurate in their description of these characteristics. However, these characteristics are poor at distinguishing offenders from others who are suspects. Memory stages The concept of memory can be viewed as a process involving several stages. Perception/attention stage: when you perceive and pay attention to details in your environment. Encoding stage: some of the information that you paid attention will be encoded. The encoded information then passes into your short-term memory. Your short-term memory has a limited capacity. To make room for other, new information, information in your short-term memory passes into your long term memory. Retrieval stage: Information from long-term memory can be accessed or retrieved as needed. (E.g. if you are asked to describe the stranger you saw) It is important to remember that not every piece of information will go through all the memory stages and factors can affect each stage. For example, not all details from an event will be encoded, nor will all information in short- Pozzulo, J., Bennell, C. and Adelle Forth, A. (2018) Forensic term memory move to long-term memory. Psychology (5th Ed), Eye Witness memory (p.126-159) Problems at RETRIEVAL Memory is constructive in nature – Reconstruct using info from the event and other info we have generally Information received after the event can alter the memory of what actually occurred Filling in the blanks – Internal and external factors affect this reconstruction Summary of factors that influence EWT ESTIMATOR VARIABLES SYSTEM VARIABLES Situational Witness Parade factors Estimator variables: factors that are present at Factors Factors the time of the crime and that cannot be changed Physical Race Composition e.g. the age of the witness, the amount of lighting, the presence of a weapon, and whether Conditions the witness was intoxicated. The criminal justice Type of crime Confidence Functional Size system cannot exert control over these variables. Thus, their effect on eyewitness accuracy can be Stress and Sex Instructions estimated only after the crime. Arousal System variables: are factors that can be Duration of Age Types of Parades manipulated to increase (or decrease) Incident eyewitness accuracy, such as the type of procedure used by police to interview the witness Delay Effects Intelligence Social Dynamics or the type of line-up procedure used to present Interpolated Personality Mode of Presentation the suspect to the witness. These variables are activity under the control of the justice system. Extraneous Based on work of Information Wells, 1978,1993 Common myths Pozzulo, J., Bennell, C. and Adelle Forth, A. (2018) Forensic Psychology (5th Ed), Eye Witness memory (p.126-159) Later intrusions into eyewitness memory Loftus & Palmer (1974) – How fast were the cars going when they hit/contacted each other…? – How fast were the cars going when they smashed into each other – Was there any glass on the road? – Estimates of speed were affected by the word used in the questioning. The estimates gave speeds about a third faster when the word ‘smashed’ was used compared to the word ‘hit/contacted’. Later intrusions into eyewitness memory In some circumstances, new information is influential on recollections of the incident. Also verbal information may affect visual recall. Implications? – The question of an interviewer can distort the ‘memory’ itself – So this indicates how important the interviewer, the interview technique, and the use of leading questions can be on affecting what is actually recalled Improving the validity of the line-up Identification evidence – Photospreads: collections of photographs including one of the suspect. – Identification parade or line -up: procedures that include the suspect and a number of similar foils or fillers ▪ Simultaneous line-up: shows to the witness all line-up members at once ▪ Sequential line-up: the group of people selected to be in the line-up is shown in sequential fashion – one individual at a time, usually through the use of photographic images. Nowadays, many ‘identity parades’ in the UK are digitally produced video line-ups employing ‘libraries’ of video clips of line-up members – that is, virtual identity parades. Improving the validity of the line-up Problems with line-ups ( Busey and Loftus , 2007) – Inadequately matched fillers: in this, the foils or fillers do not match the descriptions of the offender provided by eyewitnesses. This effectively reduces the functional size of the line-up – Physical bias (oddball): the suspect’s picture in a photo line-up may be noticeably physically different from the others (e.g. it may be larger or the background may be different). The witness infers that the odd picture must be the suspect. – No double blind procedure: this is the idea that the officer conducting the identity parade should not know which member is the suspect (may affect the witness opinion) – Unconscious transference: this occurs when the witness has seen the suspect before but not at the crime scene, though the witness does not realise this. For example, they might both live in the same neighbourhood. Improving the validity of the line-up Wells, Kovera, Douglass, Brewer, Meissner and Wixted (2020) generated nine recommendations for eyewitness identification procedures Recommendation 1: The person conducting the line up should be blind as to which member is the suspect. – Psychological researchers have long been aware that the inadvertent biases in a study may produce outcomes which favour the researcher’s hypothesis (e.g. Jung, 1971; Rosenthal, 1966). Keeping the officer conducting the line-up in the dark about the identity of the suspect reduces the risk of them biasing the line-up’s outcome. Recommendation 2: Eyewitnesses must be informed that the person conducting the line-up is, indeed, unaware of which line- up member is the suspect. In this way, the eyewitness may not mislead themselves about the implications of the behaviours of the officer conducting the parade. They should also be informed that the suspect may not be in the line-up. Recommendation 3: Efforts should be made to avoid the suspect being markedly different or standing out from the filler members of the parade especially in terms of features which earlier interviews with the witness had highlighted. Recommendation 4: The witness should be asked about their confidence in their choice at the time of the line-up. This should also be prior to any feedback which might affect confidence judgements. Improving the validity of the line-up Wells, Kovera, Douglass, Brewer, Meissner and Wixted (2020) generated nine recommendations for eyewitness identification procedures Recommendation 5: Everything should be video recorded (Kassin, 1998). Recommendation 6: The witness should be interviewed by a police officer prior to the line-up to obtain information about the suspect (i.e. description etc.) and the characteristics of the witnessing conditions. Recommendation 7: Repeated line-ups with the same witness and suspect are to be avoided. Recommendation 8: Documented evidence ought to be available which strongly suggests that the suspect committed the crime in question prior to a line-up being contemplated. Recommendation 9: Warnings are given to avoid identification situations in which a single suspect is presented alone (without foils). If this is unavoidable, the recommended procedures for line-ups should be incorporated. Improving the validity of the line-up Relative judgement theory answers the question of how eyewitnesses choose the culprit from a line-up/identity parade. In the absence of the culprit, the line-up members most similar to the culprit will be picked out: – the eyewitness acts as if the culprit is present and forms a judgement on the best of what they recall of the culprit. No mechanism exists for deciding that the offender is not in the line-up (Wells, 1984). If participants were responding using absolute judgements, then each line-up member would be compared with the memory of the culprit. Then unless the line-up member meets the criteria they will be rejected. Explicit warnings that the culprit may not necessarily be present substantially reduce incorrect identifications (Malpass and Devine, 1981). They do not affect correct identifications when the culprit is present. Improving the validity of the line-up The procedures actually employed by police officers when they plan identification line-ups have been investigated (Wogalter, Malpass and McQuiston, 2004), conducting a survey over 200 police jurisdictions in the United States. Examples of good practice Officers tended to choose line-up foils on the basis of upper facial features such as race/ethnic group, facial hair characteristics, colour of hair and overall shape of face. Whatever the reason why the officers chose to do this, there is a substantial amount of research evidence that people recall such upper facial features more readily than lower facial features (e.g. shape of the chin). Substantial numbers of officers report that they gave witnesses the option of not choosing anyone from the identification line-up, which is known to reduce errors. Very few warned eyewitnesses that facial features may change or that photographs may be of poor or insufficient quality. These factors may affect eyewitness accuracy according to research. Improving the validity of the line-up The procedures actually employed by police officers when they plan identification line-ups have been investigated (Wogalter, Malpass and McQuiston, 2004) Examples of bad practice Most respondents (83 per cent) claimed to base their choice of foils in the line-up on their similarity to the suspect. Only a small number (9 per cent) based their choices of foil on the verbal descriptions provided by eyewitnesses. – Research evidence has suggested that there may be problems with the use of similarity to the suspect as a criterion for choosing foils. What actually happens is that the foils are chosen because of their similarity to the suspect rather than to each other. As a consequence, the suspect stands out because they have characteristics in common with many of the foils but the foils do not look too much like each other. In other words, there is a powerful clue in the situation which encourages the selection of the suspect. Improving the validity of the line-up The procedures actually employed by police officers when they plan identification line-ups have been investigated (Wogalter, Malpass and McQuiston, 2004) Examples of bad practice Generally, assessments about the fairness of the procedures being used by an officer are made by that officer (94 %). They also might ask the advice of another officer (77%) or a prosecution lawyer (51%). These are not completely independent judgements as they are all on the side of prosecuting the suspect. Asking the advice of the defence lawyer was fairly uncommon (only 15 %). The use of video line-ups that do not require the direct recruitment of foils was relatively uncommon. But this is the sort of line-up that enables things like the editing out of any biasing behaviours on the part of members of the line-up. Critiques of expert evidence in court (box 13.2 controversy) Ebbesen and Konecni made a critique of how expert witnesses in court deal with eyewitness research: – Psychologists acting as expert witnesses have systematically misled courts about the validity, consistency and generalisability of research findings on eyewitness testimony. They argued that there is no generally accepted theory of eyewitness testimony. This is despite a number of sophisticated models of memory available to psychologists. As a consequence, valid assessments of the accuracy of eyewitness testimony in particular cases are not possible. Also, according to Ebbesen and Konecni (1997): ▪ Studies of eyewitness testimony show many inconsistencies in their outcomes. ▪ The vast majority of eyewitness testimony research involves the use of college students only (Yuille and Cutshall, 1986). ▪ The length of exposure to the criminal events varies substantially between real life and the laboratory. ▪ Researchers are not in a position to translate such key variables as length of exposure to the crime into the likelihood that the witness is wrong. Although it is correct to suggest in broad terms that greater exposure leads to greater accuracy, the precise risks of error cannot be calculated ▪ An analysis of transcripts of trials involving expert testimony on eyewitness accuracy shows overwhelmingly that these problems in interpreting the implications of longer exposure to the crime are not mentioned. Critiques of expert evidence in court (box 13.2 controversy) Psychologists should be more careful when applying findings based on statistical populations to individual witnesses in a court. However, this is a problem which applies to most, if not all, psychological research findings. Trends that may be true in general may not apply to specific instances. Can a psychologist say that a woman’s post-traumatic stress disorder was the result of a violent sexual assault or is it merely possible to say that her post-traumatic stress disorder was simply the consequence of some other severe stressor that has occurred in the woman’s life? Critiques of expert evidence in court (box 13.2 controversy) Example: research on weapon focus effect Numerous laboratory studies have shown that the weapon focus effect is a robust phenomenon and that laboratory witnesses are affected adversely by the presence of a weapon or other incongruous stimuli. They report fewer details of the events and are less able to identify the culprit (weapon focus). In comparison, the presence of weapons seems to have very different effects on witnesses to real crime (e.g., Behrman and Davey, 2001; Wagstaff et al., 2003). In some cases the detrimental effects found in laboratory studies are not found – sometimes more detail is recalled where weapons are present. Yet, according to Yuille et al., the findings obtained in laboratory studies have been discussed in American courts without reference to these problems. Psychologists providing expert evidence have to be very careful with their testimonies, having updated knowledge in their field and methodologies used, letting the courts know about the strengths/limitations of research findings.  Video Resources Innocence Project https://innocenceproject.org/our-work/ The Ronald Cotton case https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u- SBTRLoPuo Questions? Thank you!