If Justice is Blind...

[jackstar7]

Why have we ever relied upon eyewitness testimony?

Why do we still do so?

More and more scientific studies show that memory is basically personal mythology and narratives that can be manipulated and outright corrupted. And this isn't new information. It's been growing for decades.

So what will it take to rid the judicial system of eyewitness testimony?

http://news.sciencemag.org/policy/2014/10/how-reliable-eyewitness-testimony-scientists-weigh

Can anyone make a case for the value of eyewitness testimony in the criminal justice system?

 

[Rebel_L]

Traditionally its the most readily available evidence you can get. If everything was on video tape eyewitness testimony would likely stop being an important factor. But when the most commonly available video recorders are still peoples eyes you go with what evidence you have available. It also has the added bonus of often seeking out an authority rather than waiting for the authority to find it.

People while being perceptible to errors are also still incredible at analyzing vast amounts of info.... while the output isn't in a nice neat video until you can capture a scene from enough angles that you could truly rebuild the experience there can be valuable interpretations that are simply not possible with our current video recordings of most situations. Remember that the motivations of people is considered an important part (at least in the sentencing) of the proceedings so the human experience of a situation can add things a simple security camera couldn't. The human experience may not be that reliable, but its part of who we are and thus has value at least in the understanding of a situation.

 

[jackstar7]

I appreciate the response. I think my issue is that we're learning just how unreliable eyewitness testimony is -- due to measurable things like accuracy of vision or just someone being dishonest -- and yet we still act like it has a real value in the system of criminal justice.

I get what you're saying about a value to learning motive or intent via witness accounts. I'm just concerned about all the flaws available to that, both environmental, and just how people will create narratives to fill in gaps.

All of those things working against its value, but there are times when that can put someone in jail.

I'm just mulling this and do appreciate you giving me more to think about and consider.

 

[Rebel_L]

I understand your concern, and eyewitness accounts especially from high stress situations are prone to some error I am curious as to what role you think eyewitness accounts should have? It would certainly seem to be an invaluable investigative tool, and I still dislike the idea of a criminal being able to plan with ignoring the human factor and only having to worry about recording devices etc. Technology has too many exploitable weak points and humans are just too creative for me to be comfortable with trusting tech on and absolute level and discounting people. What kind of line do you see between the two?

 

[jackstar7]

I realize where I tripped up and didn't elaborate enough. I'm absolutely of the belief that police should consider accounts at the scene as part of an investigation. My trouble comes from those accounts being used as part of a trial against someone, given their clear fallibility.

Does that make more sense as a position? I hope so.

 

[Rebel_L]

I think I understand your position and I will demonstrate with an example.

Think of a standard fight outside a bar. Some regular bar patrons get into fight, outside security cam area, 3 curbstomp one other. Lots of witnesses watched, but no one recorded it. Would that situation require a detailed forensic analysis of the victims to clothes to try an identify the assailants? What if one attacker only kicked and no skin residue transferred.

Its a situation with little non eyewitness evidence. Then when I think of people who are pre planning crimes I can see how there would be huge advantages making it easier to get away with committing crimes if I could rely on no eyewitness testimony in court.

 

[jackstar7]

But if you're planning things out like that... you could plant confederates in a crowd that change the narrative of the rest. A couple people just say, "Oh yeah, that guy was trying to steal that guy's wallet and roofie his girlfriend..." or whatever nonsense would make people feel a beating was justified. Suddenly people might overlook the assault or just have their version of the events that they saw poisoned by someone filling in gaps in the story that then make it easier to remember.

If we're going to explore the potential creativity of devious people, I feel like any system can be manipulated or "hacked" to get a favorable result... and I don't think crowds are really that hard to manipulate.

 

[Rebel_L]

The bar fight case was just meant illustrate something that would be straight forward to take care of under the current system, likely low stress for the bystanders, identity well established by bystanders to what I would think you would even consider to be relatively error free. But if you could not present that eyewitness testimony it would be incredibly hard or impossible to collect physical evidence linking people to the crime. Even an argument witnessed by people inside the bar to establish motive would not be admissible without eyewitness testimony.

As to something like crowd manipulation by people it means you have to have more and more people as part of plan which makes it riskier as you go. More people to turn on the group, more people to make mistakes that can be caught.

The planning ahead was meant to be a bit of a separate consideration, more for career criminals. I would think it would make gang related cases impossible to ever prosecute rather than just next to impossible. Assassins would gain a serious benefit as well. High stakes robberies would be much easier so long as you are organized and disciplined enough to wait out the statute of limitations before cashing in on the proceeds.

Evidence could be openly tampered with or destroyed so long as the act is not being recorded.

Eyewitness testimony has some weaknesses, (a lot of the weaknesses are situational though) but on the whole if you can not consider it reliable enough for testimony would it be considered reliable enough for a search warrant to be issued because of it?

That why I was asking about how you see the lines drawn for eyewitness testimony. If the stressors that make memory more unreliable are not present can we consider it then?

Another thought, what about the times where eyewitness testimony saves an innocent from going to prison? Think about how easy it would become to frame someone.... You could pin a bank robbery on the teller whos code was used to empty the cash machine if the security cams were shut off at the start of a robbery because all the evidence you might have is that a specific tellers code was used to take the money even though a whole bank full of people would testify that masked people with guns forced the teller to do it.

 

[jackstar7]

I owe you additional thanks.

I gave things more thought and I agree with your overall take on things. I think I was in a frame of mind of just complete distrust of people due to all the flaws of the mind and memory. I followed that to the extreme that we should not rely on them in criminal proceedings and can see how the baby gets tossed with the bathwater in that scenario.

I'm pleased to tell you that you've changed a mind of someone on the internet.

Genuine thanks!!

 

[sm625]

The problem is that a lot of people are just idiots who have no ability to form the mental constructs necessary to properly remember an event. They are unable to transfer a memory from short term to long term. Some people are great at it, while others poison the well. Luckily, in today's world you can instantly document what you saw in as little as 10 seconds after it happened by simply popping open your camera app and recording your own statement. People should definitely be doing that if they see something happen.