I was an eyewitness to a crime and would never vote to convict someone

[PA Democrat]

based upon eyewitness testimony alone.

I worked as a bank teller while in college and was robbed. I was not 2 feet away from the robber, had full view of his face for more than 20 seconds in good lighting.

I would be lying if I said I could identify the man. I was interviewed by the FBI for almost three hours immediately after the robbery and could not pick the man out of the mugshots they showed me, and it was obvious there was one photo in the bunch that they wanted me to ID. I felt very pressured to identify one of the men in the photos and broke down in tears before they finally stopped.

Based upon my own experience, I have little to no faith in the accuracy of eyewitness testimony. From what I have read on the Troy Davis case, there were numerous red flags concerning the eyewitness testimony.

[TwilightGardener]

1. You know how people always say they can't remember names, but never forget

a face? Well, I forget both names and faces--I've met people under all sorts of circumstances, talked to them, and then I completely forget what they look like until they stop me in a store or at my sons' school to say hi (and I think, do I know you?). Because of that, I also am leery of the dependence on eyewitness testimony.

[Arugula Latte]

15. Have you ever heard of this -- Prosopagnosia? Kind of fascinating ...

Prosopagnosia (Greek: "prosopon" = "face", "agnosia" = "inabilty to recognise/identify familiar people or objects") is a disorder of face perception where the ability to recognize faces is impaired, while the ability to recognize other objects may be relatively intact. The term originally referred to a condition following acute brain damage, but a congenital form of the disorder has been proposed, which may be inherited by about 2.5% of the population.<1> The specific brain area usually associated with prosopagnosia is the fusiform gyrus.<2>

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prosopagnosia

[TwilightGardener]

18. Never heard of it! Fascinating--I wonder if I have a very mild form of this?

No brain damage that I know of (LOL), but while I can certainly recognize and remember the faces of people I know well, I have trouble recognizing acquaintances when they are out of their usual context for me--for example, walked right past my neighbor at WalMart recently. Didn't realize it was him until he came up to me. Interesting stuff.

[cpwm17]

20. That's my experience

I can't remember faces unless I've been around the person a few times. The third time I had been around someone at work and I still had forgotten that i'd seen him before. He complained that I couldn't remember him. He was new, so after that I made sure to be one of the only people at work to be able to correctly pronounce his unusual name.

My face seems to be easily remembered, so people do remember me. It's awkward.

[marlakay]

23. I am the same way

I told my husband I would make a lousy witness. I can never remember what someone I even know was wearing more or less a stranger.

[TwilightGardener]

25. Yes--I have the same experience: WAY more people recognize me

than I recognize them, I must have distinctive features or something. It is very awkward, I've had nice people come up and talk to me, and I spend the whole time smiling, speaking in generalities and trying frantically to remember the context in which I might have met this person. People don't seem to mind when you forget names, but I think it must be really hurtful to have someone forget even meeting you. Glad I'm not alone.

[rfranklin]

2. Eyewitness testimony is notoriously inaccurate...

and the "witnesses" in this case were coached by the police with a reenactment that should have made their testimony inadmissible.

[hedgehog]

3. Unless the eyewitness knew the person very well and the

crime took place in a well lit area and the eyewitness was sober at the time, I'd want corroborating physical evidence for sure. Eyewitness accounts may help point the investigation in the right direction, but that's about it.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=105x9788382

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=105x9788442

[MineralMan]

5. Yes. That is also why publishing photos of criminals

only works when someone who already knows calls the police. You can see a photo on television or in the paper, and walk right by that person without recognizing him or her.

A person who knows the person recognizes that person on seeing the photo. Since most criminals have more enemies than friends, such published photos often result in someone identifying the person.

A single viewing of a person is not very conducive to making a later identification, unless there is some characteristic so unique that it instantly identifies the individual. That's rare.

[hedgehog]

24. Or worse - you see the photo or drawing, and remember seeing

that person doing something that makes him or her look guilty. Memory is very fluid; it's not a video tape.

[denverbill]

4. In college, one of my professors staged a fake robbery of himself in front of the class.

The 'perp' opened the door, walked into the class, grabbed something off his desk, and ran out. The professor immediately told us it was staged, and then asked us to answer various questions about the 'perp', such as hair color, height, weight, glasses, facial hair, color of clothing, etc. I was amazed at how little I could recall even so soon after the incident.

I would be surprised if I could identify someone who robbed me either with 100% certainty either unless I had seen them before.

[cascadiance]

6. Minimally the sentence shouldn't be the death penalty in these instances...

At least with life in prison, an incorrect incarceration can be corrected later. Even if it costs people many valuable years of their life if wrongly convicted, at least it doesn't take the rest of their life from them that the death penalty does.

[TBF]

7. I tend to be the type of person who remembers faces -

but I don't know if that would hold true under such a stressful situation. My guess is probably not. That was the thing about the Davis case - conviction on eye witness testimony (which later changed for 7 of the witnesses) but little other evidence. I couldn't sentence a man to death based on that.

[Xithras]

8. There's a reason you couldn't remember the face.

Most people, when being victimized by a potentially violent criminal (and especially one with a weapon), typically watch the criminals hands, and not their face. It's normal human behavior...you may glance at their face, but it's the hands that can do the damage, so they are what your focus is on.

[Hassin Bin Sober]

27. We really aren't that far removed from our Chimp cousins. They attack hands first.

That's why chimp attack victims get their fingers bitten off.

[pipi_k]

9. I would have little faith in my eyewitness testimony as well and...

I have no doubt that the police probably did the same thing with the witnesses to the McPhail shooting as they tried to do to you.

[Zywiec]

10. So if you were on a rape trial with no other evidence than the victim's identification

you would not vote to convict?

:shrug:

[PA Democrat]

13. You do know, that people have been wrongly convicted of rape, don't you?

Without other physical evidence, I would probably not vote for a conviction.

http://articles.chicagotribune.com/2010-06-25/news/ct-met-city-lawsuit-settlement-0626-20100625_1_crime-lab-dna-testing-chicago-police

http://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/12/10/rape-conviction-overturned-in-manhattan/

http://www.columbian.com/news/2011/feb/03/ridgefield-man-wrongfully-convicted-of-rape-makes/

http://www.boston.com/news/local/massachusetts/articles/2011/07/29/wrongly_convicted_sees_rapist_sentenced/?camp=localsearch:on:twit:mostpophp

http://www2.ljworld.com/news/2011/sep/13/man-wrongfully-convicted-rape-murder-visits-ku-dis/

http://www.wfaa.com/news/crime/exonerees-112487289.html

[Zywiec]

17. Of course, I agree with you. Would you feel the same if the victim was a minor? n/t

[PA Democrat]

21. Yes. Unless the victim knows the accused, but I thought that was clear in my OP.

The standard is "beyond a reasonable doubt." There are no qualifiers saying that the age of the victim negates the legal standard.

[hedgehog]

26. Not unless the victim knew the attacker beforehand - there

are too many men who have spent years in jail after being identified in court by the victim only to be exonerated years later by DNA evidence.

You're the victim- you are attacked by a stranger. you tell the cops it was a black guy with a mustache. You're shown a line-up of black men wearing a mustache, and you unconsciously assune one of these men attacked you, so you select the man who most resembles what you can remember. Afterwards, you remember that man as your attacker.

[Riftaxe]

11. I was an eyewitness to a crime as well

in the early '80s and I have no regrets about testifying during the trial.

Of course I knew the person fairly well, when he committed the crime and it would be silly to pretend I did not recognize him.

[kctim]

12. Think how hard it would be to remember anything after 13 years

[NNN0LHI]

14. I have been robbed at gunpoint before

Only thing I could have positively identified 100% was the barrel of the pistol that was used. I knew what the barrel length was. I knew the color of the barrel. I remember the bright red painted sights on the barrel. I even knew what caliber it was.

As for the guy who was holding it? I couldn't tell you anything at all about him. Height, weight, build, nothing. For that information I would have only been guessing.

Don

[HockeyMom]

16. Rape case

There was a certain "news show", which will remain nameless, which jumped on this story. A teacher/football coach was accused of rape. The victim named him and picked him out of a lineup. One little problem was that there were 20+ staff members at school who said he was there at school all day except for his 30 minute lunch. The crime occurred 30 miles away. Could he drive 30 miles round trip, beat and rape a woman, and be back at work in 30 minutes? He was not late in getting back from lunch. I could not go to lunch myself until he came back.

He was taken into custody, until DNA results came back. Who would you belive? Guess who the news show believed? My husband, who is a great fan of this show, went along with their "analysis" until he finally realized I WORKED with this man. Hmm. "I saw him all day, except for those 30 minutes."

Anyway, the DNA came back not his. It turned out there was another man with the same name, who lived in that other town, and knew that woman. There was a slight resemblence between the two men. Many people said he should have sued that show. They had him convicted before those DNA results came back. This coach was just too upset and wanted to forget about the whole thing and get his life back. For what it's worth, he was a black man and the woman was white. I guess it made for GREAT COPY for this "news" show. Unfortunately, the outcome wasn't what they were looking for.

[KG]

19. the time i was robbed as a clerk as a c-store, i only remembered the gun.

[SheilaT]

22. I have trouble recognizing people. although

I've actually gotten better at it in recent years.

I once had a job that was 100% public contact, and if I waited on someone, and he walked away from me, and then immediately walked back with another question, I usually didn't realize it was the person I'd just waited on.

One regular customer spent a full year teaching me to recognize him. It actually took that long, but finally I knew who he was as soon as I saw him.

What also muddles perception about reliability of eyewitnesses is that all the cop shows seem to show a victim correctly identifying the perp each and every time.

[Kalidurga]

28. Eye witness testimony is the least reliable,

unless the perp is know to the witness. Even then it is suspect...

[hedgehog]

29. You make two good points. Apparently there is a good

percentage of the population with some degree of "face-blindness". This isn't that they can't remember names; they literally can't recognize people and develop all kinds of workarounds to hide that act.

http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2010/08/30/100830fa_fact_sacks

The other point is that most people watch crime shows and unconsciously decide that that's the way things go in real life. In real life, the average murder victim is not a well connected white person, but how often have we seen that scenario on Law and Order over the years? In real life, DNA samples sit untested for years in evidence rooms all over the country, but you'd never know that from watching CSI!