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True Witness: Cops, Courts, Science, and the Battle against Misidentification
Honest but mistaken eyewitnesses are the leading cause of wrongful convictions in the United States. As the innocent go to prison their lives are shattered; as the criminal goes free, the public remains vulnerable. With a vivid cast of brilliant scientists, street-wise cops, and former prosecutors--all haunted by the legacy of wrongful convictions, some directly involved with one--Doyle sheds light on the intersection of personal ambition, legal and political principles, and scientific inquiry. He highlights real possibilities for improved identification, their challenges to the legal tradition, and persuasively argues that the promises of improved justice must be realized before another wrongful conviction lets the guilty go free. This is an important look at a pressing issue in the news with every exoneration.
240 pages, Hardcover
First published January 15, 2005
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
December 4, 2008
James Doyle's True Witness: Cops, Courts, Science, and the Battle Against Misidentification dives into the history of the field of psychology and the players who have questioned the role of eyewitness memory in the legal arena.
Research has repeatedly shown that the human memory is not a video camera and are easily influenced by any number of things, including passage of time, suggestions by police, and racial differences between victims and offenders.
Doyle presents the case of Jennifer Thompson, a rape victim who confidently identified her attacker. After 19 years, DNA exonerated the man who Thompson's well-intentioned testimony sent to prison. Ouch.
Police, jurors, and prosecutors rely on eyewitness identifications in many cases. Since 1908, a relatively small group of psychologists whose research focuses on the limitations of witness accuracy and potentially preventable hazards to tapping those memories has been urging legal professionals to consider their ideas.
But the wheels of justice turn slowly, and doubly so when it comes to changing "the way we've always done it."
In the 1970s, Elizabeth Loftus made some gains in proving how easily eyewitnesses' memories could be contaminated. In one experiment, she showed subjects a film of a car accident, then asked half of them, among other things, how fast the sports car was going when it passed the barn (there was no barn). The other half was asked how fast the sports car was going on the country road. Loftus discovered that almost 20 percent of those questioned about the barn remembered seeing a barn. After an interval (not defined in this book), when the same subjects were questioned again about the car and the barn, "even the group that had been asked about but denied seeing a barn in the first round showed an increased likelihood of saying that they had seen a barn when the question was repeated."
I find this interesting-and more than a little alarming.
The last part of the book spends time looking at ways police and prosecutors can improve eyewitness reliability and avoid leading to identification of the wrong suspects.
The topic is intriguing, but I found the book itself a tough read. Doyle's organization jumps around and he spends a lot of space on rehashing things he's already said.
There is a fascinating section on Janet Reno, (Attorney General under Bill Clinton, remember?). I had no idea she was so interesting.
Would I recommend this book? If you're working in a field that deals with eyewitnesses or are particularly interested in the psychology of witness errors, then I'd say yes, but for general reading about this as a crime topic, I think I'd pass this one up. The writing is a little dry and frankly, the book left me feeling like I hadn't been given enough of the facts I wanted, and too many of the ones I didn't.
Research has repeatedly shown that the human memory is not a video camera and are easily influenced by any number of things, including passage of time, suggestions by police, and racial differences between victims and offenders.
Doyle presents the case of Jennifer Thompson, a rape victim who confidently identified her attacker. After 19 years, DNA exonerated the man who Thompson's well-intentioned testimony sent to prison. Ouch.
Police, jurors, and prosecutors rely on eyewitness identifications in many cases. Since 1908, a relatively small group of psychologists whose research focuses on the limitations of witness accuracy and potentially preventable hazards to tapping those memories has been urging legal professionals to consider their ideas.
But the wheels of justice turn slowly, and doubly so when it comes to changing "the way we've always done it."
In the 1970s, Elizabeth Loftus made some gains in proving how easily eyewitnesses' memories could be contaminated. In one experiment, she showed subjects a film of a car accident, then asked half of them, among other things, how fast the sports car was going when it passed the barn (there was no barn). The other half was asked how fast the sports car was going on the country road. Loftus discovered that almost 20 percent of those questioned about the barn remembered seeing a barn. After an interval (not defined in this book), when the same subjects were questioned again about the car and the barn, "even the group that had been asked about but denied seeing a barn in the first round showed an increased likelihood of saying that they had seen a barn when the question was repeated."
I find this interesting-and more than a little alarming.
The last part of the book spends time looking at ways police and prosecutors can improve eyewitness reliability and avoid leading to identification of the wrong suspects.
The topic is intriguing, but I found the book itself a tough read. Doyle's organization jumps around and he spends a lot of space on rehashing things he's already said.
There is a fascinating section on Janet Reno, (Attorney General under Bill Clinton, remember?). I had no idea she was so interesting.
Would I recommend this book? If you're working in a field that deals with eyewitnesses or are particularly interested in the psychology of witness errors, then I'd say yes, but for general reading about this as a crime topic, I think I'd pass this one up. The writing is a little dry and frankly, the book left me feeling like I hadn't been given enough of the facts I wanted, and too many of the ones I didn't.
May 26, 2015
Wonderfully written, engaging analysis of identification procedures in the court system. Most of interest to the players in the criminal area, victims, lawyers, accused, cops and judges but a delicious insight into the frailities of human recall.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews