Situationally Equivocal Eyewitness Evidence and the Violence of Crimes

Abstract

Eyewitness evidence is amongst the most important types of evidence in investigative and juridical proceedings. Yet, eyewitness evidence frequently derives from observations made under situationally equivocal conditions, including such factors as darkness and physical obstruction of view. The effect of the violence of a given crime on potential jurors' evaluation of such equivocal evidence was addressed. A witness's identification of a suspect in a violent crime was generated in three versions, varying only in the level of violence of the crime. Respondents were more likely to accept this identification as accurate under more violent conditions and were also less likely to report noticing or considering equivocal aspects (darkness and physical obstruction) in situations of greater violence. Predisposing factors to judgement of guilt lay significantly in the acceptance of punishment as a viable deterrent to crime and of societal guilt for the criminal's behaviour, although political or religious orientations were not shown to influence these results, and none of these factors interacted with the violence of the crime to influence judgement of guilt or innocence. These findings indicate the importance of affective factors in judgements of guilt or innocence, especially when these judgements are based on situationally equivocal eyewitness evidence.

Stopping crime? The effect of crime re-enactments on eyewitness memory

“…Despite the widespread use and influence of crime re-enactment videos within criminal justice systems around the world, no research yet has investigated the effect of crime reenactments on eyewitness memory. This is surprising, given that research has consistently demonstrated the fallibility of memory, such that memory can decay rapidly and change over time (Sharps, Herrera, & Price-Sharps, 2014). Additionally, the problems with eyewitness memory have been highlighted by the contribution of eyewitness misidentifications to cases of wrongful conviction, whereby over 70% of wrongful convictions overturned by DNA evidence involved faulty eyewitness identification (Innocence Project, 2015).…”