Eyewitness Evidence Executive Summary
Eyewitness plays a key role in the criminal justice system of the US. Sometimes it can provide the main piece of evidence against a suspect and help to solve a case much faster. Even though it is not always reliable or accurate, eyewitness is still used by police combined with modern technologies to conduct suspect identification.
Identifying a Witness
The first step to eyewitness evidence is to identify who can be considered as a witness. “An eyewitness is a person who has seen the crime or has knowledge of its commission. The eyewitness may be a victim, a bystander, or a participant in the crime who will testify in exchange for a lesser sentence” (Tran, 2015). It is important to choose a right person as a witness in case false charges will be filed against the innocent.
Police Lineup
There are a few types of picking a suspect by eyewitnesses. Police lineup is a type where “the suspect is usually in a group with other people who serve as “decoys” (Tran, 2015). Eyewitnesses need to choose a person who they think is guilty between real suspects and people who generally fit the witness description but are not involved in crime. Any feature described by the witness is very important to police. For example, if a suspect has a tattoo or a scar and the witness remembers seeing it, it is significant to choose a person for a lineup.
Showup
Another type is showups. The procedure is like lineups but there are no “decoys” and the process of acknowledging suspects can take place at the scene of the crime which is likely when the police capture a suspect shortly after a crime has occurred (Bergman, n.d.). The main advantage of showups is that they occur right after the crime when a victim or a witness remembers the crime really clear and the memory is not a problem. The interesting thing is that “research experiments haven’t demonstrated differences in reliability between identifications resulting from showups and those produced by lineups” (Bergman, n.d.). It is connected with a possibility that right after the crime a witness can be in shock and has a difficulty to tell anything to a police officer.
Photograph Identification
The most effortless way for a witness is photograph identification, where the photos of suspects are shown to eyewitnesses to point out the guilty one. If multiple photos of suspects are available, police need to choose the one that was taken at the scene of the crime. The photos should be chosen carefully not to add the pictures of the people who look too similar to suspects but are not involved in the case, however, some additional pictures should be given to witness in order for him to make more thoughtful choice.
Reliability of Eyewitness Evidence
Eyewitness evidence is one of the most powerful types of evidence but it has its negative side. According to studies, as many as 1 in 4 stranger …
