Key Question - Is Eyewitness Testimonies Reliable?
Stressful Situations - Valentine and Mesout:
Case Study (A02): High stress situations, such as
Ronald Cotton was wrongly convicted of witnessing a crime can affect witnesses’
a rape crime towards Jennifer Thompson memory.
He was incarcerated in 1995 and spent London Dungeon - 45 min walk for ppts
over 10 years in prison Tried to identify the ‘scary person’ in a
Jennifer wrongly chose Ronald in a photo photo line up
line up Only 17% could identify the person
The real rapist was also in jail for another correctly
crime and told one of the inmates that he Shows that anxiety and high stress can
was Jennifer’s rapist cause memory loss and it is hard to
This was how Cotton was set free extrapolate evidence from witnesses for
DNA testing was inconclusive at the time accurate cases
Devlin Report and Leading Questions:
The Devlin Report 1976 highlighted the
Weapon Focus:
unreliability of eye witness testimonies
Suggests that when a weapon is involved
and recommended that it was not the
people often experience ‘tunnel vision’ as
only evidence used in trials
they only focus on the weapon
Leading questions can be used in police
Johnson and Scott 1976 - people in the
reports to help witnesses accurately
weapon group could not remember the
remember the event:
man’s face compared to people in the
Report everything
group with no weapon
Reinstate context
Suggests the weapon takes primary
Reverse the order
focus and links to inaccuracy in other
Change the perspective
aspects of the eye witness recall
This can help lead to more accurate
However Yuille and Cutshall found people
accounts and less cases like Ronald
remembered most events of real life gun
Cotton
shootings - sometimes eye witness
Loftus and Palmer - experiment 2 and the
recalls can be accurate
‘broken glass’ question - interplay of
schemas
Stressful Situations - Valentine and Mesout:
Case Study (A02): High stress situations, such as
Ronald Cotton was wrongly convicted of witnessing a crime can affect witnesses’
a rape crime towards Jennifer Thompson memory.
He was incarcerated in 1995 and spent London Dungeon - 45 min walk for ppts
over 10 years in prison Tried to identify the ‘scary person’ in a
Jennifer wrongly chose Ronald in a photo photo line up
line up Only 17% could identify the person
The real rapist was also in jail for another correctly
crime and told one of the inmates that he Shows that anxiety and high stress can
was Jennifer’s rapist cause memory loss and it is hard to
This was how Cotton was set free extrapolate evidence from witnesses for
DNA testing was inconclusive at the time accurate cases
Devlin Report and Leading Questions:
The Devlin Report 1976 highlighted the
Weapon Focus:
unreliability of eye witness testimonies
Suggests that when a weapon is involved
and recommended that it was not the
people often experience ‘tunnel vision’ as
only evidence used in trials
they only focus on the weapon
Leading questions can be used in police
Johnson and Scott 1976 - people in the
reports to help witnesses accurately
weapon group could not remember the
remember the event:
man’s face compared to people in the
Report everything
group with no weapon
Reinstate context
Suggests the weapon takes primary
Reverse the order
focus and links to inaccuracy in other
Change the perspective
aspects of the eye witness recall
This can help lead to more accurate
However Yuille and Cutshall found people
accounts and less cases like Ronald
remembered most events of real life gun
Cotton
shootings - sometimes eye witness
Loftus and Palmer - experiment 2 and the
recalls can be accurate
‘broken glass’ question - interplay of
schemas
