Mistaken Eyewitness Identification

Anyone who has watched a TV re-run of a courtroom drama such as "Perry Mason" or "Matlock" has seen that crucial moment where a cunning prosecutor calls a witness to the stand and asks the fateful question, "Do you see the person who shot Mr. X here in the courtroom?" The witness then invariably points to the defendant on trial, saying. "He is sitting right at the defense table!" By the time the TV show has ended, the skillful defense attorney inevitably proves that statement wrong, usually in an equally dramatic courtroom confession by the real killer. Of course, this seldom plays out like this in court.

In fact, when an eye witness points out the defendant as the perpetrator of a serious crime, that statement is generally accepted by the jury as the most important piece of evidence in the trial. The skilled defense attorney will raise physical problems and other credibility issues to attack such an identification. Often a psychologist, an expert witness, may even be called in, to explain tricks our minds play on us in times of unusual stress, causing people to believe they are able to identify a person that they did not even see at the time of the crime. Yet the eyewitness identification of the defendant as the person who committed the crime is a very difficult piece of evidence to overcome.

Scientific research and a number of studies conducted by Innocence Projects as well as university professors have shown, however, that eyewitness identification is often very unreliable. According to many studies, mistaken eyewitness identification is a major cause of the wrongful conviction of innocent people. Scientists and psychologists have warned of the dangers of permitting a person to be convicted only upon eyewitness identification, unsupported by any other evidence. In fact, California placed initiatives on their November 2007 ballot requiring reforms in the use of eyewitness identification procedures in jury trials. This ballot proposal was defeated.

Since the use of PCR DNA procedures has become accepted in all United States courts over the last 10 years, convictions of many persons, some of them on death row, have been overturned by hard-working Innocence Project attorneys. In fact, according to psychologists including Dr. Gary Wells, PhD, mistaken eyewitness identification has proved to be THE largest single factor contributing to the conviction of innocent people.

If your criminal case involves an erroneous eyewitness identification, you need an attorney beginning thorough investigative procedures as soon as possible. You need a skilled attorney who will be able to bring out the real facts and fight against mistaken eyewitness identification both in and outside the courtroom.