We all know the scene from countless courtroom dramas: A witness points at the defendant and confidently declares to judge and jury: “That’s the one, that’s who did it!” But is it? Perhaps. If that same witness was also confident the very first time their memory was tested — write a team of psychological scientists and criminologists led by memory expert John Wixted of the University of California San Diego. Otherwise, there’s too high a chance that a contaminated memory will convict an innocent person.
As most of us also know, people have been convicted of crimes they didn’t commit on the basis of eyewitness memory. Some of these wrongful convictions have later been overturned by DNA or other physical evidence. But that type of evidence doesn’t always exist. To reduce the likelihood of injustice, the researchers suggest a simple, no-cost reform to our system of jurisprudence. “Test…
