Unreliability in Eyewitness Testimonies
One evening in May 1975, two men robbed a store manager. The robbers had wanted the manager to open the store safe, but he convinced the armed men that he did not know the combination. Instead, he gave them his own money to satisfy them. After they had left, the manager called the police and gave them the make of the robber's car. Later, Lonnie and Sandy Sawyer, two brothers, were arrested because they were driving the same kind of car. The store manager positively identified them, even though the two brothers had alibi witnesses, the jury believed the store manager. After the two men were sent to jail, their families hired private investigators to research into the case because they believed that their sons were innocent. Sure enough, they found the real robbers and Lonnie and Sandy were set free. This is just one example of a case of mistaken identity by an eyewitness (Eyewitness Testimony).There have been many cases like the Sawyer brothers where an eyewitness convicts an innocent person of a crime. Even though the eyewitness believes that they remember the crime or the perpetrator of the crime correctly, in reality, many different things could have affected their memory so that their recollections are not totall
Eyewitness testimony. (1995). Internet. http://www.Getysburg.edu/~s328729/EYEWIT.html e memories and can not be relied very heavily on when trying to convict a suspect. Chandler, C. C. & Fisher, R. P. (1996). Retrieval processes and witness memory. Memory Handbook of Perception and Cognition (2nd ed.). San Diego, CA: Academic Press Inc., pp. 493-524. Sternberg, R. J. (1996). Cognitive Psychology. New York: Harcourt Brace College Publishers.
Some common words found in the essay are:
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