Ethics

DNA Testing and Eyewitness Testimony

By Ed Brayton

Balko has an excellent article at Reason Online about some of the problems of relying on eyewitness testimony. We already knew from psychology and numerous studies that eyewitness testimony can be highly inaccurate, but now that we have DNA testing to prove guilt or innocence -- and now that so many people who were convicted based on eyewitness testimony have been proven innocent -- we can no longer pretend that such testimony is, by itself, proof of much of anything.

Balko correctly says "the scientific certainty of DNA testing has also exposed just how flawed other arrows in the prosecutor's quiver really are. DNA exonerations have called into question the accuracy of ballistics analysis, bite mark evidence, hair and carpet fiber evidence, shoe print analysis, jailhouse informants, and even fingerprint identification, once the gold standard of the forensics world."

Full post as published by Dispatches from the Culture Wars on April 14, 2009 (boomark / email).