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The Science of Eyewitness Identification

By standdown

Yesterday, the CBS News program "60 Minutes," reaired Lesley Stahl's report, "Eyewitness: How Accurate is Visual Memory?" The two-part episode was first broadcast in March.It's a cliché of courtroom dramas - that moment when the witness is asked "Do you see the person who committed the crime here in this courtroom before you?" It happens in real courtrooms all the time, and to jurors, that point of the finger by a confident eyewitness is about as damning as evidence can get. But there is one type of evidence that's even more persuasive: DNA. There have been 235 people exonerated by DNA in this country, and as 60 Minutes and correspondent Lesley Stahl first reported in March, now a stunning pattern has emerged: more than three quarters of them were sent to prison at least in part because an eyewitness pointed a finger - an eyewitness we now know was wrong...continue to full post

Full post as published by StandDown Texas Project on July 13, 2009 (boomark / email).