Eyewitness Identification is More Often Wrong than Right
As we noted in my article DNA Does not always Catch the Guilty, 80% of felonies do not involve biological evidence, so confessions and eyewitness identifications are the main types of direct evidence used to convict those accused of murder.
However, as we reported previously in my article Too Many Murder Confessions Are Coerced False Confessions, as many as 25% of wrongful convictions overturned with DNA evidence involve false confessions. God only knows how many more wrongful convictions there really are but for the lack of DNA in the other 80% of cases, so a confession is a very poor indicator of guilt.
Well, then, we always have eyewitness testimony. At least if someone says they definitely, absolutely, positively can identify the defendant as the culprit then we can be sure we have the right guy, right? Eh, not quite so fast, dear reader. Scientists have found that in cases where we know through DNA exoneration that the defendant was innocent, eyewitness identifications were mistaken 75% of the time (1).
Consider the case of Joseph Abbitt who spent 14 years in prison for two rapes he didn't commit (2). Two sisters, ages 13 and 16 separately identified Abbitt in a photographic lineup and based exclusively on their testimony, he was sentenced to two consecutive life sentences plus an additional 110 years. New DNA testing on the rape kit excluded Abbitt as the perpetrator.
If I had the time and energy I could list thousands of cases of eyewitness mis-identification, but why bother? Those who champion capital punishment will simply refuse to read the scientific studies showing that eyewitness identification is wrong more often than right and and will discount ten thousand cases of mistaken identification as simply exceptions to the rule. The truth is, the exception to the rule is when eyewitness testimony points to a truly guilty person.
So if you are on a jury and you hear an eyewitness identify the defendant as the killer, please realize that there is a 75% chance that that witness is wrong. Not terrible odds if we are only putting someone in jail, but horribly barbaric if we are going to execute that person.
ENDNOTES
(1):
Annual Review Psychology, 27 Aug 2002, PDF Eyewitness Testimony
More than 100 people who were convicted prior to the advent of forensic DNA have now been exonerated by DNA tests, and more than 75% of these people were victims of mistaken eyewitness identification...
(2):
The Innocence Project, Joseph Abbitt
The Crime
In the early morning of May 2, 1991, two sisters, ages 13 and 16, awoke in their Winston-Salem, North Carolina, home to get ready for school only to discover an intruder had entered their home through a kitchen window. The intruder raped the two girls at knifepoint and bound their hands and feet. The attacker was in the home for over an hour before leaving.
The Investigation and Identification
Although the opportunity to see the attacker's face was limited, the victims told investigators that their attacker looked like Joseph Abbitt, a man who had previously lived in the neighborhood and had been a visitor to their home. The girls separately identified Abbitt in a photographic lineup and police focused on him as the primary suspect.
...
The Trial
... Based almost exclusively on the eyewitness identifications by the two young victims, Abbitt was convicted of rape, burglary and kidnapping and sentenced to two consecutive life sentences plus an additional 110 years. Abbitt appealed his conviction but it was upheld in May 1996.
The Post-Conviction Appeals and Exoneration
...
Although most of the evidence from the crime scene had been destroyed by the county clerk's office, a few items, including the rape kit, were located at the Winston-Salem police department. New DNA testing conducted on the evidence was initially inconclusive, but a second round of testing on one of the rape kits excluded Abbitt as the perpetrator. He was set free and officially exonerated on September 2, 2009, after serving 14 years in prison for crimes he didn't commit.
