Memory: The Huge Impact It Has On Eyewitness Accounts

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Chelsey Bradley
Psychology 101 – Essay 1
Memory: The Huge Impact It Has On Eyewitness Accounts Eyewitness accounts were one of the most valuable pieces of evidence in a court case until DNA testing came along. Can you always rely on what you saw happen or what you heard happen? The answer is no. Eyewitness misidentification is the basis of unjust imprisonments all over the country. The Innocence Project has estimated that 72% of wrongful imprisonments have been repealed because of the brilliant discovery of DNA. A judge or jury can easily be manipulated into thinking a certain way because they have eyewitness accounts. It has later been determined through extensive research that eyewitness identification is not always dependable in certain cases. Through several studies it is shown that we do not recall incidents precisely as we perceive them. Alternatively, eyewitness memory is treated like every other piece of evidence to a case. It is vital in court cases that eyewitness evidence should be cautiously weighed and logically analyzed. If by chance, a court system does not scrutinize eyewitness accounts the case could be tainted. Before DNA testing could confirm a guilty or not guilty verdict for rapists and murders, a court system relied heavily on eyewitness accounts. It is now known that eyewitness accounts could potentially be flawed. The Innocence Project has freed many prisoners who were in prison for a crime they did not commit. Larry Youngblood and Clark McMillan are prime examples of misidentification from an eyewitness. Larry Youngblood is from Arizona. He was charged with sexual assault, kidnapping, and child molestation. He served nine years for a crime that he did not commit. Clark McMillan is from Tennessee. He was charged with aggravated rape and robbery with a deadly weapon. He served twenty-two years for a crime he did not commit. The case study of Larry Youngblood is an unfortunate one. A young ten year old boy was abducted from a carnival and was abused by a middle aged man. He was molested for over an hour. The young boy was then taken to a hospital where they could obtain semen from articles of his clothing and his rectum. The young boy described his attacker as having a messed up eye. Based merely on that feature, Youngblood was sentenced to ten and a half years to prison on the charges of child molestation, kidnapping, and sexual assault. A sixteen year old girl and her boyfriend were abducted from a park in Memphis, Tennessee. They were made to get out of their car by a man with a knife. The man mugged the boyfriend and ordered them into the woods were he made them undress. He forced the boyfriend to lay with his face down in the wooded area while he raped the girlfriend. At the rape crisis center evidence was obtained from the girl’s blue jeans. Other than a visual examination, no testing was implemented. Both of the victims gave comparable portrayals of the man, but neither of them had mentioned that he had a messed up leg before the trial. When the trial had started, they reported that the man had a limp. When asked to identify the man in a line up, they both picked McMillan at the trial. Years later DNA testing confirmed that McMillan was not the perpetrator, and that he was misidentified. After serving twenty-two years in prison, McMillan was set free. From the two court cases discussed, we can infer that our memory construction can be inaccurate. When we retrieve a memory, there is always a slight chance we have somewhat altered the memory in a process known as reconsolidation. Larry Young blood was convicted for a crime because he had an eye that was messed up, and the ten year old boy was raped by a man with a disfigured eye. A child’s eyewitness recall is something that should always be considered because it has been scientifically proven that a child’s memory can be sculpted by leading questions. They have underdeveloped brains and can likely be influenced by what others are telling them
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