New Jersey Court Issues Guidance for Juries About Reliability of Eyewitnesses

[alp227]

Source: NY Times

Almost a year after the New Jersey Supreme Court made a sweeping ruling aimed at resolving the “troubling lack of reliability in eyewitness identifications,” it issued instructions on Thursday for judges to give jurors to help them better evaluate such evidence in criminal trials.

A judge now must tell jurors before deliberations begin that, for example, stress levels, distance or poor lighting can undercut an eyewitness’s ability to make an accurate identification.

Factors like the time that has elapsed between the commission of a crime and a witness’s identification of a suspect or the behavior of a police officer during a lineup can also influence a witness, the new instructions warn.

And in cases involving cross-racial identifications, judges were directed to tell jurors that “research has shown that people may have greater difficulty in accurately identifying members of a different race.”

Read more: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/20/nyregion/judges-must-warn-new-jersey-jurors-about-eyewitnesses-reliability.html

[struggle4progress]

1. Supreme Court Releases Eyewitness Identification Criteria for Criminal Cases

http://www.judiciary.state.nj.us/pressrel/2012/pr120719a.htm

includes links to "expanded jury instructions, a new court rule, and a revised court rule relating to eyewitness identifications in criminal cases"

[evirus]

2. It's quite jarring to learn how easily it is for people to fool themselves.

add into that the easy yet flawed response of "you think their lying?" and it makes you wonder how many people were found guilty because of flawed eyewitness testimony.