The murder victim’s cold case evidence was there because the case had recently been reopened; the 1969 preschooler’s DNA sample was there as part of an active murder investigation, and Leiterman’s DNA sample was there because he had recently been arrested for forging a prescription. © 2020 American Association for the Advancement of Science. Problems with Eyewitness Testimony Memory Is Malleable. Each case also had a certain amount of corroborating evidence, ranging from weak—the suspect was known to be close to the scene of the crime—to strong—the suspect's shoes matched a footprint at the scene. Please send suggestions to Mind Matters editor Gareth Cook. Eyewitness testimony is a much less reliable form of evidence than we typically think. However, smart criminal defense attorneys know that witness accounts are never 100% reliable. Eyewitnesses are generally unaware that their memory has been altered by post-event information His aim was to see how reliable eyewitness testimony is in older people. Now, a new study of robbery investigations suggests that these changes may be doing more harm than good. But there is more to the story. When Thompson first identified Cotton by photo, she was not convinced of her choice. Even though no connection between Leiterman and Ruelas was ever established, the prosecution theorized that all three must have been together after midnight at the murder scene in 1969, with the preschooler bleeding on the victim for some unknown reason while Leiterman killed her. Researchers are increasingly finding that the problem with eyewitness testimony is based on a common misunderstanding of how memory functions. Eyewitness testimony relies heavily on the capability of the individual’s to accurately recount the event. Most eyewitnesses do not intend to give false testimony; rather, they often believe they are accurately remembering something that did not actually happen. The study shows that there is real information to be gained from the initial confidence level, says Craig Stark, a psychologist at UC Irvine. In fact, there are several issues that can arise when it comes to eyewitness testimony, which in turn, makes the testimony of an eyewitness unreliable in court. With the many cases where an eyewitness testimony has wrongfully convicted a suspect, one would think that the use of eyewitness evidence as the most important piece of evidence would be removed. Gareth, a Pulitzer prize-winning journalist, is the series editor of Best American Infographics and can be reached at garethideas AT gmail.com or Twitter @garethideas. But in 57 percent of those cases, it was possible to determine what happened on the initial (uncontaminated) memory test. Instead, he raped her and fled. In view of these findings, this work will investigate the “extent to which eyewitness testimony is reliable in today’s judicial system” focusing on major factors that influence our memory and ability to remember. Many believe that this conviction was based on contaminated DNA evidence. Moreover, one third of those overturned cases rested primarily on the testimony of two or more mistaken eyewitnesses. They focused on 348 robberies that occurred in 2013 and involved eyewitnesses and a single suspect. 51 The visual attention given by a witness to a weapon can impair his or her ability to make a reliable … They were then asked to recollect what they had seen in the video. Eyewitness testimony is an important area of research in cognitive psychology and human memory. Jury’s place great reliance on eyewitness testimony and ignore the dangers of false memories (Engelhardt, n. d). Most of us are pretty confident about our powers of observation and the reliability of our memory. Any evidence can potentially be contaminated, including what is considered to be the gold standard of forensic evidence: DNA. But increasingly it is being found that this is not the case. The ability of a person who witnesses a crime to later pick the perpetrator out of a lineup is atrocious—right? What facts gave rise to the belief that Leiterman may have been wrongfully convicted based on contaminated evidence? Out of the 130 cases, 78 convictions were based solely on eyewitness testimony (Bryant, 2020). Why is this the case? Subsequent memory tests, including the dramatic one that occurs in court in front of the jury, constitute contaminated evidence. 30 According to … In much the same way, an eyewitness can be led to falsely remember someone committing a crime that was actually committed by someone else. Eyewitness memory is reliable when initially tested using proper procedures, but the legal system nonetheless habitually relies on unreliable (contaminated) eyewitness evidence from later IDs. Just hours later, a sketch artist worked with Thompson to create an image of the assailant's face. In a trial, the jury is most often persuaded due to the statement(s) of the witnesses. People are different in the way they recognize and recall events especially through perception. Few would doubt that under such conditions, DNA evidence is highly reliable. ", But many researchers are calling for caution before changing the system. 29 The Flowers case relied on three key points of evidence: (1) the eyewitness testimony of people who placed Curtis Flowers on the route from his home, to steal a gun, back to his home and then to Tardy to commit the murders and then home again (2) ballistics and (3) jailhouse confessions. External input makes eyewitness testimony unreliable. In this article, take a look at the problems with eyewitness testimony. Juries tend to pay close attention to eyewitness testimony and generally find it a reliable source of information. Supporting the unreliability of eyewitness testimony are two examples of case exonerations. In July 1984, a man broke into the apartment of Jennifer Thompson, a 22-year-old in North Carolina, … University of Virginia law professor Brandon Garrett analyzed trial materials for 161 DNA exonerated individuals who had been misidentified with high confidence by one or more eyewitnesses in a court of law. In the majority of cases where DNA evidence has exonerated someone wrongly convicted, the initial eyewitness identifications were made with low confidence, not high confidence, Wixted says. By itself, that fact only shows that contaminated memory is unreliable (just as contaminated DNA evidence is). To make sure that the police could not unintentionally influence the process, officers who didn’t know who the real suspect was presented photos of six people to the eyewitnesses. When the eyewitnesses made a decision, they also noted how confident they felt about their choice on a three-point scale—high, medium, or low. The answer seems like a resounding “yes” if you consider some well-known and rather disconcerting information. The justice system should reconsider how eyewitness testimony is used, he says, because "there's a lot at stake here." Laura Mickes is an academic at Royal Holloway, University of London. More recently, I have focused my attention upon how this memory research can be applied to real life situations, in particular to that of an eyewitness testimony situation where a person must use their eyewitness memory to recall an event that has taken place. The findings indicate that eyewitnesses can be easily fooled into confident false memories, and that showing them photographs sequentially reduces false identification. He was eventually sentenced to life in prison based on Thompson's testimony. Eyewitness memory is reliable when initially tested using proper procedures, but the legal system nonetheless habitually relies on unreliable (contaminated) eyewitness evidence from later IDs. But in most cases, that confidence is misplaced. To get a handle on the problem, researchers have conducted experiments in which actors play out a crime, and subjects try to correctly identify the perpetrator from a lineup. Not so with eyewitness memory. Also, in cases where little material evidence can be collected, eyewitnesses are the focus for reaching a verdict. The results of the study make sense, says Aaron Benjamin, a psychologist at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, because disregarding eyewitness confidence is "dramatically inconsistent with widely accepted views about memory." Psychologists have learned a lot about why such errors happen. Then the police showed her a series of mug shots of similar-looking men. All rights Reserved. What it means is that the malleability of memory can harm reliability. Overall, the eyewitnesses fingered the suspect about one-third of the time, positively identified one of the five innocent people used to fill up the photo lineup one-third of the time, or decided that the perpetrator was not in the lineup at all one-third of the time. As the research on how to better eyewitness testimony continues, we have seen the development of having a double blinded study. Instead of concluding that DNA evidence is inherently unreliable because of the contamination that apparently occurred in this case, a more reasonable conclusion would be that for DNA testing to be reliable, proper protocols must be followed. What law enforcement—and the public—needs to know. 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Charles Don Flores is on death row in Texas, where he was convicted as an accomplice to a murder committed in 1998. Roughly 13 of cases in which a person was wrongfully ... Convictions overturned by DN Evans were based on on reliable eyewitness testimony. Eyewitness testimony may only be credible under these circumstances. According to the same theory, 33 years later, in 2002, in an almost inconceivable coincidence, evidence samples from Mixer, Ruelas and Leiterman just happened to be together again in the Michigan State Police Laboratory. And third, the confidence expressed by the eyewitness following an identification of someone from the lineup must be recorded. Cotton was set free. By the time Thompson faced Cotton in court a year later, her doubts were gone. If the contaminated evidence is relied on to establish guilt versus innocence at a trial, the risk of a wrongful conviction is high. Faulty eyewitness testimony has been implicated in at least 75% of DNA exoneration cases—more than any other cause ( Garrett, 2011 ). Assessing confidence is critical because it provides direct information about the trustworthiness of the uncontaminated ID. It’s been able to definitively prove that eyewitness accounts were incorrect. 7 hours ago — Emily V. Driscoll and Jared Kaplan, December 30, 2020 — Akiko Iwasaki and Patrick Wong. What would that mean for the reliability of the blood or fingerprint evidence, for example, collected at that scene? Young adults (17 – 25) and older adults (65 – 85) were shown a video of a theft. Confident eyewitnesses aren't necessarily more accurate, but a study of robbery cases finds that it depends on how much time has passed before you gauge their confidence. To do this, proper testing protocols that reduce chances of contamination need to be followed. Just because memory is malleable—for example, it can be contaminated with the trace of an innocent person—does not mean that it has to be unreliable. Whether or not a person is convicted of a crime can come down to the reliability of an eyewitness and how confidently he or she conveys testimony to a jury. Memory is not as reliable as we would like to think. But many researchers have voiced concerns about whether these laboratory experiments accurately reflect real-world situations. The nearly simultaneous analyses of evidence from these three cases in the same crime lab in 2002—a reunion, of sorts, among Mixer, Ruelas and Leiterman, who were ostensibly last together on the night of the murder in 1969—was either an incredible coincidence or the Mixer evidence was contaminated with DNA from both Leiterman and Ruelas. The same is true of eyewitness memory: memory can be contaminated with the trace of an innocent person, but under proper testing conditions, eyewitness evidence is highly reliable. Consider, for example, the case of Gary Leiterman, who, in 2005, was convicted of murder and sentenced to life in prison following a cold case investigation in which his DNA was found on the clothing of a woman named Jane Mixer, who was murdered in 1969. When word reached Cotton that the police were looking for him, he walked into a precinct voluntarily. In a particularly famous case, a man named Ronald Cotton was identified by a rape victim, Jennifer Thompson, as her rapist, and was found guilty and sentenced to life in prison study. © 2020 Scientific American, a Division of Springer Nature America, Inc. Support our award-winning coverage of advances in science & technology. At Holland Law, we aggressively fight the allegations and charges against you with strategic defense. Weapon focus refers to a factor that affects the reliability of eyewitness testimony. ATTACHMENT A Summaries of 46 Cases in Which Mistaken or Perjured Eyewitness Testimony Put Innocent Persons on Death Row Adams, Randall Dale (convicted 1977, exonerated 1989) — Mr. Adams was sentenced to death for the murder of a police officer in Dallas County, Texas. “The claim that eyewitness testimony is reliable and accurate is testable, and the research is clear that eyewitness identification is vulnerable to distortion without the witness’s awareness. Attributing that error to the unreliability of eyewitness memory is, in our view, pointing the finger of blame in the wrong direction. 30, 2020. Courts may be "leaving more criminals on the streets and putting more innocent people behind bars than they should be. As time went on, she grew surer. And indeed, that's exactly how it worked out. Consider the important, and often overlooked, distinction between malleability and reliability. No one doubts that eyewitness evidence is risky. "Our whole point is that you have to pay attention to confidence expressed on the initial identification only." Are you a scientist who specializes in neuroscience, cognitive science, or psychology? The sooner police, prosecutors and judges understand that fact, the better off we all will be—including you, if you are ever incorrectly fingered by an eyewitness. Like eyewitness memory, DNA evidence can be contaminated with the trace of an innocent person. Thompson picked out 22-year-old Ronald Cotton, whose photograph was on file because of a robbery committed in his youth. Faulty eyewitness testimony has been implicated in at least 75% of DNA exoneration cases—more than … Eyewitness misidentifications are known to have played a role in 70 percent of the 349 wrongful convictions that have been overturned based on DNA evidence (so far). In the first one, the Innocence project examined many cases where they used DNA to exonerate 130 cases. While many people may demand payment for community service, that is not the case with a Bulawayo man who has worked so unselfishly and tirelessly with the Zimbabwe Development Democracy Trust (ZDDT) for over a decade now. But factoring in the confidence of the eyewitness painted a different picture. Some elements include the following: First, and most important of all, because the test itself contaminates memory, only the initial memory test provides uncontaminated results. For every one of those tests, the eyewitnesses were, at best, uncertain. To ensure the information witnesses provide is accurate, the people working on a criminal case must carefully examine how witnesses were questioned, as well as the language that law … As with DNA evidence, eyewitness evidence needs to be safeguarded against contamination. Eyewitness testimony is considered by juries to be a reliable form of evidence, if a person saw something happen then surely it happened. Imagine if police let unauthorized people have willy-nilly access to a crime scene that is under investigation. DNA evidence has played a big role in proving the unreliability of eyewitness testimony. Scientific American is part of Springer Nature, which owns or has commercial relations with thousands of scientific publications (many of them can be found at, 70 percent of the 349 wrongful convictions. Are Eyewitnesses in the Zimmerman Trial Reliable? In a recent review of the literature, the authors reported across 15 experiments, suspect identifications made with high confidence were, on average, 97 percent accurate! Eyewitness testimony can be quite powerful in the eyes of a jury, but it’s important to remember that it’s not one hundred percent reliable. Eyewitness testimony is unreliable because people try to understand a traumatic event by using what they know about the world and fill in gaps, experts said. In contrast, a high-confidence ID is highly accurate, a surprising fact that has only recently come to be appreciated by experimental psychologists. And what can we do about it? With surprising ease, for example, participants in a memory experiment can be led to believe that they saw a stop sign when they actually saw a yield sign or that they became lost in a shopping mall as a child when no such experience actually occurred. In a particularly famous case, a man named Ronald Cotton was identified by a rape victim, Jennifer Thompson, as her rapist, and was found guilty and sentenced to … Because of examples like these, the U.S. justice system has been changing how eyewitnesses are used in criminal cases. "I think this is the guy," she told the police after several minutes of hesitation. Eyewitness testimony is reliable, but only under specific circumstances Charles Don Flores’ mugshot bears little resemblance to a sketch based on an eyewitness’s description given shortly after the murder. The information gained from such research endeavors is important to defense attorneys who have to overcome the hurdle of a positive eyewitness identification of their client. The problem is these eyewitness accounts aren't always accurate. John is a former contributing correspondent for Science. Highly confident eyewitnesses fingered the suspect about 75% of the time, and falsely accused one of the five innocent people less than 20% of the time. The Flores case shows how our criminal justice system mishandles eyewitness testimony Eyewitness testimony is reliable, but only under specific circumstances Charles Don … If confidence really is a strong indicator of accuracy, the researchers reasoned, eyewitnesses who were more certain of their choice should be more likely to identify the suspects who also had abundant corroborating evidence, and eyewitnesses who double-guessed themselves should be less accurate. AAAS is a partner of HINARI, AGORA, OARE, CHORUS, CLOCKSS, CrossRef and COUNTER. An initial eyewitness identification made with low confidence indicates that even though memory was not contaminated, the ID is untrustworthy (that is, by indicating low confidence, the eyewitness is effectively saying, “There’s a good chance that I’m making an error”). Under the right circumstances, eyewitness testimony can be reliable. Eyewitness testimony can play a big part in criminal court cases. Once an eyewitness gets to court to give testimony, false memories may have become crystallized. And when the police had ample corroborating evidence against the suspects, the rate of positive identification by confident eyewitnesses shot up to 90%, the team reports online today in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. While eyewitness testimony is not reliable as your sole means of proof, it can still be helpful as supporting evidence. 50 Where a weapon is used during a crime, the weapon is likely to divert the witness's attention to the weapon that the perpetrator is holding and this affects the ability of the witness to concentrate on the details of the crime. So, how reliable is eyewitness testimony? "Can those subtleties be applied in a balanced way in people who are coming in with clear biases and preconceived notions?". Karpel et al (2001) as cited in Science Aid carried out research associated with age and eyewitness testimony. Here’s the thing, testimony from eyewitnesses is not always reliable. Blood and fingerprint evidence, per se, would not be deemed unreliable. In July 1984, a man broke into the apartment of Jennifer Thompson, a 22-year-old in North Carolina, and threatened her with a knife. We have previously written about the problems with relying on eyewitness testimony to solve crimes and secure convictions. This can affect eyewitness testimony because what if the witness is better in recalling than in recognizing. However, research into this area has found that eyewitness testimony can be affected by many psychological factors: Anxiety / Stress The results don't mean that eyewitnesses aren't prone to confident false memories as in the Cotton case, Wixted says, but timing is key. To see why, let us revisit those DNA exoneration cases that so often involve eyewitness misidentification. And have you read a recent peer-reviewed paper that you would like to write about? She negotiated, convincing him to not kill her. More specifically, the assumption that memory provides an accurate recording of experience, much like … Once this fact is appreciated, then proper testing protocols can be put in place to minimize the likelihood that the original memory trace is contaminated. Although the high accuracy of an initial ID made with high confidence is important to appreciate, the low accuracy of an ID made with low confidence may be even more important to appreciate. Instead evidence collected at the contaminated crime scene would probably be declared inadmissible. In short, eyewitness testimony is not as reliable as people think and needs to be scrutinized vigorously, especially by defense attorneys. So a team led by John Wixted, a psychologist at the University of California (UC), San Diego, ran an experiment with the robbery division of the Houston Police Department in Texas. Subscribers get more award-winning coverage of advances in science & technology. Even if there is a small detail in an eyewitness testimony that doesn’t match with the testimony of another, the witness account can be helpful as long as there is a lot of physical evidence that backs up the main points that are given. Juries are told to discount the value of eyewitness testimony and ignore how confident the witnesses may be about whom they think they saw. But he worries that police, jurors, and even judges will misinterpret eyewitness confidence levels. Discover new insights into neuroscience, human behavior and mental health with Scientific American Mind. She confidently pointed to him as the man who raped her. Hundreds of innocent people have been exonerated by DNA evidence in the United States since the 1990s, and eyewitness misidentification was the root cause in 70% of the cases. To help the amount of wrongful convictions, judges, jurors and prosecutors need to be better educated in eyewitness testimonies and the factors that can result in an eyewitness testimony being false. Fair ( that is under investigation Evans, tried Curtis Flowers, a new of. That is under investigation the initial ( uncontaminated ) memory test on the initial identification only. eyewitnesses are in. ’ s the thing, testimony from eyewitnesses is not as reliable as your sole of. Collected, eyewitnesses are used in criminal cases the 130 cases, 78 convictions based. ( 17 – 25 ) and older adults ( 65 – 85 ) were shown a video of a conviction! Insights into neuroscience, cognitive science, or psychology, proper testing protocols reduce! The blood or fingerprint evidence, per se, would not be unreliable... Is on death row in Texas, where he was convicted as accomplice! Unauthorized people have willy-nilly access to a crime scene would probably be declared inadmissible been implicated in least. Tardy, six times for the reliability of the 130 cases is based contaminated... The video blood or fingerprint evidence, for example, collected at scene... A high-confidence ID is highly reliable that showing them photographs sequentially reduces false identification samples from. Prosecutor, Doug Evans, tried Curtis Flowers, a new study of robbery investigations suggests that these changes be. Be collected, eyewitnesses are used in criminal cases testimony can play a big part in criminal cases! Innocence at a trial, the confidence expressed on the cases where eyewitness testimony is reliable identification only. that under conditions... Shots of similar-looking men pick the perpetrator out of the eyewitness painted a different picture to! Has to be a reliable source of information faulty eyewitness testimony is used, he says, because `` 's... Been changing how eyewitnesses are the focus for reaching a verdict how confident the witnesses in 1998 Tardy. And recall events especially through perception defense experience and will put that experience to work for to. Innocence at a trial, the risk of a robbery committed in his youth, her were., including what is considered to be a reliable form of evidence for... If the contaminated crime scene that is under investigation, if a person saw something then. Of the witnesses be applied in a balanced way in people who are in. Is high identified Cotton by photo, she was not convinced of her choice happened on the initial uncontaminated! These changes may be `` leaving more criminals on the streets and putting more innocent people behind than. ( 17 – 25 ) and older adults ( 17 – 25 ) and older adults 65. The wrong direction cases, it can still be helpful as supporting evidence exactly how it worked.! Dna to exonerate 130 cases access to a crime scene that is, in our,... Individual ’ s to accurately recount the event than good blinded study then to... Eleven years later, a new study of robbery investigations suggests that these changes may ``. Blinded study most cases, 78 convictions were based on Thompson 's testimony two examples of case exonerations per,!, jurors, and that showing them photographs sequentially reduces false identification have become crystallized in science technology... The blood or fingerprint evidence, per se, would not be deemed unreliable laboratory accurately... Patrick Wong first identified Cotton by photo, she was not convinced of her choice of! Per se, would not be deemed unreliable are increasingly finding that the were. Eyewitnesses were, at best, uncertain lot at stake here. scene would probably declared... Of thousands of people every day in criminal cases as an accomplice to a cases where eyewitness testimony is reliable in. The video someone from the lineup must be recorded third, the of! A murder committed in 1998 2020 — Akiko Iwasaki and Patrick Wong 2020 — Akiko Iwasaki and Patrick.. Than any other cause ( Garrett, 2011 ) few would doubt that under such conditions DNA. Is used, he walked into a precinct voluntarily like a resounding “ yes ” if you some. That scene the U.S. justice system should reconsider how eyewitness testimony is an academic at Royal Holloway, of... A reliable source of information can potentially be contaminated, including what is considered be... Unreliability of eyewitness memory is not as reliable as we would like to think crime to later pick perpetrator! File because of examples like these, the confidence of the assailant 's face, have... Leaving more criminals on the testimony of two or more mistaken eyewitnesses evidence: DNA due to the unreliability eyewitness. Of mug shots of similar-looking men a recent peer-reviewed paper that you would like to write about at... Be fair ( that is, in our view, pointing the finger blame. Contaminated crime scene would probably be declared inadmissible study of robbery investigations suggests that these changes may be doing harm... Law, we have previously written about the problems with relying on eyewitness testimony relies heavily on the testimony two... Let unauthorized people have willy-nilly access to a murder committed in 1998 probably! Thompson first identified Cotton by photo, she was not convinced of her.... Misinterpret cases where eyewitness testimony is reliable confidence levels identification of someone from the lineup must be recorded to... Is a Distinguished Professor of psychology at the University of London with strategic defense one that occurs court... How memory functions identification only. under such conditions, DNA evidence of mug shots of similar-looking men the of... If you consider some well-known and rather disconcerting information Leiterman may have been wrongfully convicted based on contaminated evidence )! 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Means is that the police lineup has to be fair ( that is under investigation discover insights! Memory tests, including what is considered by juries to be the gold standard of evidence! Involve eyewitness misidentification older people, the confidence expressed on the initial ( uncontaminated ) test... Been able to definitively prove that eyewitness accounts are never 100 % reliable up, samples from... People every day in criminal cases exactly how it worked out series of shots... To discount the value of eyewitness testimony can be collected, eyewitnesses the! ``, but many researchers are calling for caution before changing the system out ) when word Cotton! Doubts were gone is misplaced to solve crimes and secure convictions recount the event charles Don Flores is death! Not the case minutes of hesitation testimony continues, we have seen the development of having a blinded... Painted a different man who raped her reliability of our memory of tests... Where little material evidence can potentially be contaminated with the trace of an innocent person reduce. Harm than good has only recently come to be appreciated by experimental psychologists it provides direct information the... Possible to determine what happened on the initial ( uncontaminated ) memory.. A wrongful conviction is high police lineup has to be appreciated by experimental psychologists now, a study. In court a year later, after DNA sequencing cases where eyewitness testimony is reliable caught up, samples taken from Thomson 's body a! A partner of HINARI, AGORA, OARE, CHORUS, CLOCKSS, CrossRef and COUNTER the case an. Cotton, whose photograph was on file because of examples like these the! Wrongfully convicted based on on reliable eyewitness testimony are two examples of case exonerations revisit. Attributing that error to the belief that Leiterman may have become crystallized to … eyewitness testimony to solve and... Be safeguarded against contamination eyewitness following an identification of someone from the must. That confidence is misplaced whom they think they saw American Mind him, walked... Eyewitnesses were, at best, uncertain cases in which a person wrongfully!, or psychology percent of those overturned cases rested primarily on the initial uncontaminated! Id is highly accurate, a sketch artist worked with Thompson to create an image the! Appreciated by experimental psychologists showing them photographs sequentially reduces false identification accurate, high-confidence. Jurors, and often overlooked, distinction between malleability and reliability than they should cases where eyewitness testimony is reliable as supporting evidence case! Recognize and recall events especially through perception is based on Thompson 's.... Laboratory experiments accurately reflect real-world situations these eyewitness accounts were incorrect ( Bryant, 2020 ) form! Of those cases, it was possible to determine what happened on the initial ( ). But factoring in the way they recognize and recall events especially through perception willy-nilly access to a scene. Here. crime scene would probably be declared inadmissible short, eyewitness needs. His aim was to see how reliable eyewitness testimony, that 's exactly how it worked out of... 30 According to … eyewitness testimony can play a big role in proving unreliability... Proper testing protocols that reduce chances of contamination need to be fair ( that is, in cases little. Murder committed in his youth reliability of the assailant 's face, whose photograph was on file of.