A new paper by Carleton’s Joanna Pozzulo, professor of psychology, says eyewitness errors don’t necessarily influence jury verdicts but can influence jurors’ perceptions of the eyewitness.
“Our aim was to examine how the age of the eyewitness and the number of descriptive errors made when recalling the perpetrator’s appearance influenced jurors’ verdict and perceptions of the eyewitness,” said Pozzulo.
The study, due to be published online in the Journal of Legal and Criminological Psychology on Nov. 7, also found that the age of the eyewitness didn’t influence the strength of a guilty rating. The results suggest that when reaching a verdict, jurors recognize descriptor errors as flawed evidence, regardless of the age of the eyewitness.
More than 222 participants were given mock court transcripts of a murder case. Nine versions of the transcript were created with variables: the age of the witness (four, 12 or 20 years old) and the number of recall errors (none, three and six).
Each participant was asked to give a straight guilty or not guilty verdict and also rate his or her verdict on a scale (one being lowest guilt and 100 being highest). Participants also rated the credibility, reliability and accuracy of the witness testimony on a scale of one to 10.
Jurors perceived eyewitnesses who made fewer errors in descriptions having more integrity and perceived the evidence presented by them as more reliable. Overall, adult eyewitnesses were perceived to have more integrity than child eyewitnesses.
However, the presence of descriptor errors was not found to influence verdict decisions. In addition, while confidence in guilty verdicts decreased as the number of errors increased, this was not statistically significant.
“This may suggest that the mere presence of an eyewitness suggesting a guilty perpetrator is a strong persuader, regardless of the other details in the evidence, explained Pozzulo.
“It’s important to understand how jurors perceive eyewitness testimony that may be inconsistent with other details in the case as it can be fundamental in deciding whether to find a defendant guilty or not guilty. Intriguingly, although jurors may be aware of inconsistencies or errors with witness testimony, those errors may not be sufficient to influence verdict. A greater range of inconsistencies and errors should be examined in future research.”
To view the article please visit after Nov. 6, 2012: http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/lcrp.12001/abstract
About Legal and Criminological Psychology
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