Judges and jurists have great faith in the accuracy of eyewitness testimony. Psychologists, however, would have us believe eyewitnesses have little to offer the Criminal Justice System. Discuss.

INTRODUCTION It has been found that when an eyewitness testimony is provided as evidence in a criminal court case, it is more likely to result in a conviction (Visher, 1987), in fact, 77,000 people per year are charged with crimes solely based on eyewitness evidence (Goldstein, Chance & Schneller, 1989). A study conducted by Loftus (1974) found an alarming 54% swing from a non-guilty verdict, to that of guilty within the same case simply through the introduction of an …

…that can impede accuracy in the courtroom and appropriate measures are taken to reduce these, it will help insure that they hear the most reliable eyewitness testimony possible. It must be noted however, that even if the jury hear a completely honest and reliable testimony, they too are only human and therefore subject to the same memory deficiencies, and as Cohen (1990) points out, trials are often full of stories about arguments over misremembered witness evidence!