The justice system is set up to err on the side of allowing guilty people to go free in order to avoid false convictions. However, it’s very clear that these false convictions still happen. For instance, DNA evidence has exonerated hundreds of people who were previously convicted.
The major reason for these false convictions is that eyewitnesses make mistakes and provide inaccurate accounts of what took place. Some experts say that this is true in the “overwhelming majority” of known false convictions. There are also likely other people still behind bars who simply haven’t been exonerated due to a lack of DNA evidence, even though they have fallen victim to the same issue.
Why does this happen?
Eyewitness mistakes happen for many different reasons. Don’t assume that eyewitnesses are being malicious or lying on purpose. That may not be the case.
For one thing, many eyewitnesses are trying to relate something that happened suddenly and unexpectedly. They never expected to witness a crime, so they may just get the details wrong. They could pick the wrong person out of a lineup because the person who actually committed the crime and the suspect look similar, but the eyewitness simply didn’t get a good enough look to know that they are distinctly different individuals.
Another issue is that the human brain does not record memories like a video camera. It’s not perfect. These memories can change over time. Many eyewitnesses probably believe that they are telling the truth when they’re actually “remembering” inaccurate details. This can taint their testimony, but they don’t even know it’s happening because they believe that their memory is accurate.
Criminal defense options
This is part of the reason why it’s so important for defendants to understand what legal options they have. They need to know their rights and what legal steps they can take to pursue justice.
