Eyewitness Testimony Part 2 — Transcript

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1. 0:00now that DNA has exonerated more than
2. 0:03230 men mostly in sex crimes and murder
3. 0:06cases criminologists have been able to
4. 0:09go back and study what went wrong in
5. 0:11those
6. 0:12investigations what they've honed in on
7. 0:15is faulty eyewitness testimony over 75%
8. 0:19of these innocent men were convicted in
9. 0:21part because an eyewitness fingered the
10. 0:23wrong person at the heart of the problem
11. 0:26is the fragility of memory as one
12. 0:29researcher told us we now know that
13. 0:31memory is not like a videotape recorder
14. 0:34you don't just record an event and play
15. 0:37it back instead memory is malleable full
16. 0:40of holes easily contaminated and
17. 0:43susceptible to suggestion as in the case
18. 0:46of Jennifer Thompson and Ronald
19. 0:48cotton before this case did you think
20. 0:52that there were a lot of innocent people
21. 0:54put away no you didn't no I didn't
22. 0:57innocent people aren't convicted of
23. 0:59crime
24. 1:00s they didn't commit I believed that
25. 1:04what do you think now oh I know better I
26. 1:06mean well over 200 cases nationally
27. 1:08we've had a half dozen in this state
28. 1:11alone the first of course was my case
29. 1:15Hallelujah and as these innocent men
30. 1:17have been freed in one state after the
31. 1:19next we've learned something else that
32. 1:22in all the cases where eyewitnesses were
33. 1:24wrong the real perpetrator was not in
34. 1:27the initial lineup when you're sitting
35. 1:30in front of a photo lineup you just
36. 1:32assume one of these guys is the suspect
37. 1:36it's my job to find it and Jennifer did
38. 1:39her job she found the suspect's photo
39. 1:42problem is the suspect Ronald cotton was
40. 1:46not the rapist Bobby P's photograph was
41. 1:48not in the photo lineup right he was not
42. 1:51in the physical lineup when the real
43. 1:52perpetrator is not in the set is is none
44. 1:55of them uh Witnesses have a very
45. 1:58difficult time being able to recognize
46. 2:00Gary Wells a professor of psychology at
47. 2:03Iowa State University has been studying
48. 2:05eyewitness memory for 30 years he says
49. 2:09when the real guy isn't there Witnesses
50. 2:11tend to pick the person who looks most
51. 2:13like him I think that Ronald cotton and
52. 2:17Bobby P look very much alike they have
53. 2:20very similar lips shape of their eyes
54. 2:22their eyebrows kind of go up in a look
55. 2:25of surprise yes without him in the
56. 2:27lineup Ronald cotton was the one who was
57. 2:30in Jeopardy well says eyewitness
58. 2:33testimony has two Key Properties one
59. 2:36it's often unreliable and two it is
60. 2:39highly persuasive to jurors I can see
61. 2:42why it's so persuasive someone says I
62. 2:44was there you'd believe that person you
63. 2:47believe that person because they have no
64. 2:48reason to lie yeah the legal system is
65. 2:50set up to kind of sort between liars and
66. 2:52Truth tellers and and it's actually
67. 2:54pretty good at that but when someone is
68. 2:56genuinely mistaken the legal system
69. 2:58doesn't really know uh how to deal with
70. 3:00that and we're talking about a genuine
71. 3:02error here he walked us through what
72. 3:04went wrong some of it
73. 3:07counterintuitive when Jennifer spent 5
74. 3:09minutes studying the photographs she and
75. 3:12detective gden thought she was being
76. 3:14careful I didn't want to come across I
77. 3:16don't think as somebody who's like
78. 3:18that's the one I really wanted to be
79. 3:20sure well says no good recognition
80. 3:23memory is actually quite rapid so we
81. 3:26find in our studies for example that if
82. 3:29somebody's taking longer than 10 15
83. 3:31seconds it's quite likely that they're
84. 3:33doing something other than just using uh
85. 3:35reliable recognition memory so you're
86. 3:37saying if she really recognized a guy it
87. 3:40would have been almost instantaneous
88. 3:42quite quick yes he says a better way
89. 3:45would have been to show Jennifer lineup
90. 3:46photos or people one at a time so that
91. 3:50she would compare each one directly to
92. 3:52her memory rather than to one another
93. 3:55Well showed me a study in which more
94. 3:57than 300 subjects were shown
95. 3:59deliberately shaky videotape of a
96. 4:01simulated crime you look out a window
97. 4:04and you see some suspicious Behavior
98. 4:06what happens is we tell them later then
99. 4:09this person that you saw right there put
100. 4:12a bomb down that uh down the air shaft
101. 4:14there then subjects are shown a lineup
102. 4:17and asked to identify the bomber that
103. 4:20would be so
104. 4:22hard I just saw it and of course you're
105. 4:25particularly cautious right now you know
106. 4:28now after we've talked probably not to
107. 4:30pick anyone no no actually I know I
108. 4:34actually know who it is because if I had
109. 4:37come upon that I think it's this guy Am
110. 4:39I Wrong mhm am I wrong yeah I'm wrong
111. 4:42yeah okay so there you go and I'm
112. 4:44already saying how hard it
113. 4:47is it's none of them it's none of and
114. 4:50it's so it it's so and you know about it
115. 4:53bizarre you know about this we've talked
116. 4:55about this so so this is the diffic this
117. 4:58is what makes it so diff to me I'm
118. 5:01mortified I feel like Jennifer well says
119. 5:04in real life the mistake is often
120. 5:06compounded by what happens next remember
121. 5:09the seemingly innocent information
122. 5:11Jennifer says she got from police after
123. 5:13she picked Ronald cotton out of the
124. 5:15physical lineup that's the same person
125. 5:18you picked out in the photo lineup so in
126. 5:20my mind I thought bingo I did it right
127. 5:25well studied what that reinforcement
128. 5:28does after half a subjects did what I
129. 5:30did picked an innocent person from this
130. 5:33lineup he told them nothing then asked
131. 5:36them questions about what they had seen
132. 5:39very few felt highly confident about
133. 5:42their choice only about 4% are saying
134. 5:45they had a great view which is good
135. 5:46because we gave them a lousy view only
136. 5:48about 3% are saying they make out
137. 5:50details of the face that also is good
138. 5:52because they they really couldn't but he
139. 5:54told a second group of subjects after
140. 5:57they made the same incorrect choices
141. 5:59good you pick the suspect now what
142. 6:02happens is 40 almost 45% of witnesses
143. 6:07now report that they were positive or
144. 6:09nearly positive notice that over 1/4th
145. 6:11of them now say they had a great View
146. 6:14and this is really what happened to
147. 6:15Jennifer it is what happened with
148. 6:17Jennifer what this seems to be saying is
149. 6:20that a
150. 6:21reinforcement Alters memory it does
151. 6:25dramatically it does he says the
152. 6:27solution is to have someone independent
153. 6:29administer the lineup someone who
154. 6:31doesn't even know who the suspect is and
155. 6:34certainly not the detective on the case
156. 6:37you shouldn't have been there I
157. 6:38shouldn't have been there but nobody did
158. 6:40anything wrong I mean that was that was
159. 6:41a common practice then it was it was the
160. 6:44tradition it was how it was done
161. 6:46then law enforcement wasn't schooled in
162. 6:51memory we weren't schooled in protecting
163. 6:54memory treating it like a crime scene
164. 6:57were you very care careful methodical
165. 7:00about what you do and how you use it and
166. 7:03we weren't we weren't taught that in
167. 7:04those days but none of these errors
168. 7:06explains perhaps the most puzzling part
169. 7:09of this story how it is that Jennifer
170. 7:12could see Bobby pool in the courtroom
171. 7:14and not realize her mistake you're
172. 7:17looking into the face of the man who
173. 7:20raped you whose face you had studied so
174. 7:22intently yes and there's no flicker
175. 7:25nothing between you and and Bobby pool
176. 7:27nothing nothing
177. 7:29and I've gone back there many times
178. 7:32trying to think was there was there ever
179. 7:34a moment did I ever look at him and
180. 7:36think and I didn't Elizabeth Loftus is a
181. 7:40professor of psychology and law at the
182. 7:42University of California Irvine and an
183. 7:45expert in memory she showed me an
184. 7:48experiment she says might help explain
185. 7:51Jennifer's mistake she asked me to study
186. 7:54these
187. 7:57faces then after a few minutes she gave
188. 8:00me a memory test which of these two
189. 8:03faces do you
190. 8:04recognize right okay you picked
191. 8:08right left you picked left okay I said
192. 8:13left but I wasn't 100% sure and then the
193. 8:16tricky part
194. 8:20oh well I'll tell you why I'm styed
195. 8:23because I just picked this one on the
196. 8:25left two seconds
197. 8:27ago but now I'm not sure cuz those two
198. 8:31look very much alike to me but I'm going
199. 8:34to tell you the left but I was wrong it
200. 8:36was the one on the right Loftus
201. 8:39explained how I had been duped you saw
202. 8:42this
203. 8:43face then I gave you a test where I
204. 8:46presented you with an altered face oh my
205. 8:49go along with a novel one so I pretty
206. 8:51much induce you to pick a wrong face
207. 8:54because I don't even have the real guy
208. 8:56there it's an altered version and later
209. 8:59on when you now have a choice between
210. 9:03the altered one and the real one you
211. 9:06stuck with your altered left choice this
212. 9:09is exactly what happened to Jennifer
213. 9:11this can help us understand why Jennifer
214. 9:14can be sitting in a courtroom and be
215. 9:17looking at Bobby P the original rapist
216. 9:19and looking at Ronald cotton and saying
217. 9:22saying no it's not pool it's cotton
218. 9:26because she has been picking him yeah
219. 9:28all long I begin to wonder whether there
220. 9:31should ever be eyewitness testimony and
221. 9:34trials well because of the tricks that
222. 9:36memory plays yeah I I think what's
223. 9:39important though is is to understand
224. 9:41that know that know it as a police
225. 9:43officer as an investigator uh as as
226. 9:46attorneys we need eyewitnesses I mean if
227. 9:48we couldn't convict based on um an
228. 9:51eyewitness that's giving a lot of
229. 9:54comfort to criminals we have no choice
230. 9:57we have to find ways to make this
231. 9:58evidence
232. 9:59uh
233. 10:00better and that's something Jennifer has
234. 10:03tried to do ever since by telling her
235. 10:06story to prosecutors police defense
236. 10:09attorneys and she's had some success her
237. 10:12State North Carolina was the first in
238. 10:14the country to mandate reforms by law
239. 10:18showing victims lineup photos one at a
240. 10:21time and emphasizing that the right
241. 10:23answer may be none of the above having
242. 10:26lineups conducted by a person who
243. 10:28doesn't know who who the suspect is or
244. 10:31Not by a person at all the person who
245. 10:34committed the crime may or may not be
246. 10:37included one system now used in a
247. 10:39handful of cities is computer software
248. 10:42Mike gden helped develop to have a
249. 10:45laptop conduct photo lineups does this
250. 10:48person look familiar to you but law
251. 10:51professor Rich Rosen says that in the
252. 10:52vast majority of places there's been no
253. 10:55reform and that needs to change this is
254. 10:58something that police officers can and
255. 11:00should be in favor of because you're
256. 11:03you're not getting the real guy off the
257. 11:04street yeah Bobby P raped other women
258. 11:08because they went after Ron cotton so
259. 11:10Ron is not the only person who suffered
260. 11:14from this mistake Ronald cotton now 47
261. 11:18years old has worked hard to rebuild his
262. 11:20life he works the late shift in a
263. 11:23factory he's been married for 12 years
264. 11:26and has a 10-year-old daughter they live
265. 11:28in a house paid for with money North
266. 11:31Carolina paid him in restitution $10,000
267. 11:34for each of the 11 years he spent in
268. 11:37prison when he can he joins Jennifer in
269. 11:40her campaign for reforms one of the most
270. 11:43amazing things to have come out of this
271. 11:45miscarriage of justice is the most
272. 11:47unlikely of friendships Jennifer and Ron
273. 11:51say they speak on the phone about once a
274. 11:53week they're families of friends they
275. 11:56say they have a shared bond that is hard
276. 11:58for most people to Fathom have people
277. 12:01ever met you for the first time when
278. 12:03you're together and said kind of
279. 12:05cheerily hey how did you two meet yeah
280. 12:08that on the airplane a lot oh yeah we're
281. 12:10traveling and I usually just you tell
282. 12:13them what do you say we look at each
283. 12:15other laugh you know and finally we go
284. 12:18ahead and and tell them and they have
285. 12:20recently co-authored a book in hopes
286. 12:23that their story can inform and Inspire
287. 12:26others today when you think about what
288. 12:29what happened to you that night when you
289. 12:30were 22 years old whose face is there
290. 12:34nobody's oh my that's that's that to me
291. 12:37is one of the most beautiful things is I
292. 12:39don't have a face Bobby pool's dead I
293. 12:43don't ever have to worry about him ever
294. 12:45hurt another woman he died in
295. 12:48prison and Ronald cotton is my
296. 12:52friend for more on how memories can be
297. 12:55contaminated go to 60minutes.com