JUROR BIAS

Juror Bias

[Name of Student]

Juror Bias

Introduction

Juror more likely perceives eyewitness to be accurate. It is the controversial discussion whether juror should be influenced by the eyewitness or not. Just because eyewitness present at the time of event therefore, it must know each and every aspect. There are various cases in the court where people are convicted just because of the statement of eyewitness. The juror does not emphasize on other relevant sources (Loftus, Palmer, 2004). There are hundreds of examples that demonstrate that eyewitnesses are not always accurate and reliable. There are strengths and weaknesses of eye witnesses. Many psychologists considered that the memories of eyewitnesses are autobiographical. It concerned with some life events experience by people who remember them. Because information represents, in it about some events it is context bound. It usually organizes either chronically or spatially. The sources are perceptions of individual experience and their life event. It focused on subjective reality. Autobiographic memory has three key component 1) verbal narratives, 2) imagery, and 3) emotion. This memory type recalled as the story to others. Remembering process has three phase acquisitions (encoding), retention (storage) and retrieval. There could be enough changes in these contents at every phase. There are other influencing factors that can change the memory (Lofton, 2006).

Hypothesis

Jurors hearing an implied eyewitness testimony is more likely to believe the suspect is guilty than those hearing a discredited eyewitness testimony.

Discussion

To accurately recall the event I should initially accurately perceived so that the information encoded in the memory should be appropriate. By far the greatest number of errors involves misidentification by one or more eyewitnesses, who may either have no doubt whatsoever about the accuracy of their testimony or may have some slight or lingering question in their own minds but nevertheless feel sufficiently confident that they are willing to testify against a defendant. In a memorandum on admissibility of expert testimony regarding eyewitness identification (State of Delaware v. Bernard T. Pagano, Delaware Superior ct., Wilmington, 2009), Robert Buckhout stated: "There has been a growing awareness of the unreliability of eyewitness identification, which has created a troublesome situation since juries appear to give greater weight to testimony regarding identification of a criminal defendant by an eyewitness than to almost any other kind of evidence."

Despite the steps taken by courts and the growing awareness of the unreliability of eyewitness identification, such serious errors continue to surface. According to data generated by the present study, this source of error may account for 52 percent of wrongful convictions. Mistaken identification ranges from very close resemblances to almost a complete lack of similarity between the falsely accused and the actual perpetrator (Eugenio et al, 2002).

In general, free recall given by an eyewitness, immediately or shortly after the witnessed event has taken place, is highly accurate. Clifford and Scott examined the accuracy of free recall versus answers to closed-ended (i.e., yes/no) probe questions after participants had watched a videotape of either a violent event or a non-violent event. They found that statements made during ...