Twenty eyewitnesses testified before the grand jury investigating the police shooting of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri. None of these accounts is fully consistent with any other. Moreover, eyewitnesses even gave accounts that do not agree with their own earlier versions. To the public and the media, these discrepancies have been startling. read more Vagaries…
Twenty eyewitnesses testified before the grand jury investigating the police shooting of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri. None of these accounts is fully consistent with any other. Moreover, eyewitnesses even gave accounts that do not agree with their own earlier versions. To the public and the media, these discrepancies have been startling.
read more Vagaries of memory mean eyewitness testimony isn’t perfect.
When I was still teaching my son (I think for 8th grade), he did a project to test eye witness testimony. He arranged to have his aunt deliver a gift basket to his band director in the middle of a practice. (An extremely unusual event.) Then, after she left, he handed out questionnaires to all of the people who were in the room when it had happened.
Most witnesses could remember some of the basket contents, but almost none could describe the deliverer. About 1/4 were able to pick her picture out of a photo line-up of women who looked similar to her.
It was eye-opening.
Leave a Reply