Eyewitness Testimony - Essay Example

Eyewitness accounts are important especially where there is lack of any other type of evidence such as forensic. My opinion before reading the book by Michael Gazzaniga, that eyewitness accounts are not enough to convict someone without reasonable doubt has not changed. However, this does not mean that eyewitness testimonies should not be used when it comes to court proceedings as numerous crimes take place without a shred of physical or forensic evidence being left behind. Despite this being the case, it is crucial for tough regulations to be put in place in order to ensure that errors when passing judgment because of eyewitness accounts are minimised.

Thus, it is my strong opinion that removing eyewitness testimonies in criminal cases will result in more negative effects than positive ones. When it comes to terrible events in one’s life, faulty memory is convenient since there are things people would not wish to remember where Gazzaniga holds evolutionary advantage as the reason behind this (Gazzaniga 123). With the aim of responding effectively and quickly to the present, our minds only keep the important sections of our experiences. At the same time, broken memories can also result in severe consequences.

Normally, memory is corrupted by either errors of omission, addition of information to memory, which is false, and errors of commission (Gazzaniga 126). Seven sins of memory, is a list of various ways in which Daniel Schacter came up where by memory is corrupted. They include, blocking transience, persistence, misattribution, suggestibility, absentmindedness, and bias (Gazzaniga 126). These factors can lead to an innocent person being convicted due to errors in eyewitness accounts. For instance, a woman who was being raped happened to see someone on the television.

When giving an account of what took place, the woman was perfectly sure that the man she saw on the television was the person who raped her. This is referred to as misattribution since the man could not have committed the crime while he was having a television interview (Gazzaniga 125). According to Gazzaniga the memory problem that can be attributed to many errors in the judicial system of the United States of America is misattribution despite the lack of statistical evidence to support this fact.

Suggestibility is another error that should be given a lot of focus when it comes to eyewitness accounts in the courts. Gazzaniga stipulates that when information is mistakenly incorporated in the memory of a person through information from the media or another person thus distorting actual memory is referred to as suggestibility (Gazzaniga 133). This is clearly shown in the book in the case of Elizabeth where subject’s were convinced that at one time she was lost at the mall which had actually never happened yet a quarter of the subjects cited remembering the event (Gazzaniga 133).

Among the errors, suggestibility is of utmost concern since it becomes a major issue during criminal cases especially when witnesses interact with lawyers, investigators or police officers where memories can be implanted in the witnesses mind through suggestive dialogues and questions (Gazzaniga 133-144). It is crucial for professionals in the legal system to avoid directing questions that might result in