Mistaken Identification
The Eyewitness, Psychology and the Law

Examines traditional safeguards against mistaken eyewitness identification.

Brian L. Cutler (Author), Steven D. Penrod (Author)

9780521445726, Cambridge University Press

Paperback, published 25 August 1995

304 pages, 7 b/w illus. 27 tables
23.4 x 15.4 x 2.3 cm, 0.514 kg

"It is an impressive work, though not without its flaws. It represents the state of the art and will unquestionably become required reading for anyone interested in the work in this area....The book is, overall, an impressive and important work." Solomon M. Fulero, Contemporary Psychology

The criminal justice system has devised several procedural safeguards to protect defendants from erroneous conviction resulting from mistaken eyewitness identification. Mistaken Identification: The Eyewitness, Psychology and the Law reviews the empirical research bearing on the adequacy of those safeguards. This body of literature converges on the conclusion that traditional safeguards such as presence of counsel at line-ups, cross-examination, and judges' instructions, are ineffective safeguards against mistaken eyewitness identification. Expert psychological testimony on eyewitness memory, designed to educate the jury about how memory processes work and how eyewitness testimony should be evaluated, shows much greater promise as a safeguard against mistaken identifications and erroneous convictions. Mistaken Identification is an invaluable text for advanced psychology students, law students and researchers of memory.

1. Eyewitness identification errors
2. The admissibility of expert testimony on the psychology of eyewitness identification
3. Eyewitness experts in the courts of appeal
4. The scientific psychology of eyewitness identifications
5. Summarizing eyewitness research findings
6. Factors that influence eyewitness memory: witness factors
7. Factors that influence eyewitness memory: perpetrator and event factors
8. The effects of suggestive identification procedures on identification accuracy
9. Legal representation at identification procedures
10. Attorney sensitivity to factors influencing eyewitness reliability
11. Surveying lay knowledge about sources of eyewitness unreliability
12. The ability of jurors to differentiate accurate from inaccurate eyewitnesses
13. Jury sensitivity to factors that influence eyewitness reliability
14. Expert testimony and its possible impacts on the jury
15. Improving juror knowledge, integration and decision making
16. Court-appointed and opposing experts: better alternatives?
17. Instructing the jury about problems of mistaken identification.

Subject Areas: Criminal or forensic psychology [JMK]