Trayvon Martin

[Texsox]

There's a reason why the "one or two eyewitness" cases are the ones that give the worst rates of having major convictions overturned.

 

 

There is no chance that a finding of innocent would be appealed or overturned (double jeopardy and all that) so we would have no objective evidence of how often one or two eyewitness cases result in the accused being found not guilty.

[Balta1701]

There is no chance that a finding of innocent would be appealed or overturned (double jeopardy and all that) so we would have no objective evidence of how often one or two eyewitness cases result in the accused being found not guilty.

However, you do have the ability to compare with cases that are based in part on physical evidence.

[Jenksismyhero]

I made this distinction in one of the first posts. Identifying someone whom you know is a different case than identifying someone you have only ever seen briefly.

 

 

 

Better police procedures when gathering evidence and questioning witnesses was one of the major recommendations from the DoJ report. It summarizes some of the issues and offers guidelines for establishing procedures.

I am not pretending to know the answer myself; my issue is with jenks' insistence on eyewitness testimony being the best possible evidence period and that 'it's not a big deal' when legal and psychological academia clearly and resoundingly disagree. My personal opinion is that widespread awareness of the unreliable nature of human memory would be greatly beneficial in reducing the undue weight juries tend to place on eyewitness testimony. A problem being difficult to solve doesn't mean it "isn't a big deal" and we should ignore it or pretend that it isn't really a problem after all because juries have "common sense."

 

In one sense, jenks is correct in that juries do treat eyewitness testimony as the best possible evidence. In that regard, from the litigator's POV, it is the "best possible" evidence they can present. But from a neutral point of view, it is far from the best possible evidence in determining what actually happened. That disconnect between how juries view EWT and the unreliable nature of EWT is the source of the problem.

 

IT IS. Having someone watch someone commit a crime and testify about it is 100% the best possible piece of evidence you can have. Name me something better! Yes, sometimes it's unreliable. NO ONE IS DENYING THIS. PEOPLE MAKE MISTAKES. But that's SOMETIMES. You're equating ALL eye witness testimony with the type where people are 100 yards away in the dark and they don't REALLY get a good look at the person. That's not the case in 99% of cases. And again, reliance on JUST that type of bad eye witness testimony is incredibly rare since other physical evidence comes into play.

 

Studies have established that not all eye testimony is good, that jurors often rely too heavily on eye witness testimony in rendering their verdict. Fine. I haven't disagreed with you there. But absent a ban on eye witness testimony all together there isn't much you can do about. Even giving a jury an instruction like "hey just so you know, X study found that X percent of witnesses are full of crap" is INCREDIBLY prejudicial. You've just planted a seed of doubt in a jurors mind to question every piece of evidence absolutely, to expect CSI-level, fool-proof evidence. That's not reality. Jurors are supposed to come in as normal people with normal thoughts and behavior. There's questioning the credibility of evidence and then there's ignoring plain facts because you heard about this one case where someone is misidentified. That's NOT how the judicial system should work.

 

[StrangeSox]

IT IS. Having someone watch someone commit a crime and testify about it is 100% the best possible piece of evidence you can have. Name me something better!

 

How about any number of cases where people have been convicted based on eyewitness testimony but later exonerated based on DNA evidence? Like Ronald Cotton?

[StrangeSox]

Studies have established that not all eye testimony is good, that jurors often rely too heavily on eye witness testimony in rendering their verdict. Fine. I haven't disagreed with you there.

 

Yes, you have. You said that the "common sense" of jurors negates this and that you can impugn the credibility of a certain eyewitness. You cannot say that and simultaneously agree that jurors often rely too heavily on eyewitness testimony and are often unaware of the biases and deficiencies of human memory, even of highly credible witnesses.

 

[StrangeSox]

You're equating ALL eye witness testimony with the type where people are 100 yards away in the dark and they don't REALLY get a good look at the person. That's not the case in 99% of cases. And again, reliance on JUST that type of bad eye witness testimony is incredibly rare since other physical evidence comes into play.

 

No, I haven't equated ALL ewt. I've specifically excluded some such as identifying someone you know. What is the source for your "99%" statistic? Does it come from the peer-reviewed literature on eyewitness testimony?

[Jenksismyhero]

How about any number of cases where people have been convicted based on eyewitness testimony but later exonerated based on DNA evidence? Like Ronald Cotton?

 

Lol, it's not "any number." It's a "small number." GMAFB. Again, police f*** up evidence. We should instruct jurors that evidence recovered by police is unreliable because of "any number of cases" that have been overturned due to police f*** ups.

Edited May 24, 2012 by Jenksismybitch

[Jenksismyhero]

Yes, you have. You said that the "common sense" of jurors negates this and that you can impugn the credibility of a certain eyewitness. You cannot say that and simultaneously agree that jurors often rely too heavily on eyewitness testimony and are often unaware of the biases and deficiencies of human memory, even of highly credible witnesses.

 

I'm saying it's common sense that sometimes eye witness testimony is questionable. You don't think an average juror knows this?

[Jenksismyhero]

No, I haven't equated ALL ewt. I've specifically excluded some such as identifying someone you know. What is the source for your "99%" statistic? Does it come from the peer-reviewed literature on eyewitness testimony?

 

Yeah, because that's a study someone can accurately do.

 

I'm done wasting my time with you on this.

[StrangeSox]

I'm saying it's common sense that sometimes eye witness testimony is questionable. You don't think an average juror knows this?

 

I do not think an average juror is aware of what the research has said about the reliability of eyewitness testimony in general, no. Again, impugning the credibility of specific witnesses misses the point that it's a larger psychological issue with the nature of eyewitnesses and human memory itself. Highly credible, highly confident witnesses can be dead wrong and decades of research has shown that most juries would not understand this possibility.

[StrangeSox]

Yeah, because that's a study someone can accurately do.

 

I'm done wasting my time with you on this.

 

I've provided several studies and links already. Have you read them or any other on this topic, or is this all conjecture?

[StrangeSox]

Lol, it's not "any number." It's a "small number." GMAFB. Again, police f*** up evidence. We should instruct jurors that evidence recovered by police is unreliable because of "any number of cases" that have been overturned due to police f*** ups.

 

 

You're still not getting that it's a human cognitive issue, not a procedural issue.

[StrangeSox]

This is one of the most-cited books on this topic written by a leading expert in human memory:

 

http://books.google.com/books?hl=en&lr...ony&f=false

[Texsox]

However, you do have the ability to compare with cases that are based in part on physical evidence.

 

Certainly, I'm just saying appeals are not a valid tool to measure if something helps or hurts one side or the other. If something helps the defense 90 times out of a hundred, there could be 10 appeals that shows it helped the prosecution, but no appeals would be filed that showed it helped the defense.

[Balta1701]

Just a weird addition to this story... Read down to the end before reacting, here's a split.

A year before George Zimmerman killed a Miami Gardens teenager, he stood before a City Hall community forum with a grievance: Sanford cops are lazy, he told the then-mayor elect.

 

The community college criminal justice major said he knew because he went on ride-alongs with the Sanford police.

 

"And what I saw was disgusting," Zimmerman said, according to a clip of a recording of the January 2011 meeting obtained by The Miami Herald. "The officer showed me his favorite hiding spots for taking naps, explained to me that he doesn't carry a long gun in his vehicle because, in his words, 'anything that requires a long gun requires a lot of paperwork, and you're going to find me as far away from it.'

 

"He took two lunch breaks and attended a going away party for one of his fellow officers."

 

Zimmerman's public lambasting of the police department and its outgoing chief is rich with irony: A year later, the new police chief took a national beating over how the department handled Zimmerman's shooting of high school junior Trayvon Martin. The department was accused of sloppy police work and favoritism - in Zimmerman's favor.

 

The recording raises new questions about whether the neighborhood watch volunteer received preferential treatment that night because he was familiar to officers in the department - or whether the officer he skewered publicly was among the ones who took him into custody. It suggests Zimmerman was telling the truth when he said he rallied against the police department in a controversial case involving the beating of a homeless black man, and throws doubt on the Sanford Police Department's long-standing position that nobody at the department knew Zimmerman before the Feb. 26 killing.

[Texsox]

I guess I was confused, I thought it had been established that he was well known to the police force and a pain in the ass to them.

[Balta1701]

I guess I was confused, I thought it had been established that he was well known to the police force and a pain in the ass to them.

And yet they're letting him ride along with them and indulging his wannabe fantasy?

[Texsox]

I thought the ride alongs were over. I am thinking of the quotes about him always calling over every little thing he saw. I guess my impressions are off from the facts. Damn liberal media.

[mr_genius]

well, i think it's pretty clear now. I have reviewed the facts and Zim is obviously innocent.

[Balta1701]

well, i think it's pretty clear now. I have reviewed the facts and Zim is obviously innocent.

Must you really do this?

[EvilMonkey]

And yet they're letting him ride along with them and indulging his wannabe fantasy?

It said he did the ridalongs a year ago. He then saw how badthey were and became a pain in the butt to them. Just curious, why no mention of the fight club video Travon was in?

 

[Balta1701]

It said he did the ridalongs a year ago. He then saw how badthey were and became a pain in the butt to them. Just curious, why no mention of the fight club video Travon was in?

Because I didn't see the article and you didn't provide a link?

 

Edit: And because googling "Martin fight" and "Martin Video" provides me nothing so I don't know where to look?

[southsider2k5]

Because I didn't see the article and you didn't provide a link?

 

Edit: And because googling "Martin fight" and "Martin Video" provides me nothing so I don't know where to look?

 

Googling "Trayvon Martin fight video" gives you assloads of hits.

[Balta1701]

Googling "Trayvon Martin fight video" gives you assloads of hits.

The only thing I found was articles on a youtube video that was pulled and a familial denial of it having being him, with no confirmation that it was and no obvious major media sources?

 

Most of the links that search provides relate to him fighting zimmerman.

[mr_genius]

Googling "Trayvon Martin fight video" gives you assloads of hits.

 

Doesn't surprise me. Drug dealing at school, breaking into houses, involved in illegal underground street fighting, attacking Zim and bashing his head in the cement; all pieces of the puzzle.