Aneirin
Posts: 6121
Joined: 3/18/2006 From: Tamaris Status: offline
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quote:
ORIGINAL: kdsub quote:
ORIGINAL: Jeffff Eye wittiness testimony is notoriously unreliable. It's not good enough for me. Jeff if you and I were talking on some back alley in Chi town...and two guys run down the alley and one shoots the other... we both get a good long look at his face... you mean that if both of us separately pick him out of a line up our testimony could not be counted on?...Will if you do then there is not a crime that can be prosecuted. I do believe in some circumstances...say the murderer is caught in the act like the shooter in the mall…or the guy captured by citizens after shooting multiple people on the subway… that their testimony should be irrefutable. There are cases with that type of evidence where the death penalty could be administered with no doubt of guilt. Butch The trouble with eye witness testimony is the subject of interpretation, say take a group of people, show them an event under surprise , keep them apart and then interview them seperately, will any report match up with any others, I think it is unlikely as interpretation of events comes into play and each and every one of us picks up things which are more important to ourselves, for we are not video cameras. As to recognition of people, well with me forget that, even if someone was face to face with me, it is questionable as to whether I could pick them out in a line up unless there was something very obvious about the features. That situation occurred for me when I was confronted with an attacker who later got charged with attempted murder, he was face to face with me, and I could not pick him out in a line up of similar faces as the one thing I did remember about the face was obscurred in the line up video. With me, I have trouble with facial recognition out of context and if any other distinguishing feature like hair is changed. If I know my incapability in the areas of recognition, it stands that there are more like me. It is for this reason that I tend to distrust eye witness accounts.
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Everything we are is the result of what we have thought, the mind is everything, what we think, we become - Guatama Buddha Conservatism is distrust of people tempered by fear - William Gladstone
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