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Speaker 1: It's a warm summer evening in Virginia, where a nine

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Speaker 1: to one to one operator answers a call. There's a

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Speaker 1: woman on the other end of the line. She says

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Speaker 1: she's been attacked. Police arrive at the victim's home and

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Speaker 1: they take a statement. The victim, a white woman, says

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Speaker 1: that as she was walking to her apartment, she came

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Speaker 1: across a man laying on the ground. He was clutching

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Speaker 1: his leg. She thought he must have fallen off the

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Speaker 1: bike that was toppled over next to him, so she

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Speaker 1: bent down to help him, and that's when he grabbed her,

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Speaker 1: beat her, and raped her. The victim told the police

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Speaker 1: everything she could remember about her attacker. She said the

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Speaker 1: man was black with a light complexion. He had a mustache,

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Speaker 1: a beard, and some scratches on his face. Before the

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Speaker 1: attacker left the scene of the crime, he told the

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Speaker 1: victims some vague details about his life. He told her

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Speaker 1: that he had quote had other white women. The police

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Speaker 1: escort the victims to the hospital, where a rape kit

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Speaker 1: is taken and sent off to a crime lab. You're

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Speaker 1: eighteen years old, just graduated from high school. Since you

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Speaker 1: were thirteen, you knew that you wanted to be a firefighter,

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Speaker 1: and now you're doing it. You're attending the fire academy

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Speaker 1: this summer. You're also working at a theme park, collecting

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Speaker 1: tickets running the rides. It's not the most glamorous job,

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Speaker 1: but hey pays the rent. A few months ago, you

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Speaker 1: moved out of your parents' house and into an apartment

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Speaker 1: with your girlfriend. Everyone says you're too young, but you

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Speaker 1: don't care what they think. You're planning your future together.

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Speaker 1: One evening, you finish up your shift at the theme

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Speaker 1: park and head to the office to clock out. You

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Speaker 1: see a cop there chatting with your boss. You don't

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Speaker 1: think much of it. There's always some security or police

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Speaker 1: at the park. But then you see your boss sort

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Speaker 1: of flick his head in your direction, and when you

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Speaker 1: try to leave the office, the cops stops you. He says, hey,

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Speaker 1: let me talk to you for a minute. Have you

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Speaker 1: heard about the rape that took place a few days ago,

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Speaker 1: not too far from here. It's like he knew that

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Speaker 1: this crime had been on your mind. You've been making

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Speaker 1: your girlfriend lock the door behind you every time you

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Speaker 1: leave the house. You say, yes, sir, I did hear

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Speaker 1: about it? Do you know who did it? The officer

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Speaker 1: says he has some questions and asks you if you'll

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Speaker 1: come to the police station with him. When you get there,

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Speaker 1: the officer takes you into a small room with a

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Speaker 1: table and a few chairs. He says, wait here, you'll

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Speaker 1: stand in as part of a police lineup, and I'll

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Speaker 1: come back and get you in a few minutes. It

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Speaker 1: dawns on you you're not just here to answer questions.

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Speaker 1: You're a suspect in this crime. You call out to

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Speaker 1: the officer, Wait, what am I doing here? He says,

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Speaker 1: the rapists said that he had been with other white women.

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Speaker 1: Don't you live with your white girlfriend? He closes and

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Speaker 1: locks the door behind him. You lean over in your

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Speaker 1: seat and cover your face with your hands. Who would

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Speaker 1: have known information about your personal life and try to

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Speaker 1: use it against you? Was it one of those cops

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Speaker 1: that used to stop by the fire station when you

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Speaker 1: were at the training academy. Maybe they saw your girlfriend

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Speaker 1: dropping off dinner at the fire station one night. You

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Speaker 1: stop and take a deep breath, reminding yourself that being

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Speaker 1: a black man living with your white girlfriend isn't a crime.

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Speaker 1: At least it's not supposed to be not anymore. And

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Speaker 1: yet none of this seems to matter someone. Some cop

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Speaker 1: already had their eye on you for this very reason,

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Speaker 1: But you didn't do anything wrong, and you're hopeful that

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Speaker 1: the victim's memory of her attacker will set things straight.

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Speaker 1: What you don't know is that just down the hall

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Speaker 1: from where you're sitting, the woman who called nine to

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Speaker 1: one one a few days ago is sitting in front

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Speaker 1: of six pictures. An officer tells her to pick out

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Speaker 1: the face of the man who attacked her. All of

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Speaker 1: the photos set out in front of her are black

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Speaker 1: and white mugshots except for one, yours. You've never been

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Speaker 1: in trouble with the law, and so you don't have

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Speaker 1: a mugshot. Instead, the cop that showed up at your

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Speaker 1: job took a picture of your ID card from the

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Speaker 1: theme park and slipped it into the photo lineup. Yours

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Speaker 1: is not just the only one that's not a mugshot,

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Speaker 1: it's also the only one that's p in color, so

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Speaker 1: it immediately grabs the woman's attention. She chooses your photo

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Speaker 1: and says, I think that's him. The officer comes back

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Speaker 1: in to get you. He brings you into a room

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Speaker 1: with a window in it and asks you to stand

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Speaker 1: in a line with some men. These other men are

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Speaker 1: known as fillers. None of these fillers are potential suspects.

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Speaker 1: The point of them is to see if the victim

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Speaker 1: can identify your face amongst others who are supposed to

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Speaker 1: resemble the suspect. None of these other people's faces were

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Speaker 1: in any of the photos the victim saw except for yours,

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Speaker 1: your color photo ID. That's the only photo that matches

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Speaker 1: the face of anyone in this lineup. There's an officer

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Speaker 1: at the front of the room and he starts barking

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Speaker 1: out orders to you and the fillers. Stand there and

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Speaker 1: look straight ahead. Now turn to your right, Now turn

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Speaker 1: to your left. You follow the directions that are being

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Speaker 1: shouted out. You can't see her because she's on the

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Speaker 1: other side of a one way mirror, but the victim

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Speaker 1: points you out. She says it's him. I'm sure of it,

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Speaker 1: And that's all the information the cops need to hear,

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Speaker 1: and you are arrested on the spot. You sit in

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Speaker 1: jail wondering what in the world you're supposed to make

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Speaker 1: of how this woman mistook you for someone else. You

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Speaker 1: look nothing like the witness's original description of her attacker.

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Speaker 1: She'd reported that he had light skin, a mustache, a beard,

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Speaker 1: and scratches on his face. You have dark skin, You're

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Speaker 1: almost always clean shaven. There are no scratches or marks

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Speaker 1: on your eighteen year old face. How could that picture

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Speaker 1: in her head, the memory of her attacker, change so

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Speaker 1: much in such a short amount of time. What is

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Speaker 1: it about that lineup that made her choose you? You

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Speaker 1: eventually stand trial in front of an all white jury

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Speaker 1: of eight women and four men. You were taught your

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Speaker 1: entire life to trust law enforcement, to believe in this

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Speaker 1: system of justice. The police, officers, judges, lawyers, jurors. They

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Speaker 1: were all there to figure out the truth, to do

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Speaker 1: the right thing. But that image comes shattering down when

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Speaker 1: the jury comes back and finds you guilty of rape, abduction, robbery,

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Speaker 1: and for sodomy. The judge sentences you to two hundred

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Speaker 1: and ten years in prison. After the sentence is read,

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Speaker 1: you slowly look behind you. You try to find your mom,

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Speaker 1: your family. You know they're sitting just behind you, but

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Speaker 1: you can't see a foot ahead of you. Everything goes black.

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Speaker 1: The story you just heard is based on the true

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Speaker 1: events of Marvin Anderson's wrongful conviction six years after he

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Speaker 1: was sentenced to life in prison, another man confessed to

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Speaker 1: attacking the woman who had misidentified Marvin. The man that

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Speaker 1: confessed presented new details to a judge that seemed to

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Speaker 1: prove his guilt in Marvin's innocence. Still, the judge did

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Speaker 1: not vacate marvin sentence. Marvin wrote a letter to the

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Speaker 1: Innocence Project and they took up his case. After years

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Speaker 1: of work, lawyers of the Innocence Project were finally able

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Speaker 1: to convinced the judge to compare Marvin's DNA with the

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Speaker 1: DNA from seamen recovered from the victim. When the rape

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Speaker 1: kit was performed, Marvin was not a match, but another

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Speaker 1: man was a match, the man who had confessed to

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Speaker 1: the crime. After fifteen long years in prison, Marvin walked

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Speaker 1: free and became the ninety ninth person to be exonerated

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Speaker 1: based on DNA evidence. He's since become chief of the Hanover,

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Speaker 1: Virginia Fire Department and serves on the board of the

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Speaker 1: Innocence Project. I'm Josh Dubin civil rights and criminal defense attorney,

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Speaker 1: an innocent ambassador to the Innocence Project in New York. Today,

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Speaker 1: on Wrongful Conviction junk Science, we examine eyewitness testimony when

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Speaker 1: a witness points to a suspect and says that's the

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Speaker 1: person who committed this crime. There is nothing more convincing

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Speaker 1: to a jury, but it is dangerous inaccurate. Over two

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Speaker 1: thirds of people who were later exonerated based on DNA

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Speaker 1: evidence were convicted based on eyewitness testimony. It may sound

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Speaker 1: like a simple premise, but in order for eyewitness testimony

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Speaker 1: to work and be reliable, we need to rely on

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Speaker 1: our own memories and those of others. But it turns out,

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Speaker 1: just as physical evidence can be manipulated, contaminated, or even planted,

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Speaker 1: so too can memories. In the early eighteen eighties, Professor

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Speaker 1: Wilhelm Want, the father of modern psychology, was giving a

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Speaker 1: lecture at the University of Leipzig in Germany. One of

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Speaker 1: his students attending the lecture was Hugo Munsterberg and Hugo

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Speaker 1: when he heard this lecture, he was hooked. He was

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Speaker 1: so fascinated by psychology and he began to study under

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Speaker 1: the father of psychology himself. After completing his studies, Hugo

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Speaker 1: started working at Harvard University, where he led the Experimental

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Speaker 1: Psychology Lab. Hugo was especially interested in the concrete everyday

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Speaker 1: applications of psychology. He wanted to study if and how

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Speaker 1: psychology impacted juries and trial outcomes, and so he began

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Speaker 1: to run experiments on the memory of eyewitnesses. In one

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Speaker 1: of his famous experiments, Hugo tested the memories of both

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Speaker 1: adults and children. He showed them a photo. In it,

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Speaker 1: there was a farmer sitting at a table eating some soup.

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Speaker 1: Hugo had his test subjects looked closely at the photo,

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Speaker 1: then he took the photo away. Hugo then asked him

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Speaker 1: opened endo questions about it, like what did you see

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Speaker 1: in the photo. To these questions, the witnesses responded there

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Speaker 1: was a man in the photo eating his soup. Their

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Speaker 1: memories were accurate, But then Hugo started asking what he

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Speaker 1: called suggestive questions. He asked, for example, did you see

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Speaker 1: the stove in the room. Many of the eyewitnesses answered yes,

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Speaker 1: they saw the stove, but there was no stove in

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Speaker 1: the photo. Hugo found that through asking suggestive questions like these,

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Speaker 1: he was able to get his test subjects to remember

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Speaker 1: dozens of objects in the photo that never existed. In

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Speaker 1: another experiment, Hugo sat at a desk at the front

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Speaker 1: of a room and told his students, remember every detail

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Speaker 1: of what I'm about to do. Starting now. With his

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Speaker 1: right hand, Hugo took out a colorful disk and began

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Speaker 1: to spin it. While staring at the disk that he

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Speaker 1: was spinning with his right hand, he used his left

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Speaker 1: hand to take out a pencil and write something down

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Speaker 1: on a piece of paper, Keeping that disk spinning in

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Speaker 1: his right hand, he used his left hand again to

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Speaker 1: take out a cigarette case, open it, take out a cigarette,

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Speaker 1: shut the case with a loud click, and put it

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Speaker 1: back into his pocket. At one hundred students who saw

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Speaker 1: this demonstration, only eighteen of them were able to report

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Speaker 1: what Hugo had done with his left hand, and so

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Speaker 1: Hugo was not only able to show that witnesses might

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Speaker 1: fabricate details of a memory that never existed, but they

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Speaker 1: are also likely to not remember many details of events

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Speaker 1: that happened right in front of their faces. These experiments

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Speaker 1: also demonstrated that the memories of two different people observing

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Speaker 1: the same event or photo could be wildly different, despite

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Speaker 1: the fact that they had no stake in line or

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Speaker 1: making the outcome of the events appear to have happened

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Speaker 1: one way or another. Hugo also concluded that the witness's

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Speaker 1: own claim of certainty didn't necessarily mean that their memories

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Speaker 1: were more accurate. A witness might say, for example, that

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Speaker 1: they were absolutely certain that there was a stove in

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Speaker 1: the photo, or that he or she was certain that

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Speaker 1: all Hugo did was spin a disk in his right hand,

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Speaker 1: But even as they claimed certainty, there was proof that

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Speaker 1: their memories were incorrect. When his book on these experiments

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Speaker 1: was published in nineteen oh eight, The New York Times

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Speaker 1: wrote that his studies had the potential to revolutionize courtroom

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Speaker 1: procedure and to quote bring light and order in domains

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Speaker 1: where all or almost all is darkness and confusion. But

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Speaker 1: that's not what happened, because Hugo also had many critics

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Speaker 1: who scoffed at his attempt to apply psychology to the courtroom,

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Speaker 1: and so courtroom procedure around eyewitness testimony was not completely

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Speaker 1: re revolutionized. To this day, countless innocent men and women

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Speaker 1: are sent to prison based on faulty eyewitness testimony. Over

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Speaker 1: a half a century after Hugo's research was mocked, psychologist

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Speaker 1: Elizabeth Loftis took another look at eyewitness testimony with a

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Speaker 1: more modern take on Hugo's experiments, she was able to

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Speaker 1: prove just how unreliable eyewitness testimony is and why it

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Speaker 1: shouldn't be trusted as the gold standard of evidence in

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Speaker 1: a courtroom or in a police lineup.

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Speaker 2: Many people, unfortunately believe that memory works like a recording device.

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Speaker 2: You take in the information, you record it, you just

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Speaker 2: play it back the way some kind of video recorder

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Speaker 2: would work, And that is not really the way memory works.

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Speaker 2: What happens when we're remembering something is we tend to

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Speaker 2: take bits and pieces of experience, sometimes from different times

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Speaker 2: of places. We bring it together and we construct a memory.

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Speaker 2: So I like to think of memory a little bit more,

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Speaker 2: not like a recording device, but more like a Wikipedia page.

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Speaker 2: You can go in there and edit it, but so

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Speaker 2: can other people.

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Speaker 1: Today on our show, we're speaking with renowned psychologist Elizabeth Loftus.

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Speaker 1: Elizabeth is currently a professor at the University of California, Irvine.

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Speaker 1: She studies human memory, specifically the malleability of memory, which

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Speaker 1: of course is a huge factor in cases where eyewitness

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Speaker 1: testimony is used as evidence. So, Elizabeth, can you tell

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Speaker 1: us about some of the experiments that you worked on

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Speaker 1: to study memories of eyewitnesses.

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Speaker 2: You know. One of the ways that I and my

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Speaker 2: collaborators have studied memory and hundreds of studies you know,

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Speaker 2: probably now forty fifty thousand participants over the course of

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Speaker 2: my career. One of the ways that we study memory

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Speaker 2: is we'll show people a simulated crime. For example, we

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Speaker 2: will then expose people to some new information about that crime.

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Speaker 2: So they might have seen a bad guy take a

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Speaker 2: wallet out of somebody's purse and he's wearing a green jacket,

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Speaker 2: but they then get misinformation from another witness or from

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Speaker 2: a leading question that the jacket was brown. And finally,

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Speaker 2: we will ask our witnesses, tell me exactly what you saw,

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Speaker 2: give me as much detail as you can remember, and

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Speaker 2: many of them will then remember that the jacket was

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Speaker 2: brown and not green, or we can make them believe

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Speaker 2: the bad guy had curly hair instead of straight hair.

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Speaker 2: All by exposing people to new information, misleading information, it

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Speaker 2: impairs our own memory, and this is now referred to

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Speaker 2: in the psychological literature as the misinformation effect.

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Speaker 1: So give me another example. What are some other experiments

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Speaker 1: you did where misinformation just kind of gets slipped into

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Speaker 1: the person's memory without them even knowing it.

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Speaker 2: We've shown people a simulated accident. A car goes through

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Speaker 2: an intersection with a yield sign and then ends up

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Speaker 2: hitting a pedestrian and pedestrian falls over. A police officer

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Speaker 2: comes to tend to the pedestrian who's lying down on

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Speaker 2: the ground. Afterwards, our witnesses are asked a series of questions,

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Speaker 2: and one of those questions might be did another car

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Speaker 2: pass the red dots and when it was at the

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Speaker 2: intersection with the stop sign. Now, that is a very

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Speaker 2: clever question, just so you can appreciate the cleverness you

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Speaker 2: as the wait think I'm asking you about whether another

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Speaker 2: car passed while the Dobson was stopped. You revisualize the scene,

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Speaker 2: and in your visualization you might put in a stop

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Speaker 2: sign that I've mentioned as part of the question. You

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Speaker 2: think you're answering about whether another car stop, but this

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Speaker 2: stop sign kind of invades your consciousness, almost like a

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Speaker 2: trojan horse. You don't even detect that it's coming. And

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Speaker 2: after that, many people will then claim I saw a

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Speaker 2: stop sign at that intersection. And you can show them

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Speaker 2: two scenes, the scene with a stop sign or the

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Speaker 2: scene with a yield sign. They'll pick the one with

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Speaker 2: a stop sign. They have succumbed to the question and

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Speaker 2: fallen sway to its suggestion, and now it appears as

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Speaker 2: if this is their memory.

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Speaker 1: Now, I want to get back to the way cops

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Speaker 1: influence a witness. I've dealt with cases where the cops

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Speaker 1: know who the suspect is and do things either consciously

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Speaker 1: or even unconsciously, I guess, to encourage the witness to

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Speaker 1: choose the person that they believe is their suspect. Have

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Speaker 1: you dealt with anything like that in your research.

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Speaker 2: One of my favorite examples a case I testified in

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Speaker 2: in California. There's a crime. The eyewitness has shown a

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Speaker 2: six pack six photographs. The eyewitness says, I really don't

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Speaker 2: recognize anybody, and the officer says, wait a minute, I

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Speaker 2: see your eyes drifting down to number six. What's going

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Speaker 2: on there? Eventually number six gets seized upon identified, and

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Speaker 2: that's the person who gets prosecuted. So there's a highly

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Speaker 2: suggestive thing going on here. I'm willing to get, certainly

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Speaker 2: to give these officers the benefit of the doubt and

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Speaker 2: say they they're not even aware in a way of

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Speaker 2: their own influence, and that a lot of what's happening

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Speaker 2: is is kind of unwitting.

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Speaker 1: So look, I'm an alleged expert in jury selection, and

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Speaker 1: people are always saying to me, like, how does this

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Speaker 1: affect you? Are you always trying to psychoanalyze me? So

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Speaker 1: tell me a little bit about how this, you know,

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Speaker 1: deep knowledge of memory impacts you. Do you find yourself

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Speaker 1: like not trusting your own memory at times?

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Speaker 2: Well, the one experience that I do have from all

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Speaker 2: these decades of doing this kind of work is I

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Speaker 2: understand that along with those like sort of bits of

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Speaker 2: truth are bits of fiction intermingled in there. And I'm

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Speaker 2: not bothered by that. I understand, and that's part of

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Speaker 2: the malleable nature of memory. I think what this acceptance

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Speaker 2: has done for me is it makes me a little

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Speaker 2: bit more tolerant of the mistakes that friends make, or

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Speaker 2: family members make, or even I myself might make. I

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Speaker 2: don't immediately assume somebody is a big fat liar. They

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Speaker 2: could honestly have a false memory. And I think it's

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Speaker 2: a kind of kinder way to feel about people.

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Speaker 1: Okay, so that's pretty interesting. Do you think this same

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Speaker 1: kindness as you refer to it, that you offer let's say,

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Speaker 1: your friends, your family, even yourself, do you think we

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Speaker 1: should offer witnesses the same kind of kindness in court cases.

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Speaker 2: Do you want to call these people a liar or

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Speaker 2: do you want to accept the fact that maybe some

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Speaker 2: kind of process has led them to develop a set

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Speaker 2: of beliefs and things that feel to them like memory,

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Speaker 2: And it is kinder even in a court case. I

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Speaker 2: think sometimes for lawyers who are challenging these memories to

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Speaker 2: talk about them as potentially false memories rather than talk

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Speaker 2: about the accuser as being a big fat liar.

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Speaker 1: So you're an expert witness in a lot of cases

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Speaker 1: that depend on eyewitness testimony. You know, we've talked a

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Speaker 1: lot throughout the course of this podcast about how some

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Speaker 1: expert witnesses aren't basing their testimony on good science or facts.

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Speaker 1: But you're not that kind of witness. I mean, you've

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Speaker 1: been studying memory for years and years, and you've done

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Speaker 1: experiments and you know, tested this with thousands of participants.

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Speaker 1: You have a lot of data to back up what

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Speaker 1: you're testifying to in court. But tell me, have you

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Speaker 1: ever heard of witness testifying in court or read their

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Speaker 1: testimony and it kind of made you think, well, this

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Speaker 1: isn't science at all. They're actually twisting this so much

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Speaker 1: that it's more like junk science.

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Speaker 2: I guess what I've seen happen in some cases, and

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Speaker 2: this bothers me where I think opposing experts are introducing

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Speaker 2: junk science. It's about trauma. They want to introduce to

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Speaker 2: science that basically says traumatic memories are completely different. Traumatic memories,

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Speaker 2: you know, are stored in the body. Traumatic memories can

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Speaker 2: be relied on traumatic memories that kind of don't have

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Speaker 2: these same problems. In fact, traumatic memories operate under similar

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Speaker 2: in similar ways. They fade over time, they can be

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Speaker 2: influenced by post event information. They're just lots of features

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Speaker 2: of memory that are true, whether you're trying to remember

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Speaker 2: something that's upsetting or whether you're trying to remember something

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Speaker 2: that is a little bit more new and less emotional.

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Speaker 2: You see this in the movies all the time. They're

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Speaker 2: saying something like, I was so frightened when this happened.

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Speaker 2: I'll never forget that face as long as I live.

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Speaker 2: That's an expression of the belief that this traumatic memory

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Speaker 2: is sort of imprinted in the brain and is reliably

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Speaker 2: and solidly there, and you just need to read it out.

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Speaker 2: And that is not the way things work. With memory

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Speaker 2: in general, or even traumatic memories.

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Speaker 1: So tell us more about that, because I do think

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Speaker 1: that when we hear about someone who has been raped

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Speaker 1: or there's been a violent attack, our instinct is that

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Speaker 1: we should believe them no matter what, right, like, why

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Speaker 1: would somebody make this up? So how do we reconcile

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Speaker 1: the desire to believe a victim, or the natural tendency

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Speaker 1: to believe a victim, with the knowledge that memories just

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Speaker 1: aren't the most reliable form of evidence.

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Speaker 2: I think the way we reconcile all this is that

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Speaker 2: when there is somebody with an accusation, we certainly listen

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Speaker 2: to it and examine it. And we don't want to

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Speaker 2: uncritically accept every accusation, no matter how dubious. And we

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Speaker 2: don't want to routinely reject an accusation just because we

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Speaker 2: don't like how it sounds. So I do think there

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Speaker 2: is a way to reconcile these two seemingly conflictual driving forces.

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Speaker 2: But I don't think we forego our democratic principles and

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Speaker 2: and forget about the fact that we're proud to have

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Speaker 2: a legal system that respects the rights of the accused

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Speaker 2: to have a defense.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, it's a tough to let right, because

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Speaker 1: I've had that instance just last week where you know,

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Speaker 1: I am defending someone who I believe to be innocent.

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Speaker 1: And you know, when people hear about the case, or

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Speaker 1: you tell them about the case, you know, at least

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Speaker 1: what's public knowledge. You know, their reaction is, well, why

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Speaker 1: would somebody make up, you know, a accusation of sexual

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Speaker 1: assault for instance. But the reality is is that they

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Speaker 1: may not be consciously making it up. It may not

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Speaker 1: be a conscious lie. It may just be that their

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Speaker 1: perception and what they think is their reliable memory is

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Speaker 1: just not correct. Now, look, I have my own ideas,

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Speaker 1: and you know, the Innocence Project, as you know, has

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Speaker 1: done a ton of policy work around this and trying

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Speaker 1: to get reform achieved in law enforcement across the country

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Speaker 1: and the way they go about instituting line up and

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Speaker 1: you know, eyewitness identifications. But you tell tell me what

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Speaker 1: you think. What do you think is a way that

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Speaker 1: we can reform the system so that eyewitness identification would

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Speaker 1: be more accurate.

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Speaker 2: First of all, one thing that is important when law

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Speaker 2: enforcement is conducting some kind of test, whether it's with

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Speaker 2: photographs or whether it's with a live lineup, how do

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Speaker 2: you conduct the test. What instruction do you give to

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Speaker 2: the witness who conducts the test? Who are the fillers?

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Speaker 2: The people who are put in the set of photos

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Speaker 2: are put in the lineup along with your suspect. Each

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Speaker 2: of these issues is important, and there are best practices

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Speaker 2: that have been devised by scientists and very thoughtful people

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Speaker 2: in the legal field about what those best practices should be.

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Speaker 2: So best practice, the person conducting the test should not

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Speaker 2: know who the suspect is. That's one of the most

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Speaker 2: important things that In other words, the person conducting the test.

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Speaker 2: It should be what's called a double blind test. The

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Speaker 2: witness doesn't know who the suspect is and the person

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Speaker 2: conducting the test doesn't know who the suspect is. And

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Speaker 2: why that's important is because that means that the person

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Speaker 2: conducting the test cannot inadvertently queue the witness as to

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Speaker 2: who to pick, and the investigator cannot give feedback to

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Speaker 2: the witness, cannot say, good job, that's our suspect, that's

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Speaker 2: who we think did it. Another witness pick that same person.

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Speaker 2: This kind of feedback artificially inflates the confidence of the

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Speaker 2: witness and makes them a more powerful witness. At the

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Speaker 2: time of the trial more impervious to cross examination. It's

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Speaker 2: not a fair situation. So blind testing is one simple

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Speaker 2: reform that's been suggested. How about the instruction you give

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Speaker 2: to the witness. It's very important to have an unbiased

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Speaker 2: instruction to say to the witness, you know the person

435
00:30:14,160 --> 00:30:17,280
Speaker 2: may or may not be in this lineup. It's just

436
00:30:17,320 --> 00:30:20,640
Speaker 2: as important to exonerate the innocent as to find the

437
00:30:20,680 --> 00:30:25,240
Speaker 2: guilty person. You're trying to take pressure off of the witness.

438
00:30:26,080 --> 00:30:28,560
Speaker 2: Take the pressure off so they don't feel they've got

439
00:30:28,560 --> 00:30:32,600
Speaker 2: to pick someone anyone in order to solve the case.

440
00:30:32,640 --> 00:30:35,960
Speaker 2: So that's why that instruction is important. Then there are

441
00:30:36,040 --> 00:30:39,080
Speaker 2: other issues like who you put into the lineup. What

442
00:30:39,120 --> 00:30:43,840
Speaker 2: should the fillers look like? Do they just resemble the suspect? No,

443
00:30:44,160 --> 00:30:48,840
Speaker 2: they should also resemble the description that the witness gave.

444
00:30:49,800 --> 00:30:53,680
Speaker 2: So if the witness said, you know a skinny guy

445
00:30:53,760 --> 00:30:58,560
Speaker 2: with medium length hair, you want basically skinny people with

446
00:30:58,680 --> 00:31:04,240
Speaker 2: medium length hair fitting the description, not just fitting the

447
00:31:04,360 --> 00:31:06,480
Speaker 2: characteristics of the suspect.

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00:31:07,160 --> 00:31:11,360
Speaker 1: What is the biggest takeaway that you think our listeners

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00:31:11,400 --> 00:31:13,240
Speaker 1: should have from today's episode.

450
00:31:14,600 --> 00:31:18,440
Speaker 2: Just because somebody tells you something and they say it

451
00:31:18,480 --> 00:31:21,200
Speaker 2: with a lot of detail, and they say it with confidence,

452
00:31:21,200 --> 00:31:24,040
Speaker 2: and they even show emotion when they tell you. It

453
00:31:24,120 --> 00:31:28,120
Speaker 2: doesn't mean it really happened. It doesn't mean it really

454
00:31:28,160 --> 00:31:33,920
Speaker 2: happened exactly that way. You need independent corroboration to know

455
00:31:34,600 --> 00:31:39,440
Speaker 2: whether you're dealing with an authentic memory or one that

456
00:31:39,640 --> 00:31:47,240
Speaker 2: is a product of some other process imagination, suggestion, misinterpreting dreams,

457
00:31:47,600 --> 00:31:50,920
Speaker 2: or some other non authentic process.

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00:31:54,840 --> 00:31:57,080
Speaker 1: We always try to end each episode with a call

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00:31:57,120 --> 00:32:00,600
Speaker 1: to action. So I've been thinking about the lessons today's

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00:32:00,680 --> 00:32:06,120
Speaker 1: interview with Elizabeth and just how interesting, informative and really

461
00:32:06,200 --> 00:32:10,640
Speaker 1: eye opening it's been. When someone's freedom hangs in the balance,

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00:32:11,000 --> 00:32:14,560
Speaker 1: we should leave open the possibility that when someone takes

463
00:32:14,600 --> 00:32:17,440
Speaker 1: a witness stand and claims to have watched a crime

464
00:32:17,520 --> 00:32:20,880
Speaker 1: unfold or says they are sure they saw the defendant

465
00:32:21,040 --> 00:32:23,600
Speaker 1: leaving the scene of a crime, they may not be

466
00:32:23,720 --> 00:32:28,160
Speaker 1: accurately conveying what happened, and not because they're intentionally lying

467
00:32:28,320 --> 00:32:31,640
Speaker 1: or even shading the truth, but their memory may have

468
00:32:31,680 --> 00:32:36,840
Speaker 1: been influenced in some way. So consider the surrounding circumstances,

469
00:32:37,440 --> 00:32:40,680
Speaker 1: Whether they were fed information, if there was a suggestion

470
00:32:40,800 --> 00:32:42,880
Speaker 1: about who may have committed the crime by a member

471
00:32:42,880 --> 00:32:46,680
Speaker 1: of law enforcement if the methods used to quote unquote

472
00:32:46,720 --> 00:32:50,080
Speaker 1: identify a perpetrator were influenced in a way that made

473
00:32:50,120 --> 00:32:53,360
Speaker 1: the accused stand out. And maybe it's not the most

474
00:32:53,440 --> 00:32:56,560
Speaker 1: reassuring thing that in an error. When it seems that

475
00:32:56,640 --> 00:33:01,200
Speaker 1: misinformation is rather popular and it's sometimes difficult to know

476
00:33:01,240 --> 00:33:04,520
Speaker 1: what the truth actually is. Here is yet another reason

477
00:33:04,640 --> 00:33:09,480
Speaker 1: to doubt our perception and reality. But remember, your willingness

478
00:33:09,480 --> 00:33:14,080
Speaker 1: to remain open to all credible possibilities may in fact

479
00:33:14,120 --> 00:33:25,080
Speaker 1: prevent the next wrongful conviction. Next week, on our final

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00:33:25,160 --> 00:33:28,440
Speaker 1: episode of the season, we'll explore how what's known as

481
00:33:28,640 --> 00:33:32,920
Speaker 1: shaken baby syndrome has been used to falsely implicate people

482
00:33:32,960 --> 00:33:36,400
Speaker 1: in crimes they did not commit. We'll discuss this with

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00:33:36,520 --> 00:33:40,480
Speaker 1: executive director of the Center for Integrity and Forensic Sciences,

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00:33:40,720 --> 00:33:46,000
Speaker 1: Kate Judson. Wrongful Conviction Junk Science is a production of

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00:33:46,080 --> 00:33:49,920
Speaker 1: Lava for Good Podcasts in association with Signal Company Number One.

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00:33:50,520 --> 00:33:53,400
Speaker 1: Thanks to our executive producer Jason Flahm and the team

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00:33:53,440 --> 00:33:57,400
Speaker 1: at Signal Company Number One, executive producer Kevin Wardis and

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00:33:57,520 --> 00:34:02,360
Speaker 1: senior producers Kara Kornhaber and BRIT's. Our music was composed

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00:34:02,360 --> 00:34:05,560
Speaker 1: by Jay Ralph You can follow me on Instagram at

490
00:34:05,640 --> 00:34:10,200
Speaker 1: dubin Josh. Follow the Wrongful Conviction podcast on Facebook and

491
00:34:10,239 --> 00:34:13,920
Speaker 1: on Instagram at Wrongful Conviction, and on Twitter at wrong

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00:34:14,000 --> 00:34:14,440
Speaker 1: Conviction