Would Be Able to Identify the Suspect That She Saw Him Again
This week's lesson focuses on the criminal justice system and the many applications applied social psychology theory has influenced in this field. The textbook discussed the case of Jennifer Thompson, who was sexually assaulted, and then falsely identified Ronald Cotton of this crime. Ronald Cotton spent 11 years in prison for a crime he was falsely accused of performing, even though he admittedly denied the accusations. During Cotton's incarnation another inmate, Bobby Poole, bragged about his involvement in this sexual assault, which he later denied in court. It was through the diligence of the Innocence Project that led to further DNA testing and the exoneration of Ronald Cotton (as cited in Schneider, Gruman, & Coutts, 2012). As horrible as this scenario played out for both Jennifer Thompson and Ronald Cotton, it has been revealed over the past decades that many individuals have been accused and sentenced to prison for crimes they may not have committed based on false eyewitness identification.
I watched a video of Jennifer Thompson tell the story of her sexual assault and in the video, she describes her conscientious effort to be able to identify the assailant of her attack (PopTech 2011). She purposely tried to find identifying markers of the perpetrators clothing, skin, height, and arm length. Thompson tried to "etch" anything that would enable her to identify her assailant, should she survive this attack (PopTech, 2011). However, as adamant as Thompson was in her accuracy of identifying Ronald Cotton as her attacker, she was wrong. Two factors that may have contributed to Thompson's eyewitness misidentification, include priming and the cross-race effect (Hastay, 2009; Schneider, Gruman, & Coutts, 2012).
The Innocence Project claims that eyewitness misidentification has been the leading cause of wrongful convictions in 75% of the 250 exonerated US prisoners (as cited in Schneider, Gruman, & Coutts, 2012). Hastay (2009) suggested that Jennifer Thompson may have been primed by police detectives to select Ronald Cotton as the attacker when she helped a sketch artist develop a composite of her attacker. Visual priming suggests Thompson's exposure to the sketch of her attacker may have influenced a later response when she was exposed to a police lineup which contained Ronald Cotton who represented the sketch. Furthermore, once Thompson identified Cotton as her attacker the police provided verbal priming indicating they thought he was the perpetrator. These two priming incidents further validated Thompson's affirmation that Cotton was her attacker.
The cross-race effect suggests that individuals are better at recognizing and identifying faces of those in their own race than those of differing races (Schneider, Gruman, & Coutts, 2012). Thompson is a white female who was sexually assaulted by a black male, Bobby Poole. Dodson and Dobolyi (2015) studied the cross-race effect in conjunction with decision time and accuracy and the results suggest when identifying cross-race faces participants are "overconfident when selecting a cross-race face from a line-up which worsens the relationship between their confidence and the accuracy of an identifications for cross-race than same face faces" (Dodson & Dobolyi, 2015). The detective involved in the Thompson case stated that once she narrowed the pictures of her possible alleged attackers down to two, she spent several minutes staring at them. The detective thought this length of time was more indicative of an accurate identification. However, research has found that "faster decisions are typically more accurate for positive identification from line-ups than slower identifications" (Dodson & Dobolyi, 2015). The cross-race effect is very robust and certainly this phenomenon may have played a role in the Thompson case (Bornstein, et al… 2013).
Although, Jennifer Thompson stated she consciously tried to "etch every detail of her attacker in her mind," she still identified the wrong individual. Unfortunately, Ronald Cotton was an innocent man who spent over a decade in prison for a crime he did not commit, based on false identification. As we know memory is faulty, especially when stressed (Schneider, Gruman, & Coutts, 2012). Thompson's case certainly has illustrated the inaccuracies of eyewitness accounts when it relates to priming and the cross-race effect. However, many cases of sexual assault now have DNA technology that will more accurately and quickly identify the alleged attacker's innocence or guilt.
Bornstein, B.H., Laub, C.E., Meissner, C.A., Susa, K.J. (2013). The Cross-Race Effect: Resistant to Instructions. Journal of Criminology. Doi 10.1155/2013/745836 Retrieved from https://www.hindawi.com/archive/2013/745836/cta/
Dodson, C.S. and Dobolyi, D.G. (2015). Confidence and Eyewitness Identifications: The Cross-Race Effect, Decision, Time and Accuracy. Applied Cognitive Psychology. 30. 113-125. Retrieved from http://sk8es4mc2l.search.serialssolutions.com/?ctx_ver=Z39.88-2004&ctx_enc=info%3Aofi%2Fenc%3AUTF-8&rfr_id=info%3Asid%2Fsummon.serialssolutions.com&rft_val_fmt=info%3Aofi%2Ffmt%3Akev%3Amtx%3Ajournal&rft.genre=article&rft.atitle=Confidence+and+Eyewitness+Identifications%3A+The+Cross-Race+Effect%2C+Decision+Time+and+Accuracy&rft.jtitle=Applied+Cognitive+Psychology&rft.au=Dodson%2C+Chad+S&rft.au=Dobolyi%2C+David+G&rft.date=2016-01-01&rft.issn=0888-4080&rft.eissn=1099-0720&rft.volume=30&rft.issue=1&rft.spage=113&rft.epage=125&rft_id=info:doi/10.1002%2Facp.3178&rft.externalDBID=n%2Fa&rft.externalDocID=10_1002_acp_3178¶mdict=en-US
Hastay, L. (2009) How do eyewitnesses make mistakes? Pickingcottonbook.com Retrieved from http://www.pickingcottonbook.com/eyewitness.html
PopTech (2011). Thompson & Cotton Forgive. Youtube.com Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qB7MrfJ7X_c&app=desktop
Schneider, F., Gruman, J., and Coutts, L. (2012). Applied Social Psychology: Understanding and Addressing Social and Practical Problems. (2ed). Washington D.C., Sage Publications.
Source: https://sites.psu.edu/aspsy/2017/10/12/eyewitness-misidentification/
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