Question

You are a lawyer for the defense in a case where you are defending your client against a robbery conviction. the main evidence the prosecutor presents is the convenience clerk's eyewitness testimony. what would you tell the jury about the validity of and problems with eyewitness testimony

Answer 1

Answer:  
When anyone is faced with a stressful situation they can easily have their emotions can run wild, which can alter their memories of the event. A witness to a crime like a robbery, where they most likely felt as if their life was in danger, would most definitely be feeling some strong emotions. These high emotions paired with witnessing a surprising event, like a robbery, would most likely form a flashbulb memory. Flashbulb memories are extremely vivid memories that are more often than not grounded in the emotions the person experienced at the time, rathern than the facts of what truly happened. Another, more discrediting, effect that the high emotions of a robbery can cause would be confabulation. Confabulation is an imagined but plausible memory that fills in gaps about what a person actually remember. This happens because when faced with a stressful and life treating event humans focus on protecting oneself at any cost, rather than every detail of what's happening. So after the fact when being questioned most people will try to fill in the gaps with what would make sense for the situation. For example the witness originally discarded the criminal as a tall man wearing a green hoodie. However in later questioning he added to his description by saying that the man was caucasian with blue eyes and light brown hair, which would make sense as most of the people who live in the surrounding area of the store fit this description. But just because that description makes sense, it doesn’t make it true. Without harder evidence pointing to my client or even someone who looks like him, the eyewitness testimony has little reliability.