Why eyewitnesses get it wrong - Scott Fraser
Summary
TLDRIn 1991, a father was murdered in Lynwood, California, and a teenager, Francisco CIO, was quickly convicted based on eyewitness accounts. Despite no physical evidence and CIO's alibi, he was sentenced to life. Years later, a forensic neurophysiologist's examination of the case revealed the fallibility of eyewitness memory and poor lighting conditions at the crime scene, leading to a retrial and CIO's release. This case underscores the importance of integrating science into the legal system and the caution needed in relying on memory.
Takeaways
- ๐๏ธ The murder case took place on January 18th, 1991, in Lynwood, California.
- ๐ The police quickly identified Francisco CIO as the suspect based on a photo array shown to a teenager.
- ๐จโโ๏ธ Despite no gun, vehicle, or driver being identified, CIO was convicted and sentenced to life imprisonment.
- ๐ต๏ธโโ๏ธ The Innocence Project's research highlighted the fallibility of eyewitness testimony, which was a key factor in CIO's wrongful conviction.
- ๐ง Human memory is prone to errors, especially when reconstructing memories from partial information.
- ๐ The crime occurred in poor lighting conditions, which was crucial for evaluating the accuracy of the eyewitnesses' identifications.
- ๐ฆ A forensic neurophysiologist was brought in to analyze the lighting conditions and their impact on the reliability of the identifications.
- ๐ธ The expert conducted a scene reconstruction, showing that the lighting was much poorer than initially reported, affecting the ability to identify the shooter.
- ๐จโ๐ซ The judge was persuaded to personally witness a reenactment of the crime, which influenced his decision to grant a retrial.
- ๐ The case was a victory for integrating scientific evidence into the legal process and highlighted the importance of critical examination of eyewitness testimony.
- ๐ The speaker emphasized the need for more scientific literacy among legal professionals and the importance of cautious interpretation of memory.
Q & A
What was the date and location of the murder mentioned in the script?
-The murder occurred on January 18th, 1991, in a small bedroom community of Lynwood, California, which is a few miles southeast of Los Angeles.
Who was identified as the suspect in the murder case?
-Francisco CIO, a 17-year-old kid who lived about two or three blocks away from where the shooting occurred, was identified as the suspect.
How quickly did the police identify the suspect after the shooting?
-The police identified Francisco CIO as the suspect in less than 24 hours after the shooting.
What was the outcome of Francisco CIO's trial based on the initial investigation?
-Francisco CIO was convicted of first-degree murder and sentenced to life imprisonment based on the initial investigation and testimonies from the teenagers who identified him.
Why was Francisco CIO's case reconsidered for a retrial?
-The case was reconsidered for a retrial due to decades of scientific research indicating the fallibility of human memory and eyewitness identifications, as well as the lack of physical evidence such as the murder weapon or the identification of the shooter's vehicle.
What is the significance of the Innocence Project's work in the context of this case?
-The Innocence Project's work highlights the issue of wrongful convictions based on eyewitness identifications, which is relevant to Francisco CIO's case since his conviction was primarily based on such testimonies.
How does the concept of 'the brain abhors a vacuum' relate to the case?
-The concept refers to the brain's tendency to fill in missing information from memory, which can lead to reconstructed memories. This is significant in the case as it questions the reliability of the teenagers' identifications of Francisco CIO.
What role did the forensic neurophysiologist play in the retrial petition?
-The forensic neurophysiologist provided expertise on eyewitness memory and identification, and also on human night vision, which was crucial to analyze the lighting conditions at the time of the crime, casting doubt on the reliability of the identifications made under those conditions.
What was the lighting condition during the crime according to the teenagers and the police?
-Both the investigating officers and the teenagers testified that the lighting was good at the crime scene during the shooting.
How did the forensic neurophysiologist challenge the claimed lighting conditions at the crime scene?
-The forensic neurophysiologist conducted a scene reconstruction with photometers and other measures of illumination and color perception, demonstrating that the lighting was, in fact, poor, which contradicted the testimonies and raised questions about the accuracy of the identifications.
What was the judge's reaction to the reenactment of the crime scene, and what was the outcome?
-After the reenactment, which showed the poor lighting conditions and the impossibility of accurate identification, the judge granted the petition for a retrial and released Francisco CIO to aid in the preparation of his defense. The prosecution later decided not to retry him.
What broader implications does this case have for the integration of science in the courtroom?
-The case highlights the need for more scientific rigor in the courtroom, suggesting that law schools should incorporate more science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) education to prepare future judges and legal professionals to better understand and apply scientific evidence.
Outlines
๐ Wrongful Conviction and Eyewitness Fallibility
The script recounts a murder case from 1991 in Lynwood, California, where a father was shot and killed. The police quickly identified a suspect, Francisco CIO, based on the identification by one of the teenagers present at the scene. Despite the lack of physical evidence and CIO's alibi, he was convicted and sentenced to life imprisonment. The case highlights the fallibility of eyewitness identification, which is a significant factor in many wrongful convictions. The Innocence Project's research is mentioned, showing that over 70% of wrongful convictions later overturned by DNA evidence involved mistaken eyewitness testimony.
๐ง The Flaws of Human Memory and Reconstructed Memories
The script delves into the science of human memory, explaining how the brain stores fragmented information and fills in missing details unconsciously, leading to reconstructed memories. This phenomenon, combined with the known unreliability of eyewitness testimony, prompted a group of appeal attorneys to seek a retrial for Francisco CIO. The speaker, a forensic neurophysiologist, was brought in to provide expert testimony on eyewitness memory and identification, as well as on human night vision, which is crucial for understanding the conditions at the time of the crime.
๐ The Impact of Lighting Conditions on Eyewitness Testimony
The speaker discusses the importance of lighting conditions on the night of the crime, which was initially reported as good by the investigating officers and the teenagers. However, through scientific analysis of the lunar and solar data, it was determined that the lighting was, in fact, poor, with no natural light and only artificial sources available. The speaker conducted a scene reconstruction to measure illumination and color perception, which showed that the conditions would have significantly impaired the ability to accurately identify faces, thus casting doubt on the teenagers' identifications.
๐ The Integration of Science in the Legal System and the Quest for Justice
The script concludes with the judge's decision to grant a retrial and release Francisco CIO, based on the scientific evidence presented. The speaker reflects on the historical tension between science and law and the challenges of integrating scientific evidence into courtroom proceedings. The case serves as a call for increased scientific literacy among legal professionals and judges, and a reminder of the importance of critical examination of eyewitness testimony and memory. The speaker also emphasizes the need for caution in relying on personal memories, as they are often reconstructed and not always accurate.
Mindmap
Keywords
๐กEyewitness Identification
๐กInnocence Project
๐กHuman Memory
๐กReconstructed Memory
๐กForensic Neuropsychology
๐กNight Vision
๐กCivil Twilight
๐กPhotometry
๐กDepth of Field
๐กExoneration
๐กJudicial System
Highlights
A murder occurred in Lynwood, California, in 1991, where a father was shot and killed by a passing car.
Police quickly identified a 17-year-old, Francisco CIO, as the suspect based on eyewitness accounts.
Despite no physical evidence linking him to the crime, Francisco was convicted and sentenced to life imprisonment.
The conviction was largely based on the fallible nature of eyewitness identifications.
250-280 documented cases of wrongful convictions due to eyewitness misidentifications have been recorded by the Innocence Project.
Human memory is fallible, and the brain fills in missing information, leading to reconstructed memories.
A group of appeal attorneys, led by Ellen Edgar, sought a retrial for Francisco CIO.
A forensic neurophysiologist was retained to provide expert testimony on eyewitness memory and night vision.
The crime scene was poorly lit, which was critical for the reliability of the eyewitnesses' identifications.
The forensic expert conducted a scene reconstruction to measure lighting and color perception conditions.
The judge was invited to witness a reenactment of the crime to understand the limitations of visibility.
The judge granted a retrial and released Francisco CIO to aid in his own defense preparation.
The prosecution decided not to retry the case, leading to Francisco's freedom after 21 years.
The case highlights the importance of integrating science into the legal system for a fair trial.
The need for more scientific literacy among law professionals is emphasized to prevent wrongful convictions.
The accuracy of memories is not measured by their vividness or certainty, caution is needed in their reliability.
Transcripts
[Music]
[Applause]
the murder happened a little over 21
years
ago January the 18th
1991 in a
small bedroom community
of Lynwood California just a few miles
Southeast of Los
Angeles father came out was
house to tell his teenage son and his
five friends that it was time for them
to stop horsing around on the front lawn
and on the sidewalk to get home finish
their schoolwork prepare themselves for
bed and as the father was administering
these instructions a car drove by slowly
and just after it passed the father and
the teenagers a hand went out from the
front passenger window and Bam
Bam killing the father and the car sped
off the
police investigating officers were
amazingly
efficient they considered all the usual
culprits and in less than 24 hours they
had selected their
suspect Francisco CIO a 17-year-old kid
who lived about two or three blocks away
from where the shooting
occurred they found photos of him they
prepared a photo array and the day after
the shooting they showed it to one of
the teenagers and he said that's the
picture that's the shooter I saw that
killed the
father that was all a prary hearing
judge had to listen to to bind Mr CIO
over to stand trial for first-degree
murder in the investigation that
followed before the actual trial each of
the other five teenagers was
shown photographs the same photo
array the picture that we best can
determine was probably the one that they
were shown in the photo aray is in your
bottom leftand corner of these mug
shots uh the reason we're not sure
absolutely is because of
the nature of evidence pre preservation
in our Jud judicial system but that's
another whole tedex talk for
later so at the actual
trial all six of the teenagers
testified and indicated the
identifications they had made in the
photo
array he was convicted he was sentenced
to life
imprisonment and transport fored to
fullon
prison so what's
wrong straightforward Fair trial full
investigation oh yes no gun was ever
found no vehicle was ever identified as
being the one in which the shooter had
extended his
arm and no person was ever charged with
being the driver of the shooters
vehicle and Mr cio's alibi
which of those parents here in the room
might not
lie concerning the whereabouts of your
son or
daughter in an investigation of a
killing second to
prison adamantly insisting on his
innocence which he has consistently for
21
years so what's the
problem
the problems actually for this kind of
case come manyfold from Decades of
scientific
research involving human
memory first of all we have all the
statistical analysis from the Innocence
Project work where we know that we have
what 250 280 documented cases now where
people have been wrongfully convicted
and subsequently exonerated some from
death
row on the basis of later DNA
analysis and you know that over 34 of
all of those cases of
exoneration involved only eyewitness
identification testimony during the
trial that convicted
them we know that eyewitness
identifications are
fallible the other comes from an
interesting aspect of human memory
that's related to various brain
functions but I can sum up for the sake
of brevity here in a simple line the
brain abhors a
vacuum under the best of observation
conditions the absolute best we only
detect encode and store in our brains
bits and pieces of the entire experience
in front of us and they're stored in
different parts of the brain so now when
it's important for us to be able to
recall what it was that we
experienced we have an incomplete we
have a partial
store and what
happens below awareness with no
requirement for any kind of motivated
processing the brain fills in
information that was not there not
originally stored from inference from
speculation from sources of information
that came to you as the Observer after
the observation but it happens with
without awareness such that you don't
aren't even cognizant of occurring it's
called reconstructed memories it happens
to us in all the aspects of our life all
the time it was those two considerations
among others reconstructed memory the
fact about the eyewitness infall
fallibility that was part of the
instigation for a group of appeal
attorneys led by an amazing lawyer named
Ellen Edgar to pull their experience and
their talents together and petition the
superior court for a retrial for
Francisco
CIO they retain me as a forensic
neurophysiologist because I had
expertise in eyewitness memory and
identification which obviously makes
sense for this case right but also
because I have expertise and testify
about the nature of human night
vision but what's got to do with
this well when you read through the case
materials in this Kio case one of the
things that suddenly strikes you is that
the investigating officers said the
lighting was good at the crime scene at
the shooting all the teenagers testified
during the trial that they could see
very
well but this occurred in mid January in
the northern hemisphere at 700 p.m. at
night so when I do the did the
calculations for the lunar data and the
solar data at that location on Earth at
the time of the incident of the shooting
all right it was well past the end of
Civil Twilight and there was no moon up
the night so all the light in this area
from the Sun of the moon is what you see
on the screen right
here the only Lighting in that area had
to come from artificial sources and
that's where I go out and I do the
actual reconstruction of the scene with
photometers with various measures of
Illumination and various other measures
of of U color perception along with
special cameras and high-speed film
right take all the measurements and
record them right and then take
photographs and this is what the scene
looked like at the time of the shooting
from the position of the
teenagers looking at the car going by
and shooting this is looking directly
across the street from where they were
standing
standing remember the investigating
officer report said the lighting was
good teenagers said they could see very
well this is looking down to the east
where the shooting vehicle sped
off and this is the lighting directly
behind the father and the
teenagers as you can see it is at best
poor no one's going to call this
well-lit Good Ting and in fact as nice
as these pictures are and the reason we
take them is I knew I was going to have
to testify in the court and a picture is
worth more than a thousand words when
you're trying to communicate numbers
abstract Concepts like Lux the
international measurement of
Illumination the is Shahara color color
perception test values right uh when you
present those to people who are not
well-versed in those aspects of Science
and that uh they become salamanders in
the Noonday sun it's like talking about
the tangent of the visual angle all
right their eyes just glaze over all
right a good forensic expert also has to
be a good educator a good communicator
and that's part of the reason why we
take the pictures to show not only the
where the light sources are and what we
call The Spill the distribution but also
so that it's easier for the triar fact
to understand the
circumstances so these are some of the
pictures that in fact I use when I
testify but more importantly were to me
as a scientist are those readings the
photometer readings which I can then
convert into actual predictions of the
visual capability of the human eye under
those
circumstances and from my readings that
I recorded at the scene under the same
solar and lunar conditions at the same
time so on so forth right I could
predict that there would be no reliable
color perception which is crucial for
face
recognition and that there would be only
topic Vision which mean there'd be very
little resolution what we call boundary
or Edge detection and that furthermore
because the eyes would have been totally
dilated under this light the depth of
field the distance at which you can
focus and see details would have been
less than 18 in
away I testified to that to the court
and while the judge was very attentive
it had been a very very long hearing for
this petition for a retrial
and as a result I noticed out of the
Cora eye that I thought that maybe the
judge was going to need a little more of
a nudge than just more
numbers and here I became a bit
audacious and I turned and I asked the
judge I said your honor I think you
should go out and look at the scene
yourself now I may have used a tone
which was more like a dare than a
request but
nonetheless it's to this man's credit
and his courage that he said yes I
will a shocker in American Jewish
Prudence so in fact we found the same
identical conditions we reconstructed
the entire thing again he came out with
an entire Brigade of Sheriff's officers
to protect him in this in this community
all
right we had him stand actually slightly
in the street so closer to the suspect
vehicle shooter vehicle than the actual
teenagers were so he stood a few feet
from the curb toward the middle of the
street we had a car that came
by same identical car as as described by
the teenagers it had a driver and a
passenger and after the car had passed
the judge
by the passenger extended his hand
pointed it back to the judge
as the concar continued on just as the
teenagers had described it right now he
didn't use a real gun in his hand so he
had a black object in his hand that was
similar to the gun that was described he
pointed by and this is what the judge
saw this is the car 30 ft away from the
judge there's an arm sticking out of the
passenger's side and pointed back at you
that's 30 ft away so my teenager said
that that in fact the car was 15 ft away
when it shot okay there's 15
ft at this point I became a little
concerned this judge is someone you
never want to play poker
with I he was totally stoic I couldn't
see a twitch of his eyebrow I couldn't
see the slightest Bend of his head I had
no sense of how he was reacting to this
and after he looked at this reenact
he turned to me and he says is there
anything else you want me to look
at I said your honor and I don't know
whether I was emboldened by the
scientific measurements that I had in my
pocket and my knowledge that they are
accurate or whether it was just sheer
stupidity which is what the defense
lawyers thought when they heard me
say yes your honor I want you to stand
right there and I want the car to go
around the block
again and I want it to come and I want
it to
stop right in front of you 3 to four
feet away and I want the passenger to
extend his hand with a black object
point right at you and you can look at
it as long as you
want and that's what he
saw you'll notice which was also in my
test report all the dominant lighting is
coming from the north side which means
that the shooter's face would have been
photo uded would have been back lit
furthermore the roof of the car is
causing what we call a shadow Cloud
inside the car which is making it darker
right and this is 3 to4 ft
away why did I take the risk I knew the
depth of field was 18 in or
less 3 to four feet it might as well
have been a football field away
this is what he saw went
back there was a few more days of
evidence that was heard at the end of it
he made the Judgment that he was going
to Grant the petition for a
retrial and further more he released Mr
CIO so that he could Aid in the
preparation of his own defense if the
prosecution decided to retry
him which they decided not to he is not
a Freed
Man this is this is him embracing his uh
grandmother-in-law
he his girlfriend was pregnant when he
went to trial right and he they she had
a little baby
boy he and his son are both attending
Cal State Long Beach right now taking
classes
and what does what does this
example what's important to keep in mind
for
ourselves first of all there's a long
history of antipathy between science and
the law in American Juris
Prudence I could regil you with horror
stories of
ignorance over Decades of experience as
a forensic
expert of just trying to get science
into the courtroom the opposing Council
always fight it and oppose
it one suggestion is that all of us
become much more attuned to the
necessity through policy through
procedures to get more science in the
courtroom and I think one large step
toward that is more requirements with
all due respect to the law schools of
science technology
engineering mathematics for anyone going
into the law because they become the
judges think about how we select our
judges in this country it's very
different than most other cultures all
right the other one is I want to suggest
the caution that all of us have to have
I constantly have to remind myself about
just how accurate are the memories that
we know are true that we believe
in there is Decades of
research examples and examples of cases
like this where
individuals really really believe none
of those teenagers right who identified
him right thought that they were picking
the wrong person none of them thought
they couldn't see the person's face we
all have to be very careful all our
memories are reconstructed
memories they are the product of what we
originally experienced and everything
that's happened afterwards their
Dynamic they're made valuable they're
volatile and as a result we all need to
remember to be
cautious that the accuracy of our
memories is not measured in how Vivid
they
are nor how certain you are that they're
correct thank
[Applause]
[Music]
you
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