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In eyewitness identification, in criminal law, evidence is received from a witness "who has actually seen an event and can so testify in court".〔(Law.com Legal Dictionary Online )〕 Although it has been observed, by the late U.S. Supreme Court Justice William J. Brennan, Jr., in his dissent to ''Watkins v. Sowders'', that witness testimony is evidence that "juries seem most receptive to, and not inclined to discredit".〔(''Watkins v. Sowders'', 449 U.S. 341 (1980) )〕 Justice Brennan also observed that "At least since ''United States v. Wade'', 388 U.S. 218 (1967), the Court has recognized the inherently suspect qualities of eyewitness identification evidence, and described the evidence as "notoriously unreliable".〔 The Innocence Project, a non-profit organization which has worked on using DNA evidence in order to reopen criminal convictions that were made before DNA testing was available as a tool in criminal investigations, states that "Eyewitness misidentification is the single greatest cause of wrongful convictions nationwide, playing a role in more than 75% of convictions overturned through DNA testing."〔("Eyewitness Misidentification" ).〕 In the United Kingdom, the Criminal Law Review Committee, writing in 1971, stated that cases of mistaken identification "constitute by far the greatest cause of actual or possible wrong convictions".〔Criminal Law Review Committee Eleventh Report, Cmnd 4991〕 Historically, eyewitness testimony had what Brennan described as "a powerful impact on juries",〔 who noted in his dissent that "All the evidence points rather strikingly to the conclusion that there is almost nothing more convincing (a jury ) than a live human being who takes the stand, points a finger at the defendant, and says 'That's the one!'"〔''Watkins v. Souders'', 449 U.S. 341, 352 (1982) (Brennan, J. dissenting).〕 Another commentator observed that the eyewitness identification of a person as a perpetrator was persuasive to jurors even when "far outweighed by evidence of innocence."〔Elizabeth Loftus, ''Eyewitness Evidence'' 9 (1979).〕 ==Known cases of eyewitness error== The Innocence Project has facilitated the exoneration of 214 men who were convicted of crimes they did not commit, as a result of faulty eyewitness evidence.〔See (www.innocenceproject.org ), mouse over "Know the Cases," then click "Search Profiles," then search cases with "Eyewitness Misidentification" as the Contributing Cause.〕 A number of these cases have received substantial attention from the media. Jennifer Thompson's case is one example: She was a college student in North Carolina in 1984, when a man broke into her apartment, put a knife to her throat, and raped her. According to her own account, Ms. Thompson studied her rapist throughout the incident with great determination to memorize his face. "I studied every single detail on the rapist's face. I looked at his hairline; I looked for scars, for tattoos, for anything that would help me identify him. When and if I survived the attack, I was going to make sure that he was put in prison and he was going to rot."〔Jennifer Thompson, 'I Was Certain, but I Was Wrong,' June 18, 2000, New York Times. (Archived (here ).)〕 Ms. Thompson went to the police station later that same day to work up a (sketch ) of her attacker, relying on what she believed was her detailed memory. Several days later, the police constructed a photographic lineup, and she selected Ronald Junior Cotton from the lineup. She later testified against him at trial. She was positive it was him, without any doubt in her mind. "I was sure. I knew it. I had picked the right guy, and he was going to go to jail. If there was the possibility of a death sentence, I wanted him to die. I wanted to flip the switch."〔''Id.''〕 But she was wrong, as DNA results eventually showed. It turns out she was even presented with her actual attacker during a second trial proceeding a year after the attack, but swore she'd never seen the man before in her life. She remained convinced that Ronald Cotton was her attacker, and it was not until much later, after Mr. Cotton had served 11 years in prison for a crime he did not commit, that she realized that she had made a grave mistake. Jennifer Thompson's memory had failed her, resulting in a substantial injustice. It took definitive DNA testing to shake her confidence, but she now knows that despite her confidence in her identification, it was wrong. Cases like Ms. Thompson's prompted the emergence of a field within the social sciences dedicated to the study of eyewitness memory and the causes underlying its frequently recurring failures. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Eyewitness identification」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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