THE EDITOR, Sir: The Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions (ODPP) has egg on its face. And it should. Days ago, two brothers were freed of rape charges. Interestingly, DNA tests were done months before and they excluded these men as the perpetrators of the crime.
DPP Paula Llewellyn attempted to explain why the Crown insisted on proceeding with this case. She said that there was eyewitness testimony. It should be noted that this crime was committed in the dark by masked men. She claims that the mask of one man slipped for two or three seconds.
But these men were excluded by DNA evidence!
It continues to surprise me that in 2013 we continue to place so much weight on personal testimony and eyewitness accounts. This, despite the fact that recent studies have shown that this weight must be balanced by an awareness that it is not necessary for a witness to lie or be coaxed by prosecutorial error to inaccurately state the facts – the mere fault of being human results in distorted memory and inaccurate testimony.
Eyewitness testimony is merely the product of human memory, and decades of scientific evidence have demonstrated that memory is glaringly fallible.
Since 1992, the Innocence Project has exonerated 306 innocent individuals who were mistakenly convicted of serious crimes in the United States. In 75 per cent of the cases, incorrect eyewitness accounts sent these people to prison.
IMPROVINGACCURACY
Should we still be relying on eyewitness testimony? Forensic psychologist Scott Fraser, after extensive research on the fallibility of human error, is crusading for a more scientific approach to trial evidence.
Although a DNA test takes time, it is highly accurate. In one case, the odds that the match was incorrect was 350 million:1.
The details of this crime would suggest to me that the perpetrators will strike again – somewhere. Has the DPP started a DNA bank so that the scientific information can be stored for future matching? DNA testing is the most accurate form of scientific evidence available. It has allowed the justice system to easily find the criminals – the right criminals.
-GLENN TUCKER