Studies

The U.S. Supreme Court recently considered Perry v. New Hampshire, a case questioning the validity of eyewitness testimony when the identification was made under unreliable circumstances.  At the same time, years of scientific study on the accuracy of human memory are pointing to the need for reform in the use of eyewitness evidence in criminal cases.  Barbara Tversky, a psychology professor at Columbia University, whose experiments on memory were reported in the journal Cognitive Psychology, noted, “Memory is weak in eyewitness situations because it’s overloaded.  An event happens so fast, and when the police question you, you probably weren’t concentrating on the details they’re asking about.”  About 75% of DNA-based exonerations have come in cases where eyewitnesses have made mistakes.  Scientists suggest that witness testimony should be viewed more like trace evidence, with the same fragility and vulnerability to contamination.  Strong emotions felt by victims of a crime is one such possible area of contamination. Gary Wells, a psychology professor at Iowa State University, found that the accuracy of lineups improves when the possible suspects are presented to witnesses in sequence, rather than all at once, as in the traditional lineup. The downfall of side-by-side lineups, Dr. Wells said, is that “if the real perpetrator is not in there, there is still someone who looks more like him than the others.” The Supreme Court of New Jersey recently promulgated new rules for dealing with the problems of eyewitness identification.

The Death Penalty Information Center is pleased to announce that our List of Those Exonerated from Death Row (1973-Present) is now available in a searchable, database format through our new Innocence Database.  This resource allows users to search through the list of those freed from death row after their convictions were dismissed by name, year of exoneration, state from which they were released, the inmate’s race, and whether DNA evidence factored into their release.  Lists of cases can also be sorted by each category.  The database includes cases such as that of Kirk Bloodsworth (pictured), who was exonerated in Maryland in 1993 after being sentenced to death in 1984.  He was the first death row inmate to be exonerated through DNA evidence.  To read the conditions for a case to be included in this list, click DPIC’s criteria.  Please contact us with any comments or questions regarding this new resource.

The Texas Forensic Science Commission recently closed its inquiry into the case of Cameron Todd Willingham (pictured), who was executed in Texas in 2004. The Commission was told by the Texas Attorney General that it did not have jurisdiction to rule on the Willingham case.  Hence, in its final report on October 28 on the matter, it declined to issue any finding regarding allegations of negligence or misconduct by the City of Corsicana or the Texas State Fire Marshal in the Willingham matter.  The Commission, however, acknowledged that outdated science regarding arsons played a role in Willingham’s 1991 murder conviction.  Willingham was convicted of setting the fire that killed his three daughters.  Since then, modern fire experts have determined that none of the more than 20 arson indicators identified by the standards of arson science in 1991 are reliable evidence of intentional fire.  Experts say that the cause of fire should have been "undetermined."  Stephen Saloom, policy director for the Innocence Project in New York, said,  "The world should now know that the evidence relied upon to convict and execute Cameron Todd Willingham for the fire that killed his daughters was based on scientifically invalid and unreliable evidence.”  The Commission’s final report also included a commitment from the state fire marshal’s office to review old arson rulings to determine whether convictions were based on the now-debunked science."

The Philadelphia Inquirer recently conducted a review of death penalty appeals in Pennsylvania spanning three decades and found a pattern of ineffective assistance by defense attorneys.  More than 125 capital murder trials in the Pennsylvania, including 69 in Philadelphia, have been reversed or sent back by state and federal courts after finding that mistakes by the defense attorney deprived the defendant of a fair trial.  These do not include cases in which courts found that lawyers made obvious mistakes but ruled that the mistakes did not affect the outcome of the case.  The Inquirer found that lawyers defending those facing the death penalty often spent little time preparing their cases, sometimes neglecting basic steps such as interviewing defendants, finding witnesses, and investigating a defendant's background.  For example, in a closing argument, Wilson Cooper's lawyer quoted a Biblical passage that called for the death penalty only in the killing of a pregnant woman, forgetting that Cooper had killed a pregnant woman.  Legal experts agreed that there are systemic problems in the state's indigent defense program, exemplified by underpaid and overworked lawyers who take on death penalty cases.  In Philadelphia, court-appointed lawyers receive $2000 for trial preparation in a capital case and $400 per day in court.  Critics say the fees, which are the lowest in the state, deter good lawyers from working on death penalty cases and inevitably lead to reversals.  Ronald D. Castille, the chief justice of the state Supreme Court, recently cited "intolerable" errors by defense lawyers, compounded by some "idiotic" appellate briefs.  The justice, who recently ordered a review of attorney pay rates, said that such practices all but guarantee delays and new court hearings that prolong cases for years.