False Memory - Is Eyewitness Testimony Reliable?

The story of Ronald Cotton astonishes everyone. On August 1, 1984, Ronald Cotton was arrested for rape and burglary. Jennifer Thompson, the victim of the crime, studied the assailant’s face carefully so that she could bring him to the court. But later when she had come to choose an assailant’s photo, she chose a wrong guy – Cotton – and kept asserting he’s the one who raped her while Cotton kept denying the crime. On top of the suspicious behaviors of Cotton (giving false alibi) was the eyewitness’s testimony, which played a definitive role in sentencing Cotton to life plus 54 years in prison. Couple of years later, Cotton hears another inmate’s bragger about how he raped Jennifer and asks for a second trial. But once again in the court where the real rapist, Bobby Poole was seated, Jennifer appointed Cotton as the rapist and didn’t doubt the fact. Cotton was sent back to prison with heavier sentence. Cotton was exonerated in 1995, after DNA testing vindicated Cotton to be innocent.

Why did Jennifer point at Cotton again in the second trial, when she was actually facing the real rapist? Why didn’t she doubt her choice? Why was she so sure about it?

Everything comes down to her memory. When Jennifer was to choose the criminal’s photo, with many photos given, she assumed one of the photos was the photo of a real rapist. And even when there was no correct photo in the deck, she picked one up (actually the one who looked very similar to the real rapist) and started to believe that the person in the photo was a rapist. That belief caused her memory to change and to adopt into that fact. This process made her wrong eyewitness memory so firm that later when she saw the real rapist in the court, she still couldn't realize that. 

Is eyewitness testimony reliable? The answer is no, and for sure. There always exist a danger that eyewitness's memory could be manipulated. And this slight change in the memory, which then is used in court for an evidence, could doom innocent people's lives. Even if the eyewitness might not do it in purpose, there can exist an error since the testimony is completely relying on memory, and because memory too is not stable and lasting forever intact.