Case of mistaken identity 'a total nightmare' for mom of homeless man. ", In Clark's view, debates in the field are a good thing. B. 5. In the years since, numerous studies have supported that finding. "On issues of both confidence and lineup format, the field for years was making a mistake in how they analyzed the data, and in both cases arrived at the wrong conclusion," Wixted says. A confident eyewitness could be just as likely to get the ID right — or wrong — as a less confident witness. The Herald (Melbourne, Vic. "The legal system wouldn't be able to function without eyewitness identification," he says. Wells agrees it's crucial for law enforcement officers to pay attention to initial confidence. Cancer is really a stem cell disease, argue George Murphy and Malcolm R Alison “Mrs Smith, I'm afraid you have cancer.” The words die on your lips as you wait to see how she reacts-a bolt from the blue or just official confirmation of a long nursed suspicion? His mother, Zainab Shazad, said: 'It was … Around the same time, Peter’s cell number came up on her phone, she said, adding he showed up at her door soon after. 10 Current page. Like the author of the article we contacted the manufacturers and the Medicines Control Agency. "If he's there, they can do a fair job of picking him. So how is it that confidence can predict an accurate identification? Detectives believe this was a case of mistaken identity. © 2020 Toronto Sun, a division of Postmedia Network Inc. All rights reserved. According to Ganny and another son, police found Peter’s ID on Michael Kent when they discovered him unresponsive on Oct. 26. Wixted is one of several scientists, along with Clark and Scott Gronlund, PhD, a psychologist at the University of Oklahoma, who have championed a statistical method called receiver operating characteristic (ROC) analysis, a method widely used in other fields to measure the accuracy of diagnostic systems. Prosecutors criticised over jailing of Eritrean man wrongly identified as human trafficker. We apologize, but this video has failed to load. 2 min read Cases of Mistaken Identity. By continuing to use our site, you agree to our Terms of Service and Privacy Policy. She said even though her son has had issues and is homeless, she wonders why the police didn’t check out the information — regardless of the ID found on Kent — before coming to her. She hasn’t heard from the police since and feels they owe her an apology. She was asked to come down to the morgue and identify the body. But eyewitness identification has been responsible for serious miscarriages of justice. When Thompson-Cannino identified Cotton in court, she was certain she was pointing to the man who raped her. "You don't get to go back six months later and examine a crime scene again because it's been contaminated by then. Other states are discussing similar instructions, Wells says. Science 16 Feb 2007: Vol. Mistaken identity What if a novelist celebrated as a pioneer of African-American women's literature turned out not to be black at all? You imagine something, and it feels like a memory. Nancy Bokma places a candle during a gathering of residents following the death of homeless person Michael Kent, who lived in this bus shelter along The Esplanade in Toronto, Ont. When Thompson-Cannino was first shown photos of possible suspects, she spent several minutes deliberating between two candidates. Mistaken identity. But don’t worry, either: Mistaken Identity doesn’t include any crusading born-again numbers, like 1980’s The Wanderer. To assess which hypothesis is most likely, we created a model sea turtle visual system and used it to analyse debris samples from beach surveys and from necropsied turtles. Keralite lynched in Tamil Nadu. However, having advocated for sequential lineups in years past, he now says he suspects that in the end, the two lineup methods won't differ much in their rates of false identifications. And yet she was wrong. Ganny said she’s had nightmares all week in which she keeps seeing someone lying in the bus shelter. "It works in certain contexts, but not in a lineup," he says. To be sure, there's a widely accepted view in the law that it's better to let the guilty go free than to punish an innocent person. "It's easily contaminated, and it can fade with time.". Wixted agrees with the academy's recommendation for more research. Click here to contribute. Our Correspondent. In other words, sequential lineups seem to make people less likely to make a choice at all. Steblay, N. K., Wells, G. L., & Douglass, A. Such a move would go a long way toward preventing officers from influencing eyewitness identifications — inadvertently or otherwise — and inflating witness confidence, says Loftus. Case of mistaken identity 'a total nightmare' for mom of homeless man. We ask you to keep your comments relevant and respectful. The committee's report underscored the importance of cluing into a witness's initial confidence. "It turns out sequential lineups are inferior," says Wixted. If you're able to go above and beyond to help us during this important time, please consider making an additional financial contribution. "You get one memory test, and one test only.". Visit our Community Guidelines for more information and details on how to adjust your email settings. But it turns out there are no rules for detectives to go by.". 9 Current page. If you don't see it please check your junk folder. The above illustration in CHESS , given in C.N. In the years since Cotton was exonerated, he and Thompson-Cannino co-authored the 2010 bestselling book "Picking Cotton" about their experience, and have campaigned together to reform eyewitness identification procedures. In 2011, the New Jersey Supreme Court issued a landmark decision requiring judges to instruct jurors on the limits of eyewitness identification. "What did they say two months ago when they first saw the guy?". The police officer smiles and says "good job," and the witness's confidence grows. Much more critical, Wells says, is the choice of "fillers," the nonsuspect individuals in a lineup. Is eyewitness identification more reliable than we think? By some estimates, around a third of law enforcement agencies in the United States now use the sequential format, says John Wixted, PhD, a psychologist at the University of California, San Diego. In fact, eyewitness misidentification has played a role in more than 70 percent of wrongfully convicted individuals, according to the Innocence Project, an organization that works to exonerate wrongfully convicted people. This is another (gross) case of mistaken identity. July 7th 2014 Author. Using that analysis, sequential lineups don't appear to be beneficial — and might lead to slightly more misidentifications than simultaneous lineups, Gronlund and Wixted have reported (Current Directions in Psychological Science, 2014). Wells remains skeptical of the ROC method. In a recent meta-analysis of studies from around the globe, he and his colleagues found that confirming feedback (such as "Good, you picked the suspect") strongly inflated an eyewitness's confidence in his or her judgments (Psychology, Public Policy, and Law, 2014). on Wednesday, Oct. 28, 2020. In the years since, numerous … The decision in Shogun Finance Ltd v. Hudson [2003] 3 WLR 1371 dealt with the notion of mistaken identity and considered the rules of agency when dealing with the formation of a hire purchase contract. As the day went on, Ganny said her other son and daughter called around and discovered it wasn’t Peter who had met his death in the bus shelter. That makes them extremely susceptible to modification. Read more about cookies here. Author of the article: Sue-Ann Levy. A lawyer asks, "Do you remember if the suspect had pierced ears? But in the last two decades, numerous analyses have converged on the fact that eyewitness confidence is actually a strong indicator of accuracy. “I was shaking … it was like a total nightmare,” she said Saturday, recalling the ordeal. In a suspected case of mistaken identity, an autorickshaw driver, T. Ramu, 26, of Peraiyur was kidnapped and assaulted by an unidentified gang under T. Kallupatti police station limits on Tuesday. Beginning in the 1990s, forensic DNA testing has revealed hundreds of cases of wrongful convictions. ", For that reason, the only eyewitness identification that really matters is the first one, Wixted says. Among the committee's findings was a recommendation that law enforcement officers videotape the initial witness-identification process and document the witness's confidence judgment at the time he or she first identifies a suspect. "If you use poor fillers, an innocent suspect who does fit the description is at high risk of being identified," he says. However, despite concluding that ROC analysis has advantages over previous methods, the authors also noted some concerns that ROC could be influenced by certain measurement errors and biases. But in the 1980s, Wells started testing a new method: sequential lineups, in which possible suspects are viewed one at a time rather than all at once. Italian judges find 'serious neglect' in mistaken identity case. This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below. Later, the witness sees the suspect's photograph in the newspaper. COVID-19 resources for psychologists, health-care workers and the public. Initial eyewitness confidence reliably predicts eyewitness identification accuracy. Many people think of memory as a kind of mental YouTube; when you want to recall an event, just find the right link and hit play. [Figure][1] CREDIT: ANDREI UTEVSKY Until the mid-1800s, leeches were applied to treat ailments including headaches, stomach pain, obesity, fever, and even mental illness, after which their efficacy was seriously doubted. "The science is going to be much better as a result. He spent 33 hours in the Cobb County Jail, pleading with his … Mistaken identity is a defense in criminal law which claims the actual innocence of the criminal defendant, and attempts to undermine evidence of guilt by asserting that any eyewitness to the crime incorrectly thought that they saw the defendant, when in fact the person seen by the witness was someone else. Related Reading: There's no better example of "mistaken identity" than being confused for a god- and this article is full of people who found themselves in that situation. "What has been described as a success story of psychological research is not looking like it's quite so simple anymore," says Steven E. Clark, PhD, a psychologist at the University of California, Riverside. Today, one species, Hirudo medicinalis , is a U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA)-cleared device that is widely used to help reattached scalps and fingers as they … ", Yet law enforcement officers can include anyone in a lineup. : 1861 - 1954), Sat 13 Nov 1869, Page 2 - SINGULAR CASE OF MISTAKEN IDENTITY. In reality, memories aren't merely played back but are freshly reassembled every time they're recalled. There was an error, please provide a valid email address. Mistaken identity. Wells, however, is hopeful that science will continue to chip away at the problem, finding new and better methods to reduce mistaken IDs without reducing accurate ones. In a traditional lineup, a witness views six to nine potential suspects (or their photographs) simultaneously. LEVY: Homeless man dies after living 7 months in bus shelter, LEVY: Woman living in North York bus shelter since June, tap here to see other videos from our team. They say on Saturday a car similar to what Jeffries and Manuel were driving was stolen in East Portland and used in a bunch of crimes. 13 Current page. In a traditional lineup, a witness views six to nine potential suspects (or their photographs) simultaneously. You have corrected this article This article has been corrected by You and other Voluntroves This article has been corrected by Voluntroves Police departments across the country began making changes to lineup procedures, such as presenting possible suspects one at a time rather than all at once. ", What emerges is an inaccurate memory that is rich with details that feel very real, says Elizabeth Loftus, PhD, a psychologist at the University of California, Irvine, well-known for her work on human memory. Gronlund, S. D., Wixted, J. T., & Mickes, L. (2014). To minimize that risk, Wells recommends creating administrative rules that require some reasonable suspicion before presenting someone's face to the witness. The problem, they say, is that previous analytical methods confounded accuracy with a witness's willingness to choose a suspect. By Holly Jackson. By Maritza Mendez, DMD. The problem, experts say, is in considering what witnesses say on the stand. Since I was such a novice, I thought my bosses wouldn’t send women out to dark and frightening places. "You have to treat eyewitness evidence as a form of trace evidence," Wells says, not unlike the fibers and hairs and gunpowder residue that investigators collect from a crime scene. ... but ProtonMail and Signal can be used to protect your identity by using end-to-end encryption. Ultimately, the committee called for using a broader array of statistical tools to tackle the question, and recommended that law enforcement agencies stick with their existing protocols until the science is clear. While gingival cancers can be difficult to detect, survival rates depend on early treatment. "In recent times we've seen some great successes, in terms of the legal system waking up and paying attention to the body of scientific work. Later, in a photo lineup, she identified Ronald Cotton — a 22-year-old man who looked strikingly like her sketch and had previous run-ins with the law. After the assault, Thompson-Cannino, then a 22-year-old college student, helped police sketch artists create a composite picture of her attacker. I was interested to read your article 'Mistaken Identity' in the BMJ 15th September about the potential risk from the similarities between lignocaine, water and sodium chloride ampoules. Much of the recent debate involves lineups — or, more commonly, photo arrays. There are two predominant hypotheses as to why animals ingest plastic: 1) they are opportunistic feeders, eating plastic when they encounter it, and 2) they eat plastic because it resembles prey items. I was so new in fact, that I hadn’t even met all of my bosses. He found that sequential lineups resulted in a significant decrease in the false identification rate, with only a small drop in the correct identification rate. A 2011 meta-analysis of 72 studies by Wells and colleagues found that eyewitnesses made fewer mistaken identifications when suspects were presented in sequential, rather than simultaneous, lineups (Psychology, Public Policy, and Law, 2011). "The original memory is fading, you're reconstructing the event with new information available to you, or new sources of suggestion. Advancing psychology to benefit society and improve lives, Call for Papers/Proposals/Nominations (43), © 2020 American Psychological Association. Cotton was convicted of rape and sentenced to life in prison. Mistaken Identity defines identity politics as the “neutralization of movements against racial oppression. 3 Current page. Representational Image. It is the ideology that emerged to appropriate this emancipatory legacy in service of the advancement of political and economic elites.” 3974 and in Excuses for Losing at Chess , was the frontispiece to Chess Life-Pictures by George Alcock MacDonnell (London, 1883): Mistaken identity. 7 Current page. Betty Ganny fell out of her chair when a Toronto Police officer arrived at her door Tuesday morning to tell her they found her son Peter dead in a bus shelter on the Esplanade. Please try again. Comments may take up to an hour for moderation before appearing on the site. But in the 1980s, Wells started testing a new method: sequential lineups, in which possible suspects are viewed one at a time rather than all at once. Kris Erickson, Philip N. Howard, A Case of Mistaken Identity? Rhitu Chatterjee * Rhitu Chatterjee is a science writer in Washington, D.C. See all Hide authors and affiliations. In light of such evidence, the Innocence Project endorsed the method, and many police departments changed their lineup procedures. “I was just shaking inside … my nerves were just shot,” Ganny said. The next issue of The Toronto Sun Headline News will soon be in your inbox. Unlike previous analytical methods, ROC analysis takes into account how confident a witness is at the time he or she picks a suspect from a lineup. We encountered an issue signing you up. Their story has become another classic example of the fragile nature of eyewitness testimony. "If you look at the literature, this is just not true.". "And in both cases the incorrect conclusion was transmitted worldwide, including through police departments all across the nation — and that's where we stand today.". by Mark Lacagnina | September 11, 2017. Fillers should generally fit the witness's physical account of the suspect. A terrified family suffered a case of mistaken identity after calling a snake catcher out in the middle of the night - all to save them from a stripey mushroom. As scientists continue to refine their methods, I hope these points of controversy won't take away from the rest of the story. From magazine issue: 5 November 2016. The report's authors concluded that previous analytical methods conflated accuracy with willingness to make an identification. 12 Current page. "People have incredible difficulty recognizing the absence of the perpetrator," he says. Unauthorized distribution, transmission or republication strictly prohibited. Imagine a witness who hesitates when identifying a suspect from a lineup. Postmedia is committed to maintaining a lively but civil forum for discussion and encourage all readers to share their views on our articles. As the Innocence Project statistics make clear, many eyewitnesses are mistaken, even confident ones. For many years, researchers didn't think an eyewitness's confidence revealed much about his or her accuracy in identifying a suspect, says Wixted. As noted in our feature article on Alexander McDonnell, no picture of him is known. You can read the full text of this article if you: Select an option Log In Buy Article Subscribe Content & Permissions Ovid Member Institutional Access Institutional members access full text with Ovid ® Mistaken Identity. Much of the recent debate involves lineups — or, more commonly, photo arrays. Mistaken Identity. "One of the claims that the eyewitness field has made for years is that we can implement new procedures that will substantially reduce the false identification rate with little or no loss of correct identifications," he says. , Thompson-Cannino, then a 22-year-old college student, helped police sketch artists create a composite picture of attacker! I was such a novice security guard, having only been on the site who hesitates identifying... 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