Criminal Justice System Reform (Essay Sample)

Student’s Name Professor’s Name Course Date Criminal Justice System Reform While eyewitness misidentification is among the leading causes of wrongful convictions, the United States judges have failed to provide jurors with specific advice concerning factors influencing human memory. Memory encompasses three processes: acquisition, retention, and retrieval. Nevertheless, most ordinary jurors are often unaware that distortions can occur in these phases, impacting the reliability of eye witness accounts made even under ideal circumstances. Similarly, commonly held assumptions concerning the relationship between certainty and memory, the impact of stress on ability to remember, and the efficiency of cross-racial recognition have been disproved. Consequently, the public is increasingly demanding for the implementation of safeguards to prevent wrongful convictions caused by jurors’ reliance on false eyewitness testimonies. For instance, judges may advice jurors to ignore eyewitness identification evidence when conditions surrounding the provided proof are unreliable. Another safeguard would entail banning convictions based on uncorroborated evidence from a single witness. Thus, inclusion of psychiatry specialists' testimony and provision of cautionary instructions are preferred improvements that offer the jury more knowledge to boost its efficacy in a well-functioning justice system. Unreliable Conditions Surrounding Provided Evidence Advising jurors to ignore eyewitness identification evidence when conditions surrounding the provided proof are not ideal prevents wrongful convictions by allowing the courts to recognize distortions that affect human memory. In one of the Supreme Court’s decisions, the justices wrote, “The vagaries of eyewitness identification are well-known; the annals of criminal law are rife with instances of mistaken identification,” (Rosenthal 183). Substantial studies show that witnesses’ challenges in accurately acquiring and recalling alleged perpetrators faces contributes to the rising cases of wrongful convictions. Witnesses are often inclined to choose the person presented in a police's photographic or actual potential suspect lineup who most closely fits their recall of the suspect; thus, introducing a significant risk of bias into identification proof. These inaccuracies can sometimes be blamed on investigative authorities using suggestive or biased approaches to encourage witnesses to positively identify a potential suspect. For example, a false identification may occur when witnesses are only shown the potential suspect’s image or they are shown a lineup where a particular individual closely matches their initial description of the perpetrator. When jurors are unaware of these biases that taint the witnesses’ testimony, a wrongful conviction may be exercised. Consequently, reforming the identification procedures through training officers to avoid using suggestive concepts in suspect identification processes could play a significant role in addressing cases of unjustified imprisonment. Also, instructing witnesses that the alleged perpetrators they are looking for might not be in a lineup can reduce the pressure that leads to mis-identification. Uncorroborated Evidence Similarly, banning convictions based on uncorroborated witness accounts from one witness can ensure that the evidence presented to the juror is credible to reach a fair verdict. Study shows that the corroborative rule prevents judges and juries from relying on a single piece of evidence to convict the accus...