Eyewitness has gain support and emphasis in the corridors of justice today. However, it is not wise to rely entirely on their testimonies because at times misidentification is common. Lots of research has been done on this topic which is so controversial based on how reliable human memory is, factors influencing eyewitness at that time of event and possible factors that can distort the eyewitness perspectives.
One factor that has proven to be influencing eyewitness is the task of identifying faces. Difficulties arise from encoding of faces. Some faces are identical and it will be difficult for a person to distinguish them. For instance the eyewitnesses at the scene where Morris Dontae was committing the crime of killing the two officers may not have well identify the face of the shooter well to claims that the attacker was really Morris or someone else who resembles Morris. This is aptly captured in the defense team where they argue that Morris is just but a victim of misidentification and the person captured in the tape with similar sounds and looks could be someone else according to Attorney Karen Meeks the defense personnel. The eyewitness may have be in traumatic situation hence could not encode the face accurately. The ambiguity in the eyewitness memory can be attached to the diversified strategies when under the influence of traumatic situation.
Traumatic and stressful events can also affect the eyewitness encoding processes of memory. The shooting and killing of the two police officers at a close range was a traumatic event and this may have caused memory repression out of consciousness of the witness. The people at the scene of shooting may have experienced dissociation. This may have made Kelly Curtis the eyewitness to believe she vividly recall important details of the event. Kelly Curtis had actually lost her husband Officer David Curtis. This was a stressful and hard moment for her. Kelly Curtis probably may have suffer from some degree of disorders like post-stress disorder which then affects the accuracy of the information she was giving out at he trial.
Dontae Morris is said to have been heavily armed with a revolver which he pulled out from his pants before using it to shoot and kill Officer Curtis and officer Kocab at a close range on their heads. Victims like Kelly from the real sense were more focused on the weapon that used in and the terrifying sounds emitted when shooting occurred that engulfed the entire place losing focus on the fundamental details but remembers the weapon used clearly. This weapon focus affects eyewitness memory since one might not be used to those weapons hence causing an aroused form where people or the witness tend to focus on the central details and forget to concentrate on the fundamental details like face or physical appearance of the attacker. In the case of Kelly, the probability that she focused more on weapon is so high since she remembers well the revolver than the outlooks of Morris at the time of shootings.
Another factor is interference; the eyewitness testimony can be affected by many external stimuli. This obviously reduces the memory traces and erases memory representation concerning the event. The state of cue-overload principle may have occur to Kelly since just after the shootings, the killer vanished into the thin air with the help of Brantley his girlfriend, a radio call from police was heard then came the panic of the people rushing up and down and curiosity of wanting to know what has and stumbling at the scene causing interruptions which then brings problem in tracing the original information by the eyewitness.
There are other factors that influence eyewitness after the event has occurred just to mention but a few is the effect of misinformation. One may report what he or she believes to have seen at the scene of event although it may not be true due to false memory. Witness should therefore be provided with helpful options when test is delivered. Another effect is the police lineups where witness is required to reveal the perpetrators of the crime to face justice. The witness can successful identify the perpetrator or he can successful identify but the criminal is not in the lineup or he cannot be able to completely identify the criminal only to end up identifying an innocent person instead. This is truly elicited in Kelly case at the court where the defense team informs Kelly of her husbands daily dairy in which Morris was is most wanted hence putting his life in danger.
Reference
MacLeod, M. Retrieval-induced forgetting in eyewitness memory: forgetting as a consequence of remembering. Applied cognitive Psychology, 16(2): 135-149, 2002.
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