Rusty: Eyewitnesses are the "least" reliable type of evidence. More people have been WRONGLY convicted by eyewitnesses than anything else. In the case of Laci, I seem to recall that she was my height - 5'2"!! She not only had swollen ankles and sore feet, she was having trouble breathing!! There is No blasted way she went for a walk in that rugged Park. I was a mess the last month of my pregnancies. I couldn't even see my feet or get into or out of the bathtub by myself. I had to sleep half sitting up. A walk down a rugged path - Not a chance in my case. Also, it makes NO sense that she would leave her cell phone. Her purse perhaps, NOT the phone.!!
"Eyewitnesses are the "least" reliable type of evidence. More people have been WRONGLY convicted by eyewitnesses than anything else."
I do suppose you are talking about evidence in a court of law in the united states of America.
IN the event you are, credible "eyewitness" testimony properly cross-examined is second only in importance to a properly recieved "confession", if a judge is giving the decision. If he is not deciding he will instruct the jury to consider it that way. If the eye-witness testimony is credible to the judge and the jury ignores it, he will simply give a directed verdict and set the jury verdict aside.
One lawyer talking to another as they enter court for trial:
All eyewitness testimony is tainted except for your witness and my witness. And this morning I have started to doubt YOURS.....;-0)
As far as *Wrongful Convictions* and who is responsible it's not even close,IMO there is a prosecutorial misconduct scandal in this country,I had not seen stats. or studies. but I found this study done by the Chicago Tribune. The study covered thirty years, 1963-1999.(actual cases)IMHO it is a scandal.Enlightening ,but damn, this is too much truth at one time.
http://sun.soci.niu.edu/~critcrim/wrong/tribpros10.html http://sun.soci.niu.edu/~critcrim/wrong/tribpros11.html http://sun.soci.niu.edu/~critcrim/wrong/tribpros13.html http://sun.soci.niu.edu/~critcrim/wrong/tribpros12.html The verdict: Dishonor
By Ken Armstrong and Maurice Possley
Source: The Chicago Tribune, 10 January, 1999
With impunity, prosecutors across the country have violated their oaths and the law, committing the worst kinds of deception in the most serious of cases.
They have prosecuted a wife, hiding evidence her husband committed suicide. They have prosecuted parents, hiding evidence their daughter was killed by wild dogs.
They do it to win.
They do it because they won't get punished.
They have done it to defendants who came within hours of being executed, only to be exonerated.
In the first study of its kind, a Chicago Tribune analysis of thousands of court records, appellate rulings and lawyer disciplinary records from across the United States has found:
- Since a 1963 U.S. Supreme Court ruling designed to curb misconduct by prosecutors, at least 381 defendants nationally have had a homicide conviction thrown out because prosecutors concealed evidence suggesting innocence or presented evidence they knew to be false. Of all the ways that prosecutors can cheat, those two are considered the worst by the courts. And that number represents only a fraction of how often such cheating occurs.
- The U.S. Supreme Court has declared such misconduct by prosecutors to be so reprehensible that it warrants criminal charges and disbarment. But not one of those prosecutors was convicted of a crime. Not one was barred from practicing law. Instead, many saw their careers advance, becoming judges or district attorneys. One became a congressman.
- Of the 381 defendants, 67 had been sentenced to death. They include Verneal Jimerson of Illinois and Kirk Bloodsworth of Maryland, both later exonerated by DNA tests; Randall Dale Adams of Texas, whose wrongful conviction was revealed by the documentary "The Thin Blue Line;" and Sonia Jacobs of Florida, who was eventually freed but whose boyfriend, convicted on virtually identical evidence, had already been executed by the time her appeal prevailed.
Although the Tribune found 381 defendants whose homicide convictions were overturned based upon such misconduct, that number accounts for only a fraction of how often prosecutors commit such deception -- which is by design hidden and can take extraordinary efforts to uncover. No one knows how often prosecutors engage in such duplicity but aren't caught. And even when prosecutors are caught, findings of misconduct aren't filed in an easily accessible directory.
[SNIP][click on links for full read very exposing,damn]
Ray
Co, please list your eyewitness appellate overturns HERE:
(Ray is smiling)