FORENSIC PSYCHOLOGY
REAL LIFE CASES OF EYEWITNESS TESTIMONY GONE WRONG
TRIGGER WARNING: mentions of murder and rape, please read at your own discretion.
Eyewitness testimonies are not always accurate. Though these testimonies can be the most conclusive of evidence in a court of law and can lead to successful convictions, they usually turn out to be faulty and incorrect. Here are some true stories of eyewitness testimonies gone wrong:
Randall Adams
convicted 1977, exonerated 1989
Adams was wrongfully convicted for the murder of Dallas Texas police officer Robert W. Wood. He was sentenced to death for the crime after the actual killer David Ray Harris identified him as the man who had killed Officer Wood. Harris received complete immunity from the prosecution in exchange for his testimony. The truth was discovered when filmmaker Errol Morris became interested in this case and produced The Thin Blue Line- a documentary- based on the crime, and Adams was finally acquitted after spending more than 12 years in prison for a crime he never committed.
Dale Johnston
convicted 1984, exonerated 1990
Johnston was sentenced to death for the murders of his stepdaughter and her boyfriend after an eyewitness recognised him from a picture in the newspaper in Ohio. The witness , who was hypnotised for 19 days to try to enhance his memory, said that he had seen Johnston force a young couple into his car while threatening to punch them. There was no other substantial evidence against the defendant, but he was still convicted. Jonhnston was cleared of the charge in 1990 when his defense team discovered four independent witnesses who had seen the murdered couple near the crime scene at precisely the same time as the hypnotized witness had apparently seen Johnston with the same couple in the town of Logan. Due to the discrepancy in the evidence presented, the charges against him were dropped.
Timothy Hennis
convicted 1986, exonerated 1989
Timothy Hennis was sentenced to death for the murder of a woman and her two children in North Carolina. During the trial, two eyewitnesses identified him as the killer. The first witness testified in court that he had seen Hennis in the driveway outside the victims’ house close to the time when the crime was committed. The second witness was a bank employee who worked at the ATM where she said she saw a man resembling Hennis use the dead woman’s card to withdraw money. A new trial was ordered and the previous conviction reversed as the trial judge had allowed the prosecution to display distressing images of the crime scene to sway the jury. During the new trial, the defense discovered that the first witness had been coerced by the prosecution to make a definite identification, even though he was not positive that Hennis was the man he had seen in the driveway. Similarly, the second witness was discredited when it came to light that she was not on duty when the fraudulent transaction had taken place in the ATM. Furthermore , the semen recovered from the dead woman’s body did not match Hennis’ blood type. Thus, Timothy Hennis was discharged after 3 years spent in prison.
Joseph Brown
convicted 1974, exonerated 1987
Joseph Brown was sentenced to death for the murder and rape of a woman in Florida. An eyewitness placed him at the scene of the crime by testifying in court that he had accompanied Brown and another man (who was never identified or found) in a car there. Brown and the other man had entered the clothing store, which was also the scene of the crime, while the witness stayed back in the car. It was only when he heard a gunshot from inside that he entered the store to discover the body of the dead woman. He also denied being offered anything in return by the prosecution for his testimony during the cross examination, and Brown got convicted for the crime. It was later disclosed that the witness had been offered immunity from conviction in a robbery case for his testimony, and a retrial was ordered on this ground. Upon retrial, the witness recanted his previous testimony, with the result of Brown being let off by the court in 1987.
Sonia Jacobs
convicted 1976, exonerated 1992
Sonia Jacobs and her boyfriend, Jesse Tafero, were sentenced to death for the murder of two police officers in the state of Florida. Walter Rhodes, a self-reported accomplice to the crime, also acted as the eyewitness during the trial where he testified against both Jacobs and Tafero for the murders. In addition to Rhodes, a jailhouse informant contended that Jacobs had confessed to the killings in front of her. Filmmaker Micki Dickoff, who was a childhood friend of Jacobs, took an interest in the case and helped reveal evidence that exposed both the witnesses as liars. Rhodes also failed to pass a subsequent polygraph test. Jacobs was acquitted of the charges in 1992, but Tafero had already been executed by then.
Ronald Cotton
convicted 1985, exonerated 1995
Jennifer Thompson was 22 years old when a man broke into her apartment and raped her. After the assault, she helped the sketch artist at the police station create a passable picture of her attacker. She then identified Ronald Cotton as her rapist from a lineup of six men; and went on to testify against him in court with such conviction that there was no doubt in anyone’s mind that Cotton was the assaulter. He was convicted. More than a decade later, when DNA testing was newly introduced, the semen sample Thompson had provided to the medical officer after the attack was compared with Cotton’s DNA. The match came out negative. Meanwhile, Cotton, who was serving his sentence of life in prison plus fifty-four years, had many a times overhead another convict, Bobby Poole, boast that Cotton was serving his sentence. Poole’s DNA matched with the sample taken from Thompson, and Cotton was finally acquitted. Thompson and Cotton became friends after he forgave her, and the two of them co-authored Picking Cotton- a book based on the events of the case.
To watch the YouTube video in which Cotton shares his side of the story.
