Criminal Key Question

Is eye witness testimony too unreliable to trust?

• If eye witness testimony is currently unreliable, we can learn what makes it unreliable in order to develop techniques such as the cognitive interview.
• We want to make eye witness testimony as accurate as possible to avoid incorrect convictions and the labelling of innocent people.
• A judge and jury will need to know whether EWT is reliable so that they can be confident in relying upon a statement.

Weapon Focus

• Refers to the attention on a weapon while witnessing a crime, resulting in the inability to remember other details of the crime.
• Witnesses tend to focus on the weapon and not the criminal because weapons are unusual in many cultures.
• It is a focus of attention that diminishes the capacity of a witness to encode other information.

Post-event Information

• Witnesses are…