Innocence Project and Eyewitness Memory

The Innocence Project

• A group in the United States comprising scientists, professors, and lawyers.
• Dedicated to exonerating wrongfully convicted individuals.
• Focuses on criminal convictions with DNA evidence.
• Deals with cases where DNA evidence was either not tested initially, or has been discovered or advanced since the original trial.
• Exonerated almost 400 people.
• These individuals were incarcerated for an average of 14 years.
• During this time, the actual perpetrators remained free and committed at least 50 additional violent crimes (sexual assaults and murders).

Factors Leading to Wrongful Convictions

• The most common factor (just under 70% of cases) is flawed eyewitness memory.
• Witnesses misidentify individuals, clothing, vehicles, etc.
• Eyewitness memory is critical in investigations and raises universal problems of human memory.

Relevance to New Zealand

• The problem of wrongful convictions due to eyewitness testimony is not limited to the US.
• New Zealand also faces this issue, though perhaps not on the same scale.
• New Zealand lacks an equivalent of the Innocence Project.