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In eyewitness identification, in criminal law, evidence is received from a witness "who has actually seen an event and can so testify in court". [1]The Innocence Project states that "Eyewitness misidentification is the single greatest cause of wrongful convictions nationwide, playing a role in more than 75% of convictions overturned through DNA testing."
For all exonerations listed in the original 873 cases identified, the most common were perjury or false accusation (51%), mistaken witness identification (43%), official misconduct (i.e., by police, prosecutors, or judges), false or misleading forensic evidence (24%) and false confession (16%).
A child may be the main or only witness for a crime committed; and as a result, it is common to find a child in the middle of a criminal case serving as an eyewitness. Cases may last for years, potentially causing children to be involved in the interviewing process for prolonged periods of time.
She wrote in a report that mistaken eyewitness identification was faulted for nearly 80% of wrongful convictions in the first 200 cases overturned by DNA evidence.
It is evident that misidentification is not uncommon with police lineups. In a study published by the Association for Psychological Science, scientists discovered that in a group of 349 people that had been exonerated with DNA evidence, 258 of these people (roughly 3 out of every 4) were involved in mistaken eyewitness identification. [24]
Eyewitness testimony is the account a bystander or victim gives in the courtroom, describing what that person observed that occurred during the specific incident under investigation. Ideally this recollection of events is detailed; however, this is not always the case.
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The Innocence Project was established in the wake of a study by the U.S. Department of Justice and U.S. Senate, in conjunction with Yeshiva University's Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law, which claimed that incorrect identification by eyewitnesses was a factor in over 70% of wrongful convictions.