Eyewitness Testimony

These tests have resulted in the exoneration of people innocent of the crime for which they were convicted. Wells et al. (1998) described the first 40 cases in the USA in which DNA was found to exonerate a previously convicted person (five of these persons were sentenced to death). Of these 40 cases, 36 (90 percent) involved eyewitness identification evidence in which one or more witnesses falsely identified a person. One person was identified by five separate witnesses.