Anastaska 's Key Ideas from Psychology and Law
by Aldert Vrij, Amina A Memon, Ray Bull

In a more recent analysis, Scheck, Neufield and Dwyer (2000) described 62 exoneration cases (eight persons were sentenced to death). In 52 of these 62 cases, mistaken identification occurred, involving, in total, 77 mistaken eyewitnesses. These findings led Wells et al. (1998: p. 605) to conclude that ‘‘eyewitness identification evidence is amongst the least reliable forms of evidence and yet it is persuasive to juries‘‘. While the DNA studies generally support this conclusion, Wells et al. (2000) point out that we do not know how representative these case studies are.

DNA exoneration is only possible in a fraction of cases, mostly sexual assault cases. Crimes such as murders, muggings and robberies rarely leave DNA trace evidence, so it is not possible to use this type of evidence in these crimes to question the reliability of witness evidence (Wells et al., 2000). A large part of what we know about eyewitness identification comes from empirical research on the factors influencing eyewitness performance.