Eyewitness Testimony: Role, Accuracy, Reliability, and Factors Impacting It

Essay on Eyewitness
testimony

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION ..........................................................................................................................2
TASK ..............................................................................................................................................2
CONCLUSION ...............................................................................................................................5
REFERENCES................................................................................................................................6
INTRODUCTION
Fundamental justice demands truth and impartiality because they become a necessity in
ensuring correct justice is delivered. The role of eyewitness comes in picture when an offence is
committed. At the worldwide level, all the judicial systems use eyewitness testimony as the most
famous primary source of evidence. It is the the most imperative form of evidence where after
recording the oath, the statements of the eyewitness are recorded. It thus holds a special
importance in the justice delivery system. It is expected that there is honesty of the witness when
they are on trial. It is a powerful tool within the justice delivery system that allows for
convictions(Eysenck, 2020). This essay will cover in detail the role of eyewitness testimony in
judiciary, its accuracy and reliability and what factors impact eyewitness testimony. It shall also
cover the concept of empirical evidence and how it can help to mitigate the factors mentioned in
the essay.
TASK
An eyewitness is someone who has the first hand knowledge and can give description of
the commission of a crime or criminal act which is against the law. They have the information to
certify the happening of the offence because they have seen it themselves that person is known as
a eyewitness. Eyewitness testimony is a legal term and is considered as an essential tool in
identifying a suspect and getting them arrested that means they are spectator of a crime.

Eyewitness is thus defined as the person who is present at the event and gives its information in
the law court (Liu, 2021). They are crucial for fair trial procedures and ensure delivery of a fair
and reasonable justice to the aggrieved party. When the statements given by the eyewitness are
consistent, natural and accurate then they are held accountable to give acquittals and convictions.
They are thus helpful in uncovering the truth about a crime. The testimony given by eyewitness
relies on storing and retrieving of the information in the court room.
Eyewitness testimony thus needs to be reliable and accurate for its effectiveness in the
judiciary system. The trial process is strongly impacted by the eyewitness testimony because
juries heavily rely on the eyewitness accounts. The information processing of human memory
has its own limitations that can lead to its invalidity, unreliability and inaccuracy. Research has
suggested that there are situations when the accuracy of them can be questioned. But it has been
argued that human mind can retrieve the information easier which are shocking in nature or are
vital and important for any circumstance (Loftus, 2019) . It has been argued and presented in
some theories that when a witness observes a crime which is highly violent or creates fear and
feeling of anxiety then they are less likely to remember information because of the extreme level
of stress that they have experienced. This in result creates the eyewitness account unreliable and
inaccurate because they fail to remember the details and pieces of the information that they saw
happening in front of their eyes. This raises question regarding the time of occurrence of a crime
or how it occurred, etc. even the short viewing time by the witness of the offence or commission
of crime can lead to unreliability of their statement in the court room. The high stress
environment and the mental trauma faced by the witness can highly impact their mind due to
which they can give the details of the incident but they might not be accurate. When the
offenders are in front of the witness it is the general tendency that their eyes focus on the weapon
and the not on the details of the person due to the situation of fear. Due to the focus on the
weapon the details of the offender are not registered in the mind of the eyewitness fully(Nayak &
Khajuria, 2019) .
Eyewitness testimony is impacted due to the factors that are present around the witness.
These factors can be Personal, Structural or situational and Investigative. Personal factors
such as Stress can badly affect the situation because many people under stress misidentify the
culprit even though they have observed the event with their own eyes. Even the confident
personality of the eyewitness can result in uncertainty because these type of individuals have