... A report circulated by the Centre of Wrongful Convictions1 analysed 86 cases of defendants sentenced to death and then exonerated: Eyewitness testimony played a role in 46 (53.5%) of the cases; and in 33 (38.4%) of the cases it was the only evidence against them. This report and numerous others proposes eyewitness testimony as the single highest instigator of wrongful convictions, higher than the other wrongful conviction types combined2. Unfortunately DNA technology can only be used in a small number of cases (usually sex attacks), and this has invoked deep concern among the psychology community. For the many thousands of convicted persons in prison protesting their innocence due to mistaken identification, how many are telling the truth, and how many will continue to be convicted based on an erroneous testimony from an eyewitness? The fallibility of the human memory has been discussed for over a century; although the application of this ...

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