State v. Henderson and the New Model Jury Charges - New Jersey ...

a-8-08.opn.html
Applied Cognitive Psychol. 859, 864-65 (2006) (addressing effects of
confirmatory feedback on confidence). Indeed, this Court has already
acknowledged that accuracy and confidence “may not be related to one another
at all.” See Romero, supra, 191 N.J. at 75 (citation omitted).
DNA exoneration cases buttress the lab results. Almost all of the
eyewitnesses in those cases testified at trial that they were positive they had
identified the right person. See Garrett, supra, 63-64 (noting also that in 57% of
the trials, “the witnesses had earlier not been certain at all”).
In the face of those proofs, we are mindful of the observation that “there is
almost nothing more convincing [to a jury] than a live human being who takes
the stand, points a finger at the defendant, and says ‘That’s the one!’” Watkins
v. Sowders, 449 U.S. 341, 352, 101 S. Ct. 654, 661, 66 L. Ed.2d 549, 558-59
(Brennan, J., dissenting) (quoting Elizabeth Loftus, Eyewitness Testimony 19
(1979)) (emphasis in original).
The State challenges the above concepts in various ways: it argues that
some studies evaluating real police files and investigations are unreliable
because it is unclear whether the witnesses were given proper pre-lineup
warnings, see, e.g., Valentine et al., supra; that misidentification statistics
gleaned from more than 200 nationwide DNA exonerations are insufficient to
conclude that a serious problem exists; that the only DNA exonerations relevant
to this case are the five cases from New Jersey, which all predated the Attorney
General Guidelines; that exculpatory DNA evidence does not necessarily prove
a defendant is innocent; and that DNA exonerations only remind us that the
criminal justice system is imperfect.
That broad-brush approach, however, glosses over the consistency and
importance of the comprehensive scientific research that is discussed in the
record. Recent studies -- ranging from analyses of actual police lineups, to
laboratory experiments, to DNA exonerations - prove that the possibility of
mistaken identification is real, and the consequences severe.
IV. Current Legal Framework
The current standards for determining the admissibility of eyewitness
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