The Forgetting Witness
During a schoolyard altercation, Year 9 student Jamal sees a stranger push a younger student. Police interview Jamal 10 minutes later in a noisy corridor, where an officer asks, 'The tall boy in the red cap pushed him, didn't he?' Jamal says yes. Two months later, at a formal interview, Jamal is shown a lineup of six boys, all wearing red caps, and picks number 4 with low confidence. Number 4 was not involved. At trial, the defence argues Jamal's memory was contaminated. The prosecution argues memory is like a video recording and Jamal's confidence at the lineup proves accuracy.
1. Explain, using reconstructive memory and at least two specific factors, why Jamal's identification may be unreliable.
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Memory is reconstructive: encoding, storage and retrieval involve interpretation and gaps filled by schema. Factors: (1) Leading question - 'the tall boy in the red cap pushed him, didn't he?' supplies details (height, cap, guilt) that Jamal may incorporate, a misinformation effect. (2) Encoding conditions - a noisy corridor and brief exposure reduce attention to the stranger's face, so the original trace is weak. (3) Lineup bias - all six wore red caps, so the cap cue cannot discriminate and may pull Jamal toward a familiar-looking feature. (4) Delay of two months allows decay and interference. The prosecution's 'video recording' analogy is wrong because memory is fallible and changeable.
2. The prosecution claims lineup confidence proves accuracy. Evaluate this claim and explain what a fair identification procedure would look like.
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Confidence and accuracy correlate weakly, especially after a delay and after feedback; low confidence at lineup does not prove accuracy, and post-identification feedback can inflate confidence later. A fair procedure: a double-blind administrator who does not know the suspect, a lineup where the suspect does not stand out (foils matched on the cap and height), a warning that the perpetrator may not be present, and a statement of confidence taken immediately before any feedback. These reduce expectancy and bias. On a judgement call, note that even a fair procedure cannot repair a contaminated original trace, so the earlier suggestive interview remains the central problem.