Friday, December 11, 2015
The Problems With Witnesses
Before this year, I believed witness testimonies were the most reliable and important piece of evidence in a court case. My mindset was, well if they were there, they know exactly what happened. Therefore, they are the most reliable and most aware of everything that had happened. After sitting through over twenty presentations on the volumes of the Ferguson case, my opinion has changed completely. Although multiple witnesses were there, each person had a different perspective. They could have interpreted things differently, had an obstructed view, previous experiences that changed the way they felt about certain groups of people, or many other things that could have differentiated their testimonies. I also realized people are forgetful and can not remember every single detail from the incident. Listening to all the witnesses' testimonies made me frustrated because everyone was saying different things. Now whether they were lying, telling the truth, or mistakenly said what they THOUGHT they saw, it all must be taken into consideration. All the differing testimonies made it hard for me to choose one side over the other.
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I believe that the largest determinant in the varying statement is the ladder of inference that they go through while they are there (for example from the Ferguson, many witnesses saying that Brown was fighting with Wilson, but could barely see the police car, may have assumed this because of his race). There are many factors that could cause different testimonies, some of which you mentioned there. The ladder of inference that we talked about earlier is inevitable, especially in situations like this, which leads to lack of facts and too much personal opinion. I agree that the different testimonies make it hard to choose one side or the other, because the information is so consistent. Because of human nature, it makes the legal system very difficult to do it's job when there is such a large number of witnesses but so little video evidence. We don't know who to believe because of the multitude of inconsistencies. The digital age has made it easier to convict people with more cell phone taping, security cameras etc. I agree that visual witnesses simply cannot be reliable because of the ladder of inference that goes on as they watch the scene and the crime in action, as well as inferences that they make after the crime/altercation has taken place.
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