By allowing ads to appear on this site, you support the local businesses who, in turn, support great journalism.
Execution sparks eyewitness debate
Placeholder Image

SAVANNAH — Before he was executed in Georgia last week, Troy Davis brought worldwide attention to his case by challenging the trustworthiness of bystanders who said they saw him shoot a police officer. Davis lost the battle to spare his life, but experts say his case adds fuel to an already-simmering debate over how much weight courts should give to eyewitness testimony.

Last month, New Jersey's top court made it easier for criminal defendants to challenge the credibility of eyewitnesses, while the U.S. Supreme Court is set in November to hear its first case dealing with eyewitness evidence in 34 years. Such issues also played a role in the abolition of Illinois' death penalty earlier this year and a 2009 law narrowing when capital punishment can be sought in Maryland.

Davis' execution outraged hundreds of thousands of people who said they feared an innocent man was being put to death, based on his defense attorneys' assertion that witnesses who had identified Davis in court as a killer two decades ago had tried years later to take it all back. Dorothy Ferrell was one of those witnesses.

"Well, I'm real sure, positive sure, that that is him, and you know, it's not a mistaken identity," Ferrell told a Savannah jury in 1991. "I did see him and you know, on the fact of what happened and how it happened, you know, I'm pretty sure it's him."

Nine years later, Ferrell signed an affidavit saying she didn't actually see the 1989 shooting of off-duty police officer Mark MacPhail, but pointed at Davis to tell police what they wanted to hear.

Legal experts say Davis' case serves as an example in the debate over eyewitness reliability, particularly in death penalty cases, when scientific studies show the human memory can be surprisingly faulty.

"There's going to be some broader discussions about whether the death penalty is viable at all, but before that happens there's going to be efforts to reform and see what can be done in states that believe in it and regularly use it," said Richard Dieter, executive director of the Death Penalty Information Center, which opposes capital punishment.

Even before Davis' execution last Wednesday, several states had reduced reliance on eyewitnesses.

The Supreme Court of New Jersey, which abolished the death penalty in 2007, last month issued a ruling making it easier for criminal defendants in its state courts to get pre-trial hearings challenging eyewitness evidence. It also requires judges to give juries more detailed instructions about potential flaws in eyewitness identifications.

In 2009, Maryland lawmakers prohibited prosecutors from seeking death unless they have DNA evidence, a videotape of the crime or a videotaped confession from the suspect.

"Eyewitness testimony is so horribly inaccurate — even under the very best of circumstances," said Rob Warden, director of the Chicago-based Center on Wrongful Convictions at Northwestern University. "We should never depend on eyewitness testimony in death penalty cases."

The center says that nationally, out of 138 defendants sentenced to death for murder and then later exonerated since the mid-1970s, 32 had been convicted in whole or in part based on erroneous eyewitness testimony.

As Illinois moved to abolish its death penalty in March, state officials cited Anthony Porter, who was condemned for a 1982 double murder based on eyewitness testimony that authorities later determined was false. Porter got a reprieve just two days before his execution in 1998, and was released from prison the following year.

Meanwhile, a researcher who's been studying eyewitness issues for 30 years released a study this month that shows police can reduce chances that witnesses will mistakenly point to innocent people in lineups by adopting a few simple procedures.

Gary Wells, an Iowa State University psychology professor, studied 497 instances of witnesses to real crimes looking at lineups on police computers in four states. He found that when witnesses looked at a group of photos all at once, they were more likely to compare faces and pick the one that most resembled the suspect — whether it was correct or not.

The rate of wrong identifications declined, from 18 percent to 12 percent, when witnesses viewed the photos one at a time.

Willis says the one-by-one approach would also make in-person lineups more reliable. It also helps if the officer working with the witness doesn't know the suspect is, to avoid influencing the outcome. He says police should also tell witnesses it's OK if they can't pick a suspect out of a lineup.

"These kinds of events that people witness, whether a victim or a bystander, often happen very quickly, they're unexpected," Wells said. "It's not like the only thing to look at is the perpetrator's face. There are other things going on; people fear for their safety."

Prosecutors balk at the idea that people are sentenced to death based purely on eyewitness testimony. In Davis' case, for example, prosecutors used shell casings recovered from the scenes of two different shootings hours apart to link the crimes to Davis, who admitted being at both places when shots were fired. A firearms examiner testified it was likely, but not certain, the casings came from the same gun. Some witnesses who identified Davis as the killer have never backed off their stories.

Scott Burns, director of the National District Attorneys Association, said advances in crime scene investigating technology have made it tougher for prosecutors to lean too heavily on eyewitnesses. He said he prosecuted a car-theft case in Utah years ago in which jurors asked if he had any DNA evidence.

"It has raised the expectations of juries," Burns said. "People want all of their senses stimulated. They want to see pictures, they want to watch video."

But eyewitness testimony remains a cornerstone of prosecutions, with many cases yielding very little physical evidence, said Brandon Garrett, a law professor at the University of Virginia.

In his recent book "Convicting The Innocent: Where Criminal Prosecutions Go Wrong," Garrett looked at 190 criminal cases where eyewitnesses helped win convictions for a range of crimes that were later overturned by DNA evidence. He found that witnesses often seemed more confident in identifying suspects from the witness stand years later than they were when interviewed by police right after a crime.

"You had these eyewitnesses almost without exception come into the courtroom and say they were absolutely certain they saw the defendant do the crime," Garrett said. "But more than half remembered being unsure at the time they saw their first lineup."

Among the exonerations Garrett studied was that of John Jerome White, who spent nearly 30 years in a Georgia prison for rape until he was exonerated by DNA testing in 2007. The case came with a startling twist: after White's release, police arrested another man for the same crime — a man who had stood in the same police lineup with White in 1979.

Barry Scheck, co-founder of the Innocence Project, said the legal system is poised to change how it handles eyewitness evidence. The U.S. Supreme Court in November is slated to hear a New Hampshire case that asks whether courts should throw out eyewitness testimony that's been influenced by friends and neighbors in the same way they would reject witnesses tainted by police.

"The Troy Davis execution came at a time where we're at tipping point or there's critical mass concerning eyewitness reform," Scheck said, noting the Supreme Court hasn't ruled on the issue since 1977. "Thirty-four years later, the science dictates it has to change."

 

Sign up for our e-newsletters
HPD Reports
crime scene

From Hinesville Police Department reports. Editor’s note: Due to computer issues at the city, reports have been unavailable in recent weeks. They are back. Our thanks to the HPD clerks who provide them. We’re catching up as quickly as possible.

Burglary, etc: A man called 911 on Feb. 27 because he was watching his White Circle home getting burglarized. The man said his alarm system had an app that showed live video on his phone, and he was “viewing three males inside his residence,” as he talked to 911.
Police responded, caught two of them inside the house and found the third guy “hiding behind a tree,” the report said.
Detectives are investigating.

Public indecency: An officer was sent to Lowes around 4:30 p.m. March 12 in reference to a disturbance involving a man and a woman.
The woman, a Lowe’s employee, said she had just got back from her lunch break when she saw the man “looking around at items on a shelf.”
The woman said she asked him if he needed help finding anything and he held up something, then said “I have found everything I need,” the report said. “(he) then placed his arms around (the employee) to hug her and then kissed (her) neck. (She) then moved away from (him) and told him to have a nice day and attempted to walk away from (the man). (He) then began to follow (her), stating ‘I would lick you up and down’ and ‘you better hide in an office.’ (She) then spoke with manager and called 911.’”
The man told police he thought he recognized the woman “and stated to me that he had previously had a relationship with her approximately two years ago. (He) was unable to recall (her) name while on scene.”
The woman told police “she has never seen, nor spoken to (the man) before today.”
The woman was given a case number and told what to do. The man was allowed to leave.

Indecent exposure: A Berkshire Terrace man reported he went outside his house around 6:40 a.m. and “observed a man who appeared to be intoxicated, peeing on his truck and trailer.”
The complainant said the man “fully exposed his penis while he was peeing. When (complainant) asked him to stop the man told him to ‘shut the (bleep) up.’ (Complainant) advised the man he would call police. (Complainant) advised his young son was standing outside during the incident. He said the man got into a 1996 black Buick and drove away, almost hitting cars that were parked in the driveway.”
The complainant said he did not want to press charges, “he said he wanted to report the incident because the man did not stop peeing when he asked him too.”
The complainant said he’d seen the man before “come and go” from a nearby apartment. The officer met with the resident of that apartment, who said the man was a cousin and did not pee on the complainant’s trailer.

Identity theft: A man went to HPD on March 21 to report that when he went to get a driver’s history for a commercial driver’s license, he found several citations on the history that weren’t his. “(He) stated he noticed someone was issued four citations in Arkansas and one citation in Jacksonville, Florida,” and during the time the Arkansas tickets were written he was in locked up in Georgia.
“(He) advised that he was not incarcerated when the citation in Jacksonville, Florida was issued but he was not in Florida at the time. (He) was unable to leave the state of Georgia due to being on felony probation.”
It gets worse.
“(He) told me that he attempted to file his income taxes for the first time ever and he was rejected due to owing the IRS money, $20,000. (He) stated he spoke to a representative for the IRS and he was informed that taxes were filed in his name in 2014 and the return was $1,3000. (He) advised he did not file taxes in 2013 and he was still incarcerated at the time.”
The man then told the officer he thinks his brother “got the citations and filed income taxes using his information. (He) believed his brother obtained his Social Security number and other demographics when he was incarcerated.”
The man said he talked to his brother, who said he paid all the tickets. “(His) brother also told him on a different occasion that he knew his date of birth and (SSN). (He) advised he told his brother that it was not OK to use his name due to him getting his life together and attempting to drive commercial vehicles.”
The guy said he didn’t have his brother’s address. He chose to fill out an identity theft packet.

Simple battery, theft by taking: An officer was sent around 2 a.m. March 20 to the Baymont Inn regarding a disturbance. There, a woman said she was being “grabbed and pulled” by a man when she told him to leave her motel room. She said they began arguing when he accused her of stealing $100.
The man claimed he met the woman on a dating website and when they “started having sex she informed him that it would cost $100.” He told her he wasn’t going to pay her, “got dressed and realized the five $20s in his pants pocket were missing. He accused (her) of stealing his money.”
The officer asked the woman if she stole the man’s money and she replied, “No, I work hard for my money.”
Both were given a case number and told how to get a warrant.

Robbery: A woman called HPD March 15 to report she was home when her estranged husband came to her apartment “and asked her to come outside to talk to him,” a report said.
“She stated that she stepped outside thinking that he was going to be civil, though she recently filed for divorce from him. As she stepped outside, he grabbed her necklace off her neck and then ran down the stairwell and out to the parking lot.”
The woman said he stood by his vehicle a minute, then drove off as police arrived. Officers checked the area but had no luck finding the man.

Burglary: Police were sent to a Malibu Drive address on March 13 regarding missing firearms and ransacked rooms. The homeowners were at work and got home to find handguns and rifles missing, as well as video games.
It appeared the home may have been broken into through the attic. Police found footprints and other evidence, and the case is under investigation.

Recovered stolen trailer: A U-Haul employee was inventorying equipment on March 14 when she discovered a trailer that had been reported stolen in Florida on Dec. 26. “She stated someone had backed the trailer into a parking stall along with the other trailers sometime during the night.”

Theft: In February, the maintenance man at Cypress Bend Mobile Home Park reported that “22 air conditioning unit disconnect boxes were stolen from various lots… He stated he began receiving calls from people that their air conditioning units were not working.”
The boxes contain small pieces of copper. He didn’t know who swiped them, but valued the total at about $341.

Latest Obituaries