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The Impact of Eyewitness Expert Evidence and Judicial Instruction on Juror Ability to Evaluate Eyewitness Testimony

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Law and Human Behavior

Abstract

It has been argued that psychologists should provide expert evidence to help jurors discriminate between accurate and inaccurate eyewitness identifications. In this article we compare the effects of judicial instruction with expert evidence that is either congruent or incongruent with the ground truth, focusing on juror ability to evaluate “real” eyewitness evidence. In contrast to studies which have employed “fictional” eyewitness designs, we found no appreciable effect of either congruent or incongruent expert evidence on participant-juror sensitivity to eyewitness accuracy. We discuss the role of methodology on the inferences and conclusions that can be made regarding the impact of eyewitness expert evidence.

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Acknowledgements

This research was supported by Discovery Grant DP0452699 from the Australian Research Council to the second author. We also thank Amanda Barnier, Nathan Weber and the following students for their contributions; Jade Hucker, Erin Littlewood, Alexa Muratore, Tamara Sweller and Shaina Terry.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Psychology, University of New South Wales, Sydney, NSW , 2052, Australia

    Kristy A. Martire & Richard I. Kemp

  2. National Drug and Alcohol Research Centre, University of New South Wales, Sydney, NSW, 2052, Australia

    Kristy A. Martire

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  1. Kristy A. Martire
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  2. Richard I. Kemp
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Correspondence to Kristy A. Martire.

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Martire, K.A., Kemp, R.I. The Impact of Eyewitness Expert Evidence and Judicial Instruction on Juror Ability to Evaluate Eyewitness Testimony. Law Hum Behav 33, 225–236 (2009). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10979-008-9134-z

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10979-008-9134-z

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