"DALLAS - A Texas man declared innocent Tuesday after 30 years in prison had at least two chances to make parole and be set free -- if only he would admit he was a sex offender. But Cornelius Dupree Jr. refused to do so, doggedly maintaining his innocence in a 1979 rape and robbery, in the process serving more time for a crime he didn't commit than any other Texas inmate exonerated by DNA evidence."
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20110104/ap_on_re_us/us_dna_exoneration_texas
What do we know about sensation & perception that might help us reduce the number of misidentifications that occur?
(Thanks to Ali for sending the link)
this is crazy, I know there is a good percentage of innmates in jail who are innocent, but why did they wait so long to do DNA testing...shouldn't of that been done from the very beginning to prove his innocence? I just can't believe he had to waste so much of his life behind bars for something he didn't do and it took so long for him to be proven innocence....what does that say about our or Texas's justice system?
Knowing what I know so far about sensation and perception, I think the biggest thing to know when looking at line ups is that the visual system makes mistakes all the time. The crime happened at night and in a car so it was likely that lighting was low. She was also very distressed, panicked, and scared. It's likely that when she saw the lineup, she picked people that may have looked scary or mean, or even someone that had one similar feature to the criminal. I wish that the legal system didn't rely on lineups so much because it's the number one reason people are wrongfully convicted and I think it's very unfair.