When in court and an eyewitness is stating their testimony there is a probability that they could be lying. In 1983, Willie Brown and his co-defendant Larry Troy were sentenced to death for the murder of a prisoner in Florida’s Union Correctional Institution. The accusation was completely based upon the testimony of another prisoner who testified that he saw Brown and Troy leaving the victim’s unit before the body was discovered. They both had been in prison for five years and five months until a German activist that was against the death penalty, took an interest in the case. He wore a hidden microphone and acquired a confession from the witness that he had lied about the two men’s involvement. The witness was then convicted of giving a false testimony and Brown and Troy were discharged (Risinger, 2007). Hence, if there was tangible evidence that could show that Brown and Troy didn’t commit the crime or revealed the actual criminal then two uninvolved men wouldn’t have been in jail for 5 years. Thomas Gladish’s case similar to Brown and Troy’s; however, the eyewitness of Gladish’s case was pressured by the police and resorted to lying, unlike to Brown and Troy’s that the eyewitness had just lied for no purpose. In 1974, Thomas Gladish along with three other men received the death penalty for kidnapping and murdering a college student in Albuquerque, New Mexico. The major witness was a motel maid who claimed …show more content…
For instance, Henry Drake was sentenced to death in 1977 for the murder of a 74-year old barber during a robbery in Georgia. Whether Drake was found guilty or innocent depended on an eyewitness testimony. The testament was an accomplice to the murder, who portrayed Drake as the primary offender. Ten years later, the witness signed a paper confirming that he had lied to falsely incriminated Drake of the crime and that Drake was not involved in the crime. (Siegel, 1988). Barry Siegel is still a reliable source to this day because he showed how eyewitness testimonies were not reliable and they are still untrustworthy. He is biased because he only provides reasons for how eyewitness testimonies are unreliable. Thereby, showing how the eyewitness blamed Drake for a crime he did not commit so he would not get caught and arrested. According to Simons, (2011) he performed a study to show how people think the human brain works. “Amnesia results in the inability to remember one's own identity (83% of respondents agreed), unexpected objects generally grab attention (78%), memory works like a video camera (63%), memory can be enhanced through hypnosis (55%), memory is permanent (48%), and the testimony of a single confident eyewitness should be enough to convict a criminal defendant (37%).” Thus, showing that 37% of people believe that eyewitness testimonies are credible enough to determine someone’s life