Comments on: Eyewitness: How Accurate Is Visual Memory?
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- Poor, poor Jennifer. This is the same thing white women have done to black men since time began. Lesly Stahl should retire. The State of North Carolina should be ashamed of the manner in which black men have been wrongly imprisoned over the years. I do not feel sorry for her at all. She joined her sisters above and under the skin to wrongly accuse a black man of a horrible crime. As the mother of two black sons, this is the reason I constantly counsel them to avoid white women whenever and wherever possible.
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- While I do feel badly for what happened to Mr. Cotton, I think your story, or should I say liberally bias story, doesn't do justice to our justice system. If only 233 convictions have been overturned throughout this country since DNA testing began, It would seem to be a large number, I believe if you put this in proper context, it would shed some light on how very small this number really is, for example, my state of Pennsylvania currently has about 50,000 convicts, thats just ONE state! Please forgive me if I don,t see the terrible job you think our justice system is doing.
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- What was truely amazing about this story was the ability of Mr. Cotton to forgive his accuser. Manipulation of memory (visual and otherwise) both intentional and inadvertent has been well documented for years. It is even used as a sales ploy by telemarketers by refering to items sent to customers which never existed but are often remembered by the customers.. But rather than making one less likely to offer eyewitness testimony after viewing this piece I would hope that it would simply make people more careful and cognizant of human fallibility in making such declarations.
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- Wonderful story; superb reporting. Thank you so much. I have great admiration for Cotton and Thompson alike. They are courageous because they chose to continue their stories, apart and together, in the best way fallible humans can, making others aware of an unjust system that, in a way, victimized them both.
bobpastore: Not a single innocent person should ever be incarcerated for a crime h/she didn't commit. Clearly you have not thought about yourself, unjustly accused, behind bars for a lifetime. - Reply to this comment
- Your story about mis-identification of suspects by witnesses left out the main reason - probably because of the system of political correctness we all live under these days.
On casual first encounters, most people cannot differentiate between faces of individuals of a different race, and this fact is well documented. - Reply to this comment
- Old story, done before by PBS and 48 hours. Nothing new, except, perhaps, Ron and Jennifer's new book.
It was deliberately misleading of 60 minutes to say "DNA from one of the rapes exonerated Ron" when I'm sure you know that there was no DNA from Jennifer's case, only the other case. A lot of people assume the same person did both rapes, but that is just an assumption.
The psychology from people like Gary Wells and Elizabeth Loftus is very weak by scientific standards, and most courts are not allowing it. See, eg, the Washington Post story on Oct. 27, 2006, where Loftus tried to testify as a memory expert for Scooter Libby, The story's headline says it all: "In the Libby Case, a Grilling to Remember."
60 minutes has done a show high on emotion, low on substance or facts. In the process you have done a great disservice to present and future rape victims. - Reply to this comment
- This was a fascinating and moving piece. Lesley did an amazing job of telling the story. Thank you. I truly hope the story brings about the change in the investigation of crimes that we all need and deserve. Well done!
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- My son was arrested because of wrong identification. After months under arrest, the Prosecutor recognized that the wrong person had been arrested and agreed to have my son take a polygraph test. When my son passed the polygraph test, all charges were dropped However, for the rest of his life he must answer "yes" to a legally asked questikon, "Have you ever been arrested ?". The incident cost him over $50,000 . My son lives in Maryland and has never been able to collect one cent of his costs for the arrest error. Some points in situations like this:
1. In many cases, the real perpetrator goes free.
2. For many arrest errors, a head of household with financial obligations like a house mortgage, car payments, college tuition costs, health insurance payments, etc. would have to declare bankruptcy due to an arrest error..
3. Some States, like Maryland, have no reimbursement policies for arrest errors.
4. Why should an innocent person who was arrested in error have to answer "yes" to the legal question, "Have you ever been arrersted ?" - Reply to this comment
- Congratulations CBS on some of the best reporting I've ever seen. It was very thorough, but left out another important way that mistakes can be made. You mentioned that Ron Cotton worked only a mile away from Thompson. If she had ever met him in the past, and bore any resemblance to the actual criminal, the chances of picking him out of a lineup increase dramatically. I'm sure that there are many other ways and mental processes, that lead to similar mistakes. Studying the mysteries of memory consolidation is a fascinating subject. Sometimes having the ability to alter memory is a very good thing. Helping those with PTSD is one such pursuit. There are some research studies that show that by helping PTSD victims relive their tramatic experience and giving them a drug called propranolol helps inhibit their ability to reconsolidate that memory, thus easing some of their pain-and-suffering. There is a lot more to this story.
Sincerely,
V. Wilkins
Salisbury University class of 73 - Reply to this comment
- There is an exact case like this one in Norfolk,Virginia that happened in 1984.The accused has done 19 years in prison but unlike the happy ending to this case.There will never be a happy ending for John Doe,because the DNA from his case was detroyed at least that what he was told.John Doe continues to maintain his innocence.F.Y.I
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