True Witness : Cops, Courts, Science, and the Battle against Misidentification

Rating:
Summary: Well, Maybe I'm Not So Sure.........
Review: A wonderful book for members of the legal community as well as those who are intrigued and at times appalled by the criminal justice system. By using real cases, the author immediately engages the reader in a search to provide answers to the question of how well-intentioned and confident eyewitneses can be so wrong. Building on extensive historical research and documentation the author provides a fascinating look into how different disciplines (law and psychology) can work at cross purposes to achieve a common goal.

I would make it "assigned reading".

Rating:
Summary: The Century-Long Battle Against Wrongful Convictions
Review: Doyle, a Boston-area attorney, writes concisely and eloquintly about the history of psychologists efforts to challenge the legal system's approach to eyewitness testimony and the responses by the justice system.

For almost 100 years, psychologists have been warning that the legal system's assumptions about eyewitnesses are flawed. Harvard professor Hugo Musterberg's first book on the subject written in 1908 prompted a vigorous backlash from Dean John Henry Wigmore, author of the widely used treatise on evidence. Since then, Musterberg and Wigmore's successors have struggled over the place of psychological research on perception and memory in the courtroom. Doyle's book traces that struggle, focusing on the major personalities, and on the cases of the wrongfully convicted. The primary focus is the psychologists, but jurists, prosecutors, defense attorneys, police officers, and politicians are all included.

Primarily useful as a history and discussion of policy. The 10 pages of endnotes are an excellent guide for readers interested in futher details.

Rating:
Summary: Well-written, thought-provoking and entertaining
Review: I am interning as an Investigator for the Washington, DC Public Defender Service and thought I'd read this book to understand why some believe eyewitness testimony to be imperfect. So far, from 4 weeks on the job, the questions that the author puts forward in True Witness are dead-on. Even well-intentioned people make mistakes, and human memory is no camera. This book is full of examples that illustrate the author's main arguments, and it provides a nice balance of these true-life stories and a delving into the questions that the examples raise about the American legal system. I genuinely enjoyed the read, and learned a lot.

Rating:
Summary: Eyewitness testimony under the microscope
Review: James Doyle succinctly states the point of this well-written book near the end: "After the initial thrill of horror at a wrongful conviction has passed away ... and the reporters have all gone home, an abiding sense that the world is not quite back in balance remains. ... Shrugging and walking away will leave a legacy of wrecked lives."

Professor Doyle, a colleague of mine at Roger Williams University School of Law, presents a detailed history of the intersection of science (psychology) and law (eyewitness identification), and his up-to-date observations drive home the need for furthering both.

Not content with presenting simply a "story," an "exposé," or an analysis of things gone wrong, Doyle delivers a compelling argument for change in the way eyewitness identifications are handled by police and employed by prosecutors as evidence for juries to consider. As a veteran criminal litigator, Doyle has truly "been there" - a fact that lends a considerable dose of authenticity to this argument.

Written at a level accessible to any reader for whom this book would be of interest (students and practitioners of law, criminology, forensic psychology, for example), the book is, as U.S. District Court Judge James Zagel claims on the back cover, "a gem."