Eyewitness Testimony Isn’t as Incriminating as You Think

The old saying goes that you should believe half of what you see and none of what you hear.  Therefore, hearsay evidence is not admissible in court.  If your neighbor says that another neighbor claims to have seen you hours before your arrest and that you appeared to be under the influence of drugs, this does not prove anything; the judge would consider it a waste of the jury’s time to hear this testimony.  Eyewitness testimony is different; it is worthwhile for the jury to hear your neighbor say that he saw a blue pickup truck pull up in front of your house and that you came out of your house, handed money to the driver, and received a bag of pills, after which time you went back into your house and the pickup truck drove away.  Eyewitness testimony by a prosecution witness is not always a slam dunk for the prosecution, though.  You can still cast doubt on the reliability of the witness’s statements or present other evidence that contradicts what the eyewitness said.  For help preparing the strongest possible defenses in your drug crime case, contact a Florida drug offenses attorney.

If Prosecution Witnesses Say They Saw You Do It, It Doesn’t Always Mean That You Are Guilty

Law professors often do an experiment to show students how unreliable eyewitness testimony can be.  An accomplice, usually a family member of the professor, enters the classroom unannounced and has a brief conversation with the professor about a matter apparently important enough for it to be important enough to interrupt the lecture.  After about two minutes, the accomplice leaves, and the professor resumes the lecture.  In the last few minutes of class, the professor asks several students to give their accounts of the incident with the unexpected visitor.  What time did the visitor arrive?  What did she look like, and what was she wearing?  What did she say?  It is unlikely that the students’ statements will be identical; they almost always include some variations in the details, and sometimes they directly contradict each other.

In other words, a single statement by a single eyewitness is not usually enough to convict, especially if the prosecution is not presenting the drugs they confiscated from you as evidence.  Other types of evidence, such as timestamped online communications, especially those obtained from website moderators, or DNA evidence, are more reliable.  Of course, reliability is only one characteristic that evidence must possess in order to secure a conviction; it must also be admissible in court, which means that the prosecution must have followed the law in obtaining it.  In other words, the prosecution may not present any evidence that they violated your rights by obtaining

Contact FL Drug Defense Group About Drug Cases

A Central Florida criminal defense lawyer can help you if you are facing drug charges, and eyewitnesses claim to have seen you commit a drug crime.  Contact FL Drug Defense Group in Orlando, Florida to discuss your case.

Source:

nobaproject.com/modules/eyewitness-testimony-and-memory-biases