Video Evidence vs DNA Testing Evidence in the Court Room

      Dr. Yael Granot's study brought awareness to the danger that is group bias when viewing video evidence in the courtroom. Video evidence can often be misinterpreted or misunderstood but for some reason, video evidence is or was held to a higher standard in the courtroom leading large amounts of people to believe they understood the mechanism of action, when in fact this might not be the case. From a distance, seeing the sequences of events in crime on video might seem like the best method to determine punishment, but for this reason, people are often judged wrongly and given punishments for crimes that they did not commit. The visual system is highly regarded as vital to legal decision making, however, Dr. Granot hypothesizes that bias emerges when people view evidence and bias tend to increase with an increased fixation on a certain target. In addition, fixation on one person or one item can prevent a person from seeing vital details in the video. She tested this by showing a video to participants of a police officer arresting another individual. While tracing their eye movements and recording their ideal punishment to be given, she found that the more time people spent looking at the police officer, the harsher their ideal punishments were.

      Hearing this, I wondered, what would be the most effective form of evidence that might prevent group bias? I originally thought, testing DNA on murder weapons and other surfaces in the crime scene might help to limit bias, however, in the article "The False Promise of DNA Testing," published by The Atlantic, claims that this is not the case. In this article, a mother named Batie's son Sutton was accused and charged with aggravated assault and kidnapping of a 41-year-old Houston woman. William Thompson, an attorney and criminology professor at the University of California at Irvine told a reporter that " It appeared that Houston police technicians were routinely misinterpreting even the most basic samples. After consulting with Batie, Dr. Thompson took all of Sutton's files and reexamined them to find out the truth. In conclusion, Dr. Thompson found a crucial error in Sutton's chart that the genetic markers that remained from the semen sample found at the crime did not match his. This terrible mistake led a young boy to serve four years out of his 25-year sentence in prison for a crime that he did not commit.

      Furthermore, I completely agree with Dr. Granot that viewing video evidence can lead to substantial bias, therefore wrong legal-decisions, however, DNA testing doesn't seem to be a beneficial alternative as can be seen in the story mentioned above. While I was unable to find the answer to my original question, I was unaware of the unreliability of DNA testing. I understand that this unreliability is due to human error, but this simple mistake frequently ruins the lives of innocent people in the United States.

Sources

Granot, Y., Balcetis, E., Schneider, K. E., & Tyler, T. R. (2014). Supplemental Material for Justice Is Not Blind: Visual Attention Exaggerates Effects of Group Identification on Legal Punishment. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General. doi: 10.1037/a0037893.supp

Shaer, M. (2016, May 16). The False Promise of DNA Testing. Retrieved April 17, 2020, from https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2016/06/a-reasonable-doubt/480747/

URL (Dr. Granot's Article)

https://www.dropbox.com/sh/hdluh1vfs2cphhz/AACqNFxKZ0QYojYVsPg3HafLa/(02.25.20)%20-%20Yael%20Granot?dl=0&preview=JusticeisNotBlind.pdf&subfolder_nav_tracking=1

URL (New Article)
https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2016/06/a-reasonable-doubt/480747/