Memory Manipulation

In July of 1984, a woman had her house broken into, was sexually assaulted, and had her belongings taken from her. While being sexually assaulted, she studied the man who was doing it to her so she could then lock him up and give him what he deserves. The woman was then brought into questioning as an eyewitness. She gave the police a description of the rapist, which led to the police making her pick from a photo line up. In this line up was a 22-year-old man by the name of Ronald Cotton. The woman told the police that he was the man who had raped her. The question is, did she pick the right suspect?

Ronald was soon brought to the police station for questioning. They asked him where he was on the weekend of the assault. He told them where he was, however, they soon found out he was lying, for Ronald had mistaken the previous weekend with the weekend of the crime. Ronald was found guilty for a crime he did not commit and sentenced to life plus 50 years in prison. His lawyers would not give him another case because, at the time, an eyewitness testimony was the strongest evidence in court. However, one day an inmate was sent to his prison and Ronald thought he looked familiar. It so happens that the new inmate, whose name was Bobby Poole, was convicted for rape. The inmates started confusing Bobby for Ronald left and right. One night, another convict told Ronald that Bobby had admitted to sexually abusing the woman Ronald was accused of raping. Ronald then gets another case and this time Bobby is present. The woman, with the actual rapist in front of her, still accused Ronald. Ronald was then sentenced to 2 life sentences. While this was going on, so was the famous OJ Simpson case, where the use of DNA was being used for one of the first times as evidence. Ronald immediately contacted his lawyers and asked to have a DNA test made. Hidden deep in the evidence room was a single sperm cell that was 10 years old found at the scene of the crime in 1984. This DNA proved Ronald’s innocence. Bobby Poole was the true rapist. Ronald Cotton was then released two days later. He was once again, a free man.

How this could have happened you may ask? Well, it so happens that Bobby Poole was not even in the line up. Therefore the woman’s memory had been altered. This is because the woman had a motive to convict someone. Therefore, the brain tried to pick the person that look the most similar to Bobby Poole. If the brain is not sure on its memory, it will take the new information, in this case the photo line up, and mix it with the old information to make an image closest to the original. If Bobby Poole were in the line up, then the victim would have picked him right away. Studies show that if people in a line up were shown to a victim individually, there is a higher chance that the right person will be picked because the brain doesn’t try and combine all the suspects together to get an approximate match. This case shows that you cant overcome what the brain wants to do.

In my opinion, this type of evidence is unreliable to immediately convict someone for a crime and in proving similar cases like Ronald’s, or any cases for that matter. Yes, it may be good and perhaps even powerful evidence, but I wouldn’t use it as the strongest evidence. People can mistake things very easily and their minds can play tricks on them. Thanks to Ronald Cotton’s innocence, over 230 prisoners have been released due to false conviction over the course of the past decade. Our memory is not written in stone. Therefore, it can be manipulated very easily.