Steven Avery was wrongfully convicted for sexual assault in 1985, and served 18-years in prison for this conviction. One of the leading reasons for this wrongful conviction was eyewitness misidentification. Steven Avery had a criminal record and he was disliked by many people in his neighborhood including the deputy chief\u2019s wife. When the chief was informed of this case he immediately named Steven Avery as his number 1 suspect. This in itself was odd, but what made this even stranger is the fact that the chief deputy took an extreme involvement in this case. However I\u2019d like to focus on the \u201cmistakes\u201d made by the sheriff department that led to this eyewitness misidentification. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
In general eyewitness misidentification is often caused by several factors such as exposure to a suspect before a police lineup, suggestibility of who the police might have as their primary suspect, and human ability to remember faces in the event of an emotional situation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The first \u201cmistake\u201d was the composite drawing. This drawing was supposedly drawn via the description of the victim, however the sketch oddly resembles Steven Avery’s mug shot from a couple years back. When the sketch artist was asked if he had access to this mug shot he claimed he had not seen it and didn\u2019t have access, when in fact he did have access. The exposure to the sketch resembling Steven’s mugshots gave the victim misinformation of what she thought the perpetrator looked like. This in turn created a preconceived notion for the victim of what the perpetrator would look like during the line up. When the victim was presented with the line up, she selected Steven Avery who did not resemble entirely what he looked like in his earlier mugshot. Another important note is that Steven didn\u2019t resemble the victims\u2019 original description of eye color, build and length of hair that is available in the reports. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
At the time of the case there was no physical evidence that suggested that Stephen was the perpetrator, in fact Steven had at least 20 eyewitness accounts that claimed to be with him during the time of the crime. In this case the misidentification could have been avoided first by having the victim not be exposed to the artist’s erroneous sketch, and second by not being informed of who had been the primary suspect in this case. (391)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Steven Avery was wrongfully convicted for sexual assault in 1985, and served 18-years in prison for this conviction. One of the leading reasons for this wrongful conviction was eyewitness misidentification. Steven Avery had a criminal record and he was disliked … Continue reading