The tractability of eyewitness confidence and its implications for triers of fact

Abstract

A theft staged for 80 unsuspecting eyewitnesses was followed by a picture lineup that did or did not contain the thief. In an attempt to see if eyewitness confidence is tractable after the identification, half of the eyewitnesses who identified the thief (accurate witnesses) and half who identified an innocent suspect (inaccurate witnesses) were briefed by a "prosecutor " who suggested they rehearse answers to potential questions that would be asked under cross-examination. Cross-ex-aminations of 10 accurate briefed witnesses, 10 accurate nonbriefed witnesses, 9 inaccurate briefed witnesses, and 9 inaccurate nonbriefed witnesses were viewed by 152 subject-jurors in groups of 4. Briefed eyewitnesses rated themselves as more confident that they had identified the thief than did nonbriefed witnesses. This increase was primarily due to inaccurate eyewitnesses increasing their con-fidence, and the briefing manipulation served to eliminate the confidence-ac-curacy relationship. Subject-jurors were significantly more likely to vote guilty in conditions in which the eyewitness had been briefed than in the nonbriefed conditions. It is argued that briefing eyewitnesses, although legal, simply serve