Running head: EYEWITNESS TESTIMONY

Eyewitness Testimony Application Paper

by

Nissa N. Fuller

BS Program in Psychology: Forensic and Counseling

Mansfield University of Pennsylvania

for

PSY 4441: Forensic Psychology

Dr. Karri Verno

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Eyewitness Testimony Application Paper

Eyewitness testimony is a well-researched topic in the forensic field in an attempt to

better understand the problems with court cases relying heavily on a witness’s testimony. A lot

of problems with eyewitness testimony lies in the problems of human memory and people having

more faith in it than it actually deserves. The basic memory processes include encoding, storage,

and retrieval, where problems can occur at every stage. For encoding memories, issues like high

arousal or the presence of a weapon can affect the way that a memory is encoded. Along with

this, retrieving memories can be difficult if there are external forces influencing the original

memory. For example, memory contamination can happen if a person is told by others about an

event, or leading questions from police officers can cause a person to falsely recall details

regarding an event or case. As the literature looking into eyewitness testimony expands, the

knowledge about issues surrounding it can be dealt with more effectively.

An early study conducted by Yuille and Cutshall (1986) looked into eyewitness memory

of a witnessed crime. The researchers wanted to question actual witnesses of a crime instead of

participants of a staged one where participants are likely to know beforehand that it is not real

and that there is no real danger or consequences. For this reason, the researchers contacted

witnesses to a gun-shooting incident, to which 13 agreed to participate in the interviews (Yuille

& Cutshall, 1986). The procedure (in simple terms) for the study went as follows: (1) the witness

described the incident in their own words, (2) a police officer asked a series of questions

focusing on specifics, and (3) then the witness went over the statement to change or correct it and

then signed it (Yuille & Cutshall, 1986). The findings of the interviews showed that the

witnesses remained accurate in their testimonies despite being interviewed 5 months after the

incident (Yuille & Cutshall, 1986). Other variables like physical attributes and stress levels also
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appeared to have different results, with attributes being susceptible to error and stress levels

having no negative effect on the accounts (Yuille & Cutshall, 1986). The researchers note that

these findings differ wildly from the literature, and so support the idea that lab results may not

translate to actual life events. This is interesting because this paper will be analyzing an episode

that deals with an actual event.

Netflix released a fictional series titled Criminal that focuses on the interrogation process

of various criminals and their alleged crimes. The episode that will be analyzed is titled Emilie,

which centers around a woman who claims to be a survivor and eyewitness to the Bataclan’s

terror attack in Paris, where she witnessed armed culprits attack a rock concert (Smith & Kay,

2019). The viewers learn quickly that Emilie’s boyfriend, Alex, was a victim of the attack as he

was killed (Smith & Kay, 2019). It is also revealed that Emilie is being investigated because

there was a compliant filed against her under the suspicion that she was not at the Bataclan attack

(Smith & Kay, 2019). After the usual back and forth, Emilie confesses that she was not in the

Bataclan during the attack but felt she had to lie due to guilt and Alex’s mother treating her like a

daughter (Smith & Kay, 2019). There are two points that will be looked at for this analysis: the

interrogators’ conduct towards the eyewitness and Emilie’s role as an eyewitness.

At the beginning of the episode, the investigators come off as extremely accusatory

towards Emilie for seemingly no reason (at this point, she is just seen as a victim). One of the

investigators asks most of the questions, which tended to be somewhat closed-ended. To

illustrate, he asked, “Did you panic?” as well as “Was he face-down?” which Emilie could only

answer yes or no to (Smith & Kay, 2019). This is a problem in the interrogation process because

you start leading the eyewitness towards certain answers and in the process, distort their original

recall of the event. At first, this type of conduct is irresponsible of the interrogators because
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Emilie is an alleged victim of an attack and she is likely to be traumatized and suffering from

survivor’s guilt with the loss of her boyfriend. However, it becomes clear why the investigators

are approaching Emilie this way after they reveal that a complaint was filed against her. Besides

this though, the investigators did a decent job at asking Emilie “then what” type of questions to

get her to repeat the event verbally and try to remember as much as possible. Shortly, things

started to heat up as one of the investigators told Emilie that her story does not match up with

other eyewitness testimonies (Smith & Kay, 2019). When asked to describe the gunmen who

attacked the Bataclan specifically the shadows (she laying face down on the floor), Emilie says

that they looked normally sized (Smith & Kay, 2019). The investigator takes this moment to

point out the inconsistencies as all the other eyewitnesses described the gunmen as massive since

they had explosives attached to them (Smith & Kay, 2019). This information makes Emilie

confused which leads us to the next point in the analysis.

After hearing this information and some other points made by the investigators, Emilie

starts to become more emotional and confused about the events that transpired (Smith & Kay,

2019). It can be said that once Emilie took on this role of a survivor of the attacks, it led to

memory contamination. This happened due to communication with other survivors who shared

their stories about the event. A study conducted by Gabbert, Memon, Allan and Wright (2004)

looked into errors of eyewitness testimonies when a witness faces post-event misinformation.

The participants watched a simulated crime on video and were then exposed to misinformation

about the crime (Gabbert et al., 2004). The key of this study was that the researchers

hypothesized that witnesses would be more susceptible to misinformation if the encounter was

social. The findings were that misinformation encountered socially compared to a non-social

source were significantly more misleading, which caused participants to be less accurate
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(Gabbert et al., 2004). These findings are similar to what happened to Emilie because she

interacted and became a voice for the victims of the Bataclan attack. Although some of the

sources that Emilie encountered may have been true, she was interacting online with many

people. This is no fault of Emilie since many victims find solace in communicating with others

about things they have gone through; however, there is no doubt that it would have a great effect

on her memory of that night.

In the final analysis, Criminal portrays the interrogative process decently despite the

eyewitness lying about her involvement. The investigators acted pretty congruently with how the

law enforcement acts in real life as they did ask some closed-ended questions and went through

the details of the event with the witness. Emilie fooled herself into believing that she was there in

the Bataclan during the attack as she was dealing with the guilt and stress of losing her

boyfriend. Her memory of the attack was contaminated by listening and interacting with various

accounts given by other survivors. While the literature on eyewitness testimony is growing, the

same can be said with the accuracy of which it is portrayed on television.

References

Gabbert, F., Memon, A., Allan, K., & Wright, D. B. (2004). Say it to my face: Examining the

effects of socially encountered misinformation. Legal and Criminological Psychology,

9(2), 215–227. https://doi.org/10.1348/1355325041719428

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Smith, J., & Kay, G. (Producers). (2019). Criminal: France [TV series]. Retrieved from

https://www.netflix.com/

Yuille, J. C., & Cutshall, J. L. (1986). A case study of eyewitness memory of a crime. Journal of

Applied Psychology, 71(2), 291–301. https://doi.org/10.1037/0021-9010.71.2.291