Eyewitness Testimony
Current Event in Criminal Justice
The Reliability of Eyewitness Testimony
The execution of Troy Anthony Davis on September 27, 2011, in Georgia has stirred new debate over the reliability of eyewitness testimony. Davis was convicted of the August 19, 1989 murder of police officer Mark MacPhail in Savannah, Georgia. Working a security guard at a Burger King, MacPhail was shot when he attempted to defend a man being assaulted in a nearby parking lot. At the trial seven witnesses testified that they had seen Davis shoot MacPhail, and two others testified that that Davis had confessed the murders to them. However, the murder weapon was never recovered. Ballistic evidence linked earlier shootings and bullets recovered at the scene to those of another shooting in which Davis was also charged. In 1991 he was convicted of murder and the earlier shootings. He was sentenced to death.
Davis maintained his innocence until his execution. At an evidentiary hearing order by the United States Supreme Court in June of 2010 the defense presented...
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Crime Control/Procedures The term "play in the joints" refers to flexibility within the law that allows for a certain amount of discretion to occur within the prosecution and judge. Even though there is discretion within the manner in which the Judge may interpret sentencing, procedure and rulings, there are still formal rules of law that provide for a basis for upholding the Constitution. In a given situation, for example, the Judge
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DNA in Criminal Cases - Solving Cold Cases in California with Forensic Science This research will attempt to analyze and discuss the feasibility of DNA testing in solving cold cases and will study the impact that DNA fingerprinting has had on the forensic science community as a whole. DNA is generally used to solve crimes in one of two ways. In cases where a suspect is identified, a sample of that person's
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