Dr. Elizabeth LoftusWitness for the Defense: The Accused, the Eyewitness and the Expert Who Puts Memory on Trial

In this book, Loftus recounts some fascinating true crime cases in which she was called to give testimony regarding the unreliability of eyewitness identifications. Loftus is a research psychologist who participated in a lot of studies demonstrating how easily people's memories can be influenced. She also is known for the work she has done demonstrating how memories can be implanted wholesale in adults or children, as happened in the McMartin pre-school case.Loftus does give some illustrations of how police can contaminate witness accounts, but I wish she had gone into even more detail about the studies she has conducted showing how this can happen, and about the advice she gives to police officers on how to avoid such undue influence. Perhaps though more detail on this score would have made the book too long. There is a bibliography provided to fill in some of these gaps.Here the author concentrates more on the circumstances of the crimes themselves. As it turned out, she didn't always work on the side of the "good guys." She tells about testifying for Ted Bundy's defense. Thinking back, she remembers disliking how Bundy smiled at the prosecutor, something an innocent man doesn't ordinarily do. A few scattered comments such as that might make the reader wonder if Loftus' memory might itself be showing the kind of after-the-fact malleability that she saw it as her role to remind juries to take into consideration. Did she really suspect Bundy at the time?In several of the cases Loftus recounts, there have been interesting reversals since this 1991 book was published. Some of the other individuals for whose defense she testified, also later appeared to be guilty. She writes about the part she likely played in exonerating Timothy Hennis, accused of killing a mother and two of her children. More recently, a DNA analysis of semen found in the dead woman matched Hennis' DNA. But this case cries out for an updated, full-length account. Hennis' three trials raise the issue of how prosecution can circumvent double jeopardy laws, and might even call into question the reliability of some DNA analysis, since so much of the other evidence seemed to unequivocally point to Hennis' innocence.There were other reversals, going in the opposite direction from guilty to innocent, after Loftus' book came out. Loftus was asked to testify for the defense team of Ivan Demjanyuk, accused of being a sadistic Treblinka concentration camp guard. Loftus recounts how she agonized over her decision. Should she testify and appear to be betraying her Jewish ancestry by calling into question the memories of the survivors who identified Demjanyuk as being their tormentor? You can read the book to find out what Loftus ultimately decided.Other cases dealt with in this book include that of: Tony Herrerez, a camp counselor accused of child abuse; Howard Haupt, accused of child abduction and murder; Von Williams, accused of rape; and Tyrone Biggs, accused of assault and attempted rape.You'll find a number of insights into court procedure here that you won't find in most other true crime books. This book will also probably inspire you to read more about many of the cases mentioned, and to probe more deeply into the whole question of how accurate anyone's memory is, including your own.

Selected Quotes from the Book:..."our memory can be changed, inextricably altered, in that what we think we know,what we believe in our hearts, is not necessarily the truth.""It isn't so astonishing, the number of things that I can remember,as the number of things I can remember that aren't so." Mark Twain"When we remember we pull pieces of the past out of some mysterious region of the brain --jagged, jigsaw pieces that we sort and sift, arrange and rearrange until they fit into a pattern that makes sense. The finished project, the memory that seems so clear and focused in our minds, is actually part fact, part fiction, a warped and twisted reconstruction of reality."Memory starts with the acquisition stage..., the retention stage..., and the retrieval stage..."Contrary to popular belief, facts don't come into our memory and reside there untouched and unscathed by future events. Instead we pick up fragments and features from our environment and these go into memory where they interact with our prior knowledge and expectations --information that is already stored in our memory. ...think of memory as being an integrative process --a constructive and creative process --rather than a passive recording process such as a video tape.""It wasn't that he didn't have doubts --no one can know anything for certain."'Created Memories' "Simply by asking (leading) questions... In this situation, we can see the power of suggestion to induce a memory of something that never actually occurred." "When you ask leading questions that suggest what the answer is to be, children (and adults) will pick up that information and incorporate it into their memories, and then they will then come to believe that they actually experienced these details when, in fact, they've only been suggested to them."Once some one's memory has been contaminated, distorted or transformed... it's virtually impossible to tell fact from fantasy because the individual witness now believes in what he or she is saying.""Is the...memory an original truth, or an after-the-fact truth?""...stress is detrimental to mental functioning, the ability to receive and remember details is impaired. ... The more an event is rehearsed, the more confident a person becomes that what she remembers is the the absolute and unequivocal truth.""And yet the victim couldn't accept the fact that she had made a mistaken ID. She could not bring herself to admit that someone other than Von Williams might have committed this crime." ..."people can become so attached to their memories that even when obvious contradictions and discrepancies are raised, they refuse to change their minds.""As a witness you will resent any doubt about your memory as an assault on your basic integrity, a presumptuous intrusion on your personality." Judge Jerome Franks in his book: Not Guilty"...memory is fallible."

A must for all those involve din criminal justice not only in the U.S:A. but in any common or civil law system.

This book is a very readable mixture of two things: Personal experience as an expert witness in American courtrooms and psychological research in universities explained simply. Those unfamiliar with American criminal justice, like me, will gain insights a textbook cannot provide. E.g. I could not imagine an expert witness staying at the home of a defence lawyer on the European continent. Experts are not seen as part of a defence or prosecution team over here, but as impartial helpers to the court. However , it is a bit disappointing that almost all cases are about one problem: Identification by photo and in-person line up. There would probably be many more issues in courtrooms a leading psychologist could comment in. I recommend this book top anyone interested in criminal justice in the US or in forensic psychology and to those likely to serve in a jury.

easy read, informative and useful for a legal practitioner. NOT a scientific text, rather popular psychology, but nonetheless valid.

Aucun intérêt pour le lecteur un peu au fait des aléas de la mémoire. Deux prémisses sont introduites (en gros, la mémoire est faillible et l'on est suggestible) puis l'essentiel du livre est un compendium de cas où une identification visuelle défectueuse a conduit à une condamnation. Ce n'est pas de la littérature scientifique ; c'est plutôt l'équivalent littéraire de ces mauvais documentaires à prétention scientifique et qui n'ont pour objet que d'épater le "viewer" en lui faisant croire qu'il ne perd pas son temps à regarder la télé.

Fascinating information that will surprise you, this gives a new perspective to what people think they saw/heard and how it becomes distorted by the mind adding or filling in bits of info, a must read for anyone who enjoys the oddities and curiosities of the human mind!