Regrettably our society sometimes functions like a pack of sharks smelling the blood of their targeted victim. As humans we can do better. This is particularly so whenever an accusation is based solely on witness statements.
As someone who has conducted detailed reconstructions of motor vehicle collisions for decades, as well as studying human behavior from a psychological perspective, I give this word of caution whenever something is claimed to be witnessed while no objective evidence or analysis supports such claims. This is not the first time these cautions have been made on this Gorski Consulting website. Yet such problems with human judgment persist.
As witnesses we find it difficult to accept that our view of an incident could be coloured by our previous beliefs, our need to support our own viewpoint, or just through our downright bias. Sometimes what we believe we recall, is an incomplete set of visual or audible stimuli that are “filled in” in our minds because we need to complete the story. Because of these human flaws the official adjudication of what someone says has to include a careful understanding about what unbiased experts have found from independent research about human behavior.
Problems with witness information are accentuated with the advent of the internet. Internet gossip is often akin to a forest fire, it starts from a very small bit of information and then explodes. In the minds of many whose life is tied to what they are told reality is lost and turns into radicalization. Regrettably such problems spill into the justice system.
Many years ago I encountered such hysterics in a trial where someone was accused of being at fault in a fatal, head-on collision. Investigating police lost their site measurements and the basis for what happened came to several witnesses who claimed they saw a particular type of car at night and in rainy conditions. One witness was particularly adamant that she knew the exact details of the car and she was greatly influential to the others who were not sure.
As an observer of the trial proceedings I witnessed the judge’s decision that the accused driver was guilty. Yet I was not able to provide my input. As an independent investigator who was working under contract to Transport Canada I was not allowed to become involved in the trial proceedings even through I had crucial, detailed evidence that supported the driver’s innocence. Previously Transport Canada had purchased both vehicles and I was assigned to their Ottawa quarters where I spent a whole week measuring and studying the physical evidence on both vehicles. This analysis proved that the judge’s “expert opinion” was wrong. The defense lawyer obtained a copy of my report to Transport Canada and presented this at the sentencing hearing but the judge would not hear anything of it. In the judge’s “expert opinion” the final rest positions of the two vehicles clearly indicated who was at fault and that was the end of any discussion. It took a lot of effort, through the involvement of a highly respected engineer retained by the insurer, along with an expert from Ontario’s Centre of Forensic Science along with my report to inform the prosecutor that the judgment was in error. Even then the judgment could not be stopped. A subsequent hearing of the case by the Ontario Court of Appeal finally put the erred judgment to rest and a retrial was ordered. The prosecutor then stated the Crown had no interest in pursuing the case further.
This case is an example of a railway train going out of control because of what persons believed but based on no credible, objective evidence. Regrettably there are many examples of this in high-profile murder trials which have been overturned but very few of the far more numerous lower level cases ever reach the headlines. Many independent scientists have warned the justice system over the many decades that caution must be exercised whenever a judgment is based solely on witness information. Yet that railway train continues on.
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