Yesterday, I wrote that, by taking up the Perry v. New Hampshire case, the Supreme Court had acknowledged the ongoing problem of unreliable eyewitnesses testifying in our courts. Thousands of studies have reiterated that eyewitness testimony is a particularly untrustworthy form of evidence. But after reading accounts like this one of yesterday’s oral arguments in that case, it appears that, even if the Justices recognize this problem, they don’t think it matters much.
In fact, the prevailing attitude seemed to be that letting any unreliable evidence into trials doesn’t matter too much, because juries will sort it all out. The Justices have in their hands an expert affidavit from the American Psychological Association that explicitly states: “juries tend to ‘over believe’ eyewitness testimony”. But the Court still seemed to oppose what Justice Kennedy called “invading the province of the jury.”
However, years after the trial, Forrest backtracked as the case against Davis began to unravel, and went on to say that, knowing what she knows now about the