In this picture, the tiny figure in the parking lot across the street is approximately where Troy Davis was, and the camera is approximately where Dorothy Farrell was, when, according to her trial testimony, she saw his face at 1:30 am. (She, like most of the witnesses, has since recanted).
© Jen Marlowe
“[J]uries tend to ‘over believe’ eyewitness testimony”. So says the American Psychological Association in its amicus brief for an upcoming U.S. Supreme Court case. And Adam Liptak in the New York Times writes:
“ … it is perilous to base a conviction on a witness’s identification of a stranger. Memory is not a videotape. It is fragile at best, worse under stress and subject to distortion and contamination.”