Memory Is Unjust?

While I was searching for some blog topics this past week, I came across a very interesting article in the Wall Street Journal entitled "When Memory Commits an Injustice," which discussed the problems of relying excessively on eyewitnesses' testimonies in court. People, heavily influenced by their biases and frequently changing contexts, are very prone to uncontrollable memory flaws, which are not particularly egregious until they lead court decisions to go awry and eventually convict innocent people. This is both a serious and prevalent legal issue as nearly seventy-five percent of wrong convictions that are later overturned through DNA testing are based on faulty eyewitness accounts, according to the Innocence Project. 

To be completely honest, I never thought that memory flaws could be fodder for something as serious as legal injustice. Because my recollections of past events and experiences are so often different from what truly happened, I've actually taken my memory flaws for granted as trivialities or inconsequential human nature. However, now that I learned about how grave the implications of relying unduly on the accounts of eyewitnesses may be, I'm beginning to wonder about how other people are interpreting my intentions in telling stories. In speaking to my friends, teachers, and family members about my experiences, am I, in any way that I'm unaware of, doing harm to them? Even if I unintentionally fabricate my stories, are my trustworthiness and integrity questionable? Those questions may seem very unreasonable or far-fetched. However, in the context of a court, overturning faulty convictions may come down to the issue of blaming someone. Who's more culpable, the eyewitnesses for providing false testimony (assuming that they're not committing perjury) or the judges/jury for basing their decisions on such fabrications, even when they should know that human memory is so susceptible to alteration? 

Perhaps you might think that it's not really a clear-cut issue of blame. No single person is at fault in the case of false convictions: it's the system that seems to be the problem. From the article, the quote, "When it comes to human memory, more deliberation is often dangerous," may offer some insight to decreasing the number of wrong convictions made each year. We should only take the face-value of testimonies into decision-making in courts; cross-examining eyewitnesses excessively and trying to get at the core of their stories will not illuminate the nature or the details of the case being debated. Deliberation will only make the eyewitnesses, who may only have flimsy recollections of what actually happened, more anxious and inclined to fabricate their testimony, leading the court down a wrong path. I'm not arguing for the elimination of eyewitnesses' testimony; we should just be careful to navigate through any legal case and effectively pick out the facts and details from the commonly fabricated accounts of eyewitnesses. 

Article: http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052702303815404577334040572533780