The First Shot

[John Corbett]

Well, they certainly can be a source of empirical evidence.

Not by themselves.

Individual witnesses may be reliable or unreliable. You seem to think that there is no way to tell whether witnesses are reliable. It has nothing to do with having “faith” in a witness.

Of course there is a way to tell if a witness is accurate with their recollections. You compare their story to the body of evidence as a whole, preferably some form of physical evidence. One witness telling the same story as another isn't much of a corroboration. Multiple witnesses can make the same mistake as illustrated by the dozens of witnesses who thought the shots sounded like they came from the GK.

[Andrew Mason]

Not by themselves.

Incorrect. Some cases are built entirely on witness evidence.

Of course there is a way to tell if a witness is accurate with their recollections. You compare their story to the body of evidence as a whole, preferably some form of physical evidence. One witness telling the same story as another isn't much of a corroboration. Multiple witnesses can make the same mistake as illustrated by the dozens of witnesses who thought the shots sounded like they came from the GK.

Incorrect. It depends on the ability of a human to accurately observe. Besides, the sound source witnesses were not consistent, varying with their location.  You keep using the witbesses who were asked about where they thought the shot sounds originated. The only ones who felt reasonably sure about the source direction were close to the TSBD and even many of those were not sure.  Give us an example of where the witnesses were generally consistent and demonstrably wrong.

[John Corbett]

Incorrect. Some cases are built entirely on witness evidence.Incorrect. It depends on the ability of a human to accurately observe. Besides, the sound source witnesses were not consistent, varying with their location.  You keep using the witbesses who were asked about where they thought the shot sounds originated. The only ones who felt reasonably sure about the source direction were close to the TSBD and even many of those were not sure.  Give us an example of where the witnesses were generally consistent and demonstrably wrong.

The Innocence Project has used DNA and other forensic evidence to exonerate people convicted primarily on the basis of eyewitness testimony. Juries tend to give eyewitness testimony for more weight than it deserves.

[Andrew Mason]

The Innocence Project has used DNA and other forensic evidence to exonerate people convicted primarily on the basis of eyewitness testimony. Juries tend to give eyewitness testimony for more weight than it deserves.

The Innocence Project has been successful in setting aside convictions based on mistaken eyewitness identification evidence.  Eyewitness identification evidence is not fact observation unless the witness knows the person and recognizes them at the time of the offence.  There are also serious problems with ensuring the evidence is not contaminated with bias of the official conducting a photo or in-person line up.

But the Innocence Project has also been successful in reversing convictions by getting forensic evidence thrown out:  Good examples being faulty bite mark evidence posing as “science”;  comparative bullet lead analysis being rejected completely; rejecting evidence of hair and fibre comparison “matches”; and getting opinions of so called arson experts excluded (have a look at the tragic Texas case in which Todd Willingham was convicted to see what kind of junk science masquerades as “forensic science”.).

In Canada, the wrongful conviction of a man charged with murder based on flawed forensic medical evidence that conflicted with the timeline established by several independent witnesses was set aside after a reenactment showed how the victim likely died.  The correct verdict showed that the witnesses were right. Lookup the Clayton Johnson case.