Innocence Blog

Lyin' Eyes

Posted: September 18, 2008 2:35 pm

By Christopher Hill
State Strategies Coordinator
ACLU Capital Punishment Project

In the Marx Brothers movie Duck Soup there is the famous quote which has been paraphrased over the years. The quote asks, "who are you going to believe, me or your lyin' eyes?” That line has become particularly poignant, and much less funny, in the context of today’s criminal justice system.

In many murder cases the only evidence available is eyewitnesses’ testimony, and Chico’s quote has dire consequences when a jury is asked to convict someone of murder based solely on eyewitness testimony. ”Lyin’ eyes” are responsible for convicting Troy Davis in Georgia and sending him to death row. On Friday, September 12, Davis was denied clemency by the Georgia Board of Pardons and Paroles despite substantial and convincing evidence that he is almost certainly innocent and that faulty eyewitness testimony led to his conviction. He has filed an appeal for a hearing before the U.S. Supreme Court and the Georgia Board of Pardons and Paroles still has the discretion to hear his case again.  If those actions fail, Troy Davis is scheduled to be executed on Tuesday, September 23 .  

Eyewitnesses were the only evidence used to convict Davis for the murder of off-duty police officer Mark MacPhail.  No murder weapon was found.  There is no physical evidence tying Davis to the crime.  There was only eyewitness testimony.

Now, seven of the nine non-police eyewitnesses have recanted.  They say they were coerced by the police to implicate Davis. One eyewitness signed a statement that he was unable to read. Unfortunately for Davis, however, his attorneys at trial did not investigate the possible police misconduct in obtaining the witness testimony.  

Even when people are not coerced into lying, eyewitness testimony is extremely unreliable. Research has shown – and we all know – that the human memory is not perfect and eyewitnesses sometimes just get it wrong.

The Innocence Project has found that inaccurate eyewitness testimony is involved in more than 75% of the convictions overturned by DNA evidence. And DNA cases are a tiny slice of all convictions nationwide, so the number of wrongful convictions based on eyewitness misidentification could be astronomical.

Several organizations have suggested solutions to improve eyewitness identification procedures. The National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers, The Center on Wrongful Convictions, The Innocence Project and The Justice Project have all provided alternatives to the eyewitness identification systems commonly used by law enforcement agencies. These solutions include sequential double-blind presentation of suspects – where suspect (or their photos) are presented one at a time, and both the person asked to make an identification and the person asking for the identification are unaware of who in the lineup or photographs is suspected of the crime.

Davis will not benefit from any change in eyewitness procedures. In fact, the way the statements were gathered against him was illegal.  In addition to the other procedures, perhaps there should be real and harsh punishments for law enforcement officials that coerce eyewitnesses and use that testimony. It is unacceptable that innocent people are imprisoned or sentenced to death because of unreliable and, sometimes, illegally obtained testimony.

If Davis's execution is allowed to proceed, we could all be witnesses to the death of a man who is almost certainly innocent.  Then, we would only wish our eyes were lying.


Speak up today to stop Davis’ execution, click here to send a letter urging the Georgia Board of Pardons and Paroles to grant clemency to Davis.