Sex differences, weapon focus, and eyewitness reliability.

EYEWITNESS TESTIMONY TYPICALLY HAS a powerful impact on juries and may determine whether a defendant is convicted or exonerated. Loftus (1974) found that mock jurors were nearly four times as likely to convict defendants when circumstantial evidence was corroborated by an eyewitness, even when it was known that the eyewitness had poor eyesight and had not been wearing eyeglasses when he or she witnessed the crime. Wells, Lindsay, and Ferguson (1979) and Brigham and Bouthwell (1983) obtained similar results. Despite the credibility jurors ascribe to eyewitness testimony, studies of…