Key Q essay plan (C)

• Key Q AO1

  should EWT be trusted by the criminal justice system

  . EWT is info given by a witness who say a crime occur, that is used as evidence in courts

  . juries tend to trust it but it can lead to miscarriages of justice

  . can affect society: induces fear as criminals may go undetected if the wrong person is convicted, distressing for everyone involved

  . evidence: ronald cotton - convicted with a life sentence for rape due to EWT, spent ten years there and then was found innocent

  . stats: innocence project - in 232 cases of wrongful convictions 63% involved EW misidentification, 33% used EWT alone

  conclusion: is necessary to use EWT to hear all sides of a story however further evidence should be used in convictions to avoid miscarriages of justice
• Key Q AO2 MSM - against

  MSM can show how EWT may be flawed as it says how memories must be rehearsed via elaborate rehearsal to transfer them to the LTM so unless this has occurred parts of the memory may have decayed and been forgotten which makes the account inaccurate so shouldn't be used in criminal justice system

  CA: could argue that when a big/possible traumatic event occurs individuals will rehearse it due to the abnormality so it could have gone to LTM
• Key Q AO2 reconstructive - against

  says memories are prone to transformation and distortion to fit a persons schema so when someone witnesses something they may have altered the memory unconsciously to fit with their preconceived images which then makes the EWT inaccurate and unreliable so shouldn't be used
• Key Q AO2 supporting WMM

  WMM suggests that both sound and visual information can be processed at the same time so an eyewitness's memory of an event should be accurate as the VSSP and the PL can process different information at the same time so should be reliable enough to be used in a courtroom