Picking cherries 🍒
"Wrongful convictions happen every week in every state in this country. And they happen for all the same reasons."
—John Grisham
> newsworthy | the first 48 years
Just one shaky eyewitness and no physical evidence landed Glynn Simmons in prison for 48 years.
The lone witness admitted under oath that she had only glanced for a few seconds at the suspects of a 1974 robbery and murder in Oklahoma City.
I've written extensively about Glynn Simmons and other wrongful convictions in Oklahoma for Tulsa attorney Joe Norwood. Like so many other things, there's a psychology to why wrongful convictions happen. 🔎
- Experts in the human mind say one reason is naturally occurring but unchecked confirmation bias and tunnel vision in detectives.
- We all experience such cognitive biases and thinking lapses as we make decisions throughout the day.
But they can lead to fateful errors in law enforcement investigations.
Detectives might selectively (and unconsciously) cherry-pick only evidence that supports their existing theories about a case.
Called "confirmation bias," this is one of the most common cognitive biases known to psychologists.
Tunnel vision, meanwhile, occurs when detectives at the outset of an investigation narrow the scope too tightly and risk overlooking critical leads and suspects.
It doesn't have to be this way.
We can give ourselves more chances to detect cognitive biases and mental misfires and bring our perceptions into sharper focus.
With a better understanding of the human mind, we can bring down the number of wrongful convictions in America.
- next time I came for your emails.
- listening Roberta Flack "Killing Me Softly With His Song"
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