“Well, who you gonna believe, me or your own eyes?” Chico’s famous line in the Marx Brothers film, Duck Soup (1933) may no longer be a joke.
According to The Washington Lawyer, since 1989 DNA evidence has exonerated 506 innocent people convicted of serious felonies based on eyewitness testimony. The witnesses believed their memories were accurate. They were wrong.
It’s tragic when an innocent person is sent to prison. It’s also tragic when a family is destroyed because brothers and sisters (or parents) remember an upsetting event differently and blame each other. Each is certain his or her memory is not only true, but the only version possible. [Read more…]