Burton was portrayed as a drug user who killed his mother for money. Their perceptions of him could also have been influenced by implicit racial biases associating Black people with criminality. Burton’s confession, police, prosecutors, and ultimately a jury believed that the confession reflected his character and he was wrongly convicted. Rather than recognizing the power and influence of the situation (e.g., shock, grief, isolation, and threats during interrogation), when considering Mr. After hours of interrogation during which officers intimidated and pressured him, he falsely confessed and later recanted. This was the case for Innocence Project client Huwe Burton, who was a teenager when he returned home from school to find his mother murdered. This phenomenon occurs when people readily and quickly attribute someone’s actions to their character or personality, rather than considering situational or external factors that might explain the behavior. (Image: Clarence Davis/NY Daily News via Getty Images)įor instance, a common type of cognitive bias known as the fundamental attribution error could lead law enforcement to focus on the wrong suspect. Huwe Burton, charged with slaying mother, is taken from Laconia Avenue precinct last night for booking. These mental shortcuts help us operate efficiently, but they also have the potential to skew our perceptions and, therefore, can undermine the search for truth in a criminal investigation. They are like mental “shortcuts” we develop over time to help us process information and situations more quickly based on past experiences. These biases are developed because our minds naturally identify patterns based on our experiences, environment, and the information we consume. They are the human brain’s way of adapting to a complex world. These tendencies are universal, meaning everyone has them. “Cognitive bias” refers to a wide variety of inadvertent mental tendencies that can impact perception, memory, reasoning, and behavior. In this context, “bias” doesn’t mean prejudice or favoritism. Our research found that everyday people and law enforcement professionals alike are vulnerable to cognitive biases and that the biases can contribute to wrongful convictions. Nearly two decades later, DNA evidence identified the person who had actually committed both crimes and who had been a person of interest in the original investigations, resulting in the exonerations of both men. They did not consider all the evidence and did not critically evaluate all possible leads. Brewer because they were the “usual suspects” - the boyfriends. Brewer was also wrongfully convicted.ĭespite the striking similarities in their cases, police honed in on Mr. That same year, in a remarkably similar case, a man named Kennedy Brewer was accused of assaulting and killing his girlfriend’s 3-year-old daughter in the same county. To learn more, the Innocence Project’s science and research team recently reviewed the existing social science research on cognitive biases in criminal case evaluations, with our clients’ cases in mind.įor example, Levon Brooks was wrongfully convicted of assaulting and killing his ex-girlfriend’s 3-year-old daughter in Noxubee County, Miss., in 1992. But, too often, their cognitive biases - unconscious beliefs they hold and inadvertent mental tendencies they have - influence this process, and this can lead to wrongful convictions. When a crime is committed, police investigators are tasked with developing a suspect based on evidence. in forensic psychology from John Jay College of Criminal Justice, part of the City University of New York. Vanessa Meterko is the Research Manager at the Innocence Project.
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