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Hi Vic,
Here are two examples that are pertinent to Valerie"s identifications:
1]
Ms. Thompson went to the police station later that same day to work up a [composite sketch] of her attacker, relying on what she believed was her detailed memory. Several days later, the police constructed a photographic lineup, and she selected Ronald Junior Cotton from the lineup. She later testified against him at trial. She was positive it was him, without any doubt in her mind. "I was sure. I knew it. I had picked the right guy, and he was going to go to jail. If there was the possibility of a death sentence, I wanted him to die. I wanted to flip the switch."[7]
But she was wrong, as DNA results eventually showed. It turns out she was even presented with her actual attacker during a second trial proceeding a year after the attack, but swore she'd never seen the man before in her life. She remained convinced that Ronald Cotton was her attacker, and it was not until much later, after Mr. Cotton had served 11 years in prison for a crime he did not commit, that she realized that she had made a grave mistake.
Jennifer Thompson's memory had failed her, resulting in a substantial injustice. It took definitive DNA testing to shake her confidence, but she now knows that despite her confidence in her identification, it was wrong. Cases like Ms. Thompson's, including a long history of eyewitness errors traceable back to Biblical times, prompted the emergence of a field within the social sciences dedicated to the study of eyewitness memory and the causes ......
2] link
As you know ,I dont believe for one moment anything about the DNA found on either the hanky or the knickers- I believe it is in fact deeply suspect and has been since the moment Alphon and Hanratty were found to share blood group O from semen testing in 1961.The more I learn of the case the more I believe it to have been a fabricated case against Hanratty,constructed in desperation ,possibly in good faith ,by Mr Acott and Mr Oxford, but "fabricated" nontheless.The reason I think this,and I will reiterate, is because of the following:
First because the police used bogus statements from Nudds and later used Langdale to "swing things"; Second because they "withheld evidence" in a capital case - as Mr Sherrard reminded us in no uncertain terms---viz " I couldn"t bring myself to believe that anyone could be so wicked"- Michael Sherrard QC May 2002;
Finally because the police were proven to have " tampered with witness statements "by modern forensic testing techniques ---thereby giving a very different meaning to what Hanratty had actually said to the police during his questioning.We know too that Mr Oxford appears to have had a bit of a history of" faking documents " from the successful case brought by Alison Halford against the Liverpool and Merseyside Police in the 1990"s so this in nothing that new.
Here are two examples that are pertinent to Valerie"s identifications:
1]
Ms. Thompson went to the police station later that same day to work up a [composite sketch] of her attacker, relying on what she believed was her detailed memory. Several days later, the police constructed a photographic lineup, and she selected Ronald Junior Cotton from the lineup. She later testified against him at trial. She was positive it was him, without any doubt in her mind. "I was sure. I knew it. I had picked the right guy, and he was going to go to jail. If there was the possibility of a death sentence, I wanted him to die. I wanted to flip the switch."[7]
But she was wrong, as DNA results eventually showed. It turns out she was even presented with her actual attacker during a second trial proceeding a year after the attack, but swore she'd never seen the man before in her life. She remained convinced that Ronald Cotton was her attacker, and it was not until much later, after Mr. Cotton had served 11 years in prison for a crime he did not commit, that she realized that she had made a grave mistake.
Jennifer Thompson's memory had failed her, resulting in a substantial injustice. It took definitive DNA testing to shake her confidence, but she now knows that despite her confidence in her identification, it was wrong. Cases like Ms. Thompson's, including a long history of eyewitness errors traceable back to Biblical times, prompted the emergence of a field within the social sciences dedicated to the study of eyewitness memory and the causes ......
2] link
As you know ,I dont believe for one moment anything about the DNA found on either the hanky or the knickers- I believe it is in fact deeply suspect and has been since the moment Alphon and Hanratty were found to share blood group O from semen testing in 1961.The more I learn of the case the more I believe it to have been a fabricated case against Hanratty,constructed in desperation ,possibly in good faith ,by Mr Acott and Mr Oxford, but "fabricated" nontheless.The reason I think this,and I will reiterate, is because of the following:
First because the police used bogus statements from Nudds and later used Langdale to "swing things"; Second because they "withheld evidence" in a capital case - as Mr Sherrard reminded us in no uncertain terms---viz " I couldn"t bring myself to believe that anyone could be so wicked"- Michael Sherrard QC May 2002;
Finally because the police were proven to have " tampered with witness statements "by modern forensic testing techniques ---thereby giving a very different meaning to what Hanratty had actually said to the police during his questioning.We know too that Mr Oxford appears to have had a bit of a history of" faking documents " from the successful case brought by Alison Halford against the Liverpool and Merseyside Police in the 1990"s so this in nothing that new.
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