http://www.shodor.org/succeed-1.0/forensic/observation/observation.html
This discussion board continues with our examination of eyewitness identification that we started last week. I have been thinking about the Supreme Court a lot lately, in light of all of the significant cases that they will be deciding now that they have come back in to session following COVID. The expectation has been that this session would be very controversial, and it has. I thought about the events from a couple of years ago surrounding the supreme court justice nomination hearings for Justice Brett Kavanaugh. For those of you who were following the case (I hope that all of you are familiar with the story to some degree), you know that some of the senators argued that they believed that Dr. Ford who accused the Justice of sexual assault in college was assaulted but that her memory was poor regarding who did it. She has identified then Supreme Court Justice nominee, now Supremem Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh as her attacker. Whatever your thoughts on the matter, the issues created interesting conversations on the topic of identification accuracy.
This weeks discussion board will require you to complete an exercise that you will find at the link above. You must be on your honor to allocate only the 30 seconds allowed to look at the picture you will be given. Set your time for 30 seconds to be ready to launch . (If the hyperlink is not blue, hover over the word photo with your mouse and click on it.) Once you look at the photo for 30 seconds, close the picture and do not look at it again before you answer the questions in the exercise. Next, click on Questions about the Picture if the hyperlink is not blue. Do not look at the questions before you look at the picture.
I cant stress enough the importance of your honoring the rules of this process. This exercise will not be graded on how well you performed on the exercise. It is designed to give you an appreciation for the importance and difficulties of recall, particularly when the time for observation is limited.
Complete the exercises by Thursday and post your answers to the questions in the discussion board by midnight. Quick responses are all that is necessary for your original post. Come back to the discussion board starting Friday at 12:01 a.m. and discuss your reactions with your colleagues through Sunday 10/16 at midnight.
For your response posts, include comments regarding how easy or difficult the exercise was for you. Imagine how the situation would have been if you were the victim of a crime and you had to provide police with this valuable information. Can you relate better to Jennifer from our Pickin Cotton video. What does this demonstrate regarding the identification process as it relates to criminal justice?