It was very interesting being filmed advising the lawyers on the reliability of the identification evidence in the case of the death of Olive Turner in Birmingham in 1927; and the subsequent hanging of her alleged murderer Joseph Power. There were certainly issues with some of the procedures, which would not be allowed today. Were these procedural problems sufficient to bring his death sentence into question, and this case potentially being a miscarriage of justice? You will have to watch the entire show (available for 27 days on BBC IPlayer)
Murder Mystery and My Family: https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000by3z
BBC1: 9.15AM: Tuesday 3 December 2019 (and IPlayer)
The only error I need to declare is that I am not officially a forensic psychologist, even though that is how I am described (Reader in Applied Psychology is my correct title).
Note - alluded to in the show was that a street identification of the defendant was first conducted outside a factory prior to the line-up identification. I have also published research on the reliability of a street identification held by the police followed by a line-up here:-
Davis, J. P., Valentine, T., Memon, A., & Roberts, A. J. (2015). Identification on the street: a field comparison of police street identifications and video line-ups in England. Psychology, Crime and Law, 1, 9-27. DOI.org/10.1080/1068316X.2014.915322
A free link to a pre-print of this article and others is also on the website: www.superrecognisers.com (research)
Enjoy Josh Davis
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