Susette M. Talarico Lecture featuring Dr. Steven Clark

“Truth, Justice, and Eyewitness Identification”
Socio-legal research on eyewitness identification had little impact on the criminal justice system in the United States until the 1990’s when a reform movement gathered momentum from DNA exoneration cases that revealed dozens (now hundreds) of cases in which innocent people had been erroneously convicted due to mistaken identification evidence. But new research suggests that many of the reforms that were proposed – and in some cases mandated through legislation – may actually reduce the accuracy of identification evidence and criminal justice outcomes. A new framework is outlined for a way forward, to develop, implement, and assess eyewitness legal reform.

Steven E. Clark is Professor of Psychology and Director of the Presley Center for Crime and Justice Studies at the University of California, Riverside, and the Founding Director of the University of California Consortium on Social Science and Law. Professor Clark has been on the faculty of UC Riverside for 28 years where he has conducted experimental research on human memory and eyewitness identification. This research, funded by the National Science Foundation, has been published in Law and Human Behavior, the Journal of Experimental Psychology, Perspectives on Psychological Science, American Psychologist, the Proceedings of the National Academy of Science, and other scientific and scholarly journals. Professor Clark earned his PhD in cognitive psychology at Indiana University. He has been involved in over 200 criminal and civil cases, has consulted with both prosecution and defense attorneys, and has testified in Federal and State courts in California, Washington, Texas, Nevada, Arizona, and Wisconsin. His current research examines the costs and benefits of eyewitness identification reforms, and the interface between social science and public policy.