The Power of Eyewitness Testimony

CBS 60 Minutes did a powerful story about two weeks ago now about eyewitness testimony. It is worth watching, if you can spare the time.

There have been 233 people exonerated by DNA in this country, and now a stunning pattern has emerged: more than three quarters of them were sent to prison at least in part because an eyewitness pointed a finger – an eyewitness we now know was wrong.

Part 1

Part 2

The Bunny Effect

I am a firm believer, from my understanding of human behavior, that memory should be instantaneous. If it takes you time to recall something, there is a high likelihood that your memory is not clear and may have become tainted.

“Learn To Read Faces”

Here is an article that you might enjoy. Don’t forget to read page two!

I think O’Sullivan makes a fabulous point:

“It’s not merely seeing the behavior and recognizing it but in interpreting the situation”

In other words, while you’re scanning your date for the usual emotions someone might associate with lying — microexpressions of guilt or fear — you might be missing something bigger.

Your date might not feel guilty at all about lying to get you into bed. In fact, he might be concealing pride or cockiness at his ability to deceive you.”

I think her point is so important, because just seeing and identifying expressions and emotions isn’t enough to accurately understand a situation. So many people show emotional biases that skew their ability when they attempt to understand others, or they use their own past experiences to judge other people’s actions, which will not yield accurate results when reading others.

Read moreIt is critically important to be unbiased when you are trying to understand the actions of another, not jump to quick conclusions, and to explore every potential outcome possible that could explain a situation before formulating an opinion. Of course, doing this is much easier said then done.

How do you teach people to remove emotional and experiential biases? Biases and judgments cloud one’s ability to see the truth.

My Thoughts: Ronald Cummings on Nancy Grace

What is so fascinating about this video is that Ronald Cummings isn’t on the defensive like he usually is (see video here). He is fine with everyone tightening the reins on Misty, and ironically, that doesn’t seem to bother him at all. His posture is relaxed, and his hands are splayed in front of him in a calm manner.

Read moreBut what is even more interesting is that you would expect Cummings of all people, here to be the most perplexed, mad and concerned about Misty’s inconsistencies, if he is innocent and uninvolved, but he isn’t! Cummings, like everyone else, should want to know why there are inconsistencies. He should be all over them like a wet blanket, so he can get to the truth, but he isn’t. Instead, he marries Misty and acts like it isn’t his concern or worry that she is inconsistent. This behavior does not support honesty. Is that because he already knows the answers?

Throughout the interview, Cummings is feeling positive emotions. He almost has a “glow” about him. I can’t quite put my fingers on it, but it is palpable. He is on the edge, at times, of breaking into a smile. He clearly tries several times to hold it back. I captured this image below when he said “no” at one point.

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Try saying “no” when you are serious. Your lips don’t curl up like this (see above). He is saying no and smiling very faintly at the same time. To move your lips upward like this when you feel serious and say no is very awkward to do, unless you are feeling a positive emotion.

Nancy Grace starts out by asking Cummings what Misty originally told him regarding their sleeping arrangements that night with respect to Haleigh. Notice how Ronald does what is considered a “false start”? Cummings starts talking, then stops and changes his direction.

Cummings says, “She told me that she was sleeping in the beh…, um, her and junior were sleeping in my queen size bed and that she was sleeping in the tot bed beside her…”This is quite telling. I suspect he was going to said “bed” above, but stopped mid-sentence.

Was he going to say that she was sleeping in the bed with Junior and Haleigh? When Cummings says the words”beside her,” he makes an expression of doubt with his lips and squints his eyes. He pulls his lips up on one side, like when some people say, “I don’t know.” He continues with more expressions of doubt when he says, “…three or four feet beside her, or whatever.” He squints his eyes like he is trying to recollect this, and his lips move to the opposite side this time, which is unusual for this type of memory, which should be concrete because he has talked about it so many times, if he is telling the truth.

Grace asked how everything got so mis-communicated about where Haleigh slept, and when Cummings replies, the very first few words he says, he has the slightest smirk on his face, “Ms. Nancy, I have no, no answer for you. I don’t know how it was mis-communicated.”

Grace goes on to ask if Misty told the police that Haleigh was in a separate bed, to which Cummings replies, “I wasn’t there when she was questioned by police, Ms. Nancy.” At the end of that comment, you can clearly see a grin on his face. It’s subtle but definitely there.

Grace than asks why Misty didn’t call the police immediately when she realized Haleigh was missing. Notice Cummings doesn’t answer the question, and Grace never calls him on it! Instead, he just goes into what I could call a rote speech about the events of that night. He repeats what he has repeated a thousand times. Also, notice how Cummings’ voice inflection changes? All the inflection in his voice disappears, and he talks as if he is drone, just recollecting data. He has no emotions whatsoever.

Why doesn’t Cummings feel any emotions about that devastating night? He should feel tremendous pain and anguish when thinking about the realization that his daughter is missing, or at least feeling fear, or worry he experienced that night, but he doesn’t. It’s a huge red flag. He also gets nervous, and starts wiggling in his leg again. Why is he nervous when he talks about this? Notice he feels nervousness, but he does not feel any emotions when it comes to his daughter? That’s a huge red flag.

Do you also notice how Cummings said he turned the house upside down, and then told Misty to call 911? Why didn’t he ever look outside? Isn’t that odd? Misty said the front door was propped wide open. Why wouldn’t he start canvassing the neighborhood while Misty called police? It’s just another inconsistency in his story.

Clearly, what we should be seeing in Cummings, such as serious questions for Misty, if he is truly uninvolved in Haleigh’s disappearance, are not present, and worse, he is showing signs of positive emotions, which absolutely make no sense whatsoever.

To read more of my opinions of this case, click on the labels below. To read my original opinion, you’ll need to scroll to the bottom of the page.

Ronald Cummings on Nancy Grace

Many of you have asked me to review Ronald Cummings on the Nancy Grace show last night. Please bear with me. My mind is distracted today because my cousin is going through a very challenging time. I hope you’ll be patient with me.

See my thoughts here.

Trying to Fake Me Out

Naturally, you can guess, when people know I am a lie detector, one thing they do is try to fake me out with a lie, jokingly, to see if I will catch it, and my husband is no exception.

Yesterday, I was out and about with a friend, and when I came home, I asked my hubby if he sat outside and relaxed. Before I left, I told him it would do him wonders if he did, so I was hoping, when I came back, that he did just that. He needed some fresh air (after painting my office, of course!).

Read moreHe was standing over a huge, delicious pan of lasagna when I asked him, “Did you take some time to relax today?” He was looking down, trying to cut a piece and serve it.

He said very seriously, “No, I didn’t.”

His face was as still as a piece of wall art. I was in the dark for a second. Then he said “No, I didn’t” again, and in an instant, something caused the lower portion of the center of his left eyebrow to twitch in a flash.

“Ah!,” I said as I grabbed my plate of lasagna from him. “You did sit out. I am so glad to know that. Do you know your eyebrow just twitched and gave you away?”

My husband look up at me, grinned and looked left and then right and said, “It did?”

I smiled and sat down at the table to share Sunday dinner. “That was amazing,” I said. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen that one before.”

Unless my husband happened to get an involuntary body twitch at the exact precise moment of his lie, there was no other explanation for him to show a sign of tension like that. I think he was working so hard to prevent himself from making any smirks or smiles that his face was so tense, it hiccuped.

So, while I couldn’t be 100% certain it was a lie by his twitch only, the odds were quite high that it was, and when I told him it was and he smiled, I knew for sure that I had called it right on the money.

The odds were low that he experienced an involuntary twitch at that precise moment, and more than that, they were low because the twitch didn’t repeat itself–which is common for the average twitch we all experience, without reason, from time-to-time.

I am so grateful my husband thinks that my abilities are something to poke fun at, and he is very playful about it. That is a big blessing!