60 Minutes

1) In Cl ass discuss how the show affected what you understood and believed about eye witness testimony
2) Does the information impact the way you may try to remember events as you explain them to others

When I was first reading this article I felt as though the victim of rape was pretty smart to focus her attention to her rapist. I would probably try and be in that same mind set so I could catch him and make him pay. What goes around comes around. Continuing, she seemed so sure of her eye witness testimony and it seemed so accurate in my opinion as well. However, later finding that another man resembled Cotton was kind of a toss up. Supposedly everyone has someone else that looks almost like a twin to you, but who would've thought. Cotton got smart and asked for DNA, which it is a shame he didn't think of that earlier in his sentence. Turning out he was innocent and that someone else actually did it was fascinating. The rape victim's testimony wasn't necessarily wrong it's just the fact the resemblence of her rapist and Cotton was similar. If I were in her position and later found out that my testimony was wrong and I chose the wrong guy, I probably would be very upset. Not only did you not find your rapist but you put an innocent man in prison for all that time. I don't think I'd be able to cope with that situation. It's so depressing.
The fact that our memory is suseptable to being manipulated makes me think about the times I have tried to explain what someone looks like to someone who doesn't know who I was speaking of. Sometimes the one I was trying to explain stuff to was asking questions that suggest and it would seem as though that was right. When really it wasn't all of the time. It definitely opens up another view of how simple our memory can be when you really break it down. It's simply complex but it's complexity isn't always in every view.