When someone is arrested and faces criminal charges, and the police claim to have an eyewitness who can identify the suspect, there is often a misconception that the suspect arrested on the basis of their identification must be guilty. But of course, this is not true.

Eyewitness testimony is highly unreliable, and in a number of cases, has clearly led to innocent men languishing in prison for crimes they never committed, while the guilty offenders walk free.

In one case, an eyewitness to the shooting of a police officer took the stand. After dramatically telling the courtroom that she would never forget the face of the dastardly villain who gunned down the officer, she then identified one of the male jurors as the guilty party.

Amazingly enough, yet another witness in the same case told officers with absolute certainty that the crime was committed by an African-American man wearing braids in his hair. Presented with a photo array of possible suspects, however, he quickly picked out and identified a clearly Hispanic man without hesitation, and one who had short hair to boot.

Hundreds of convicted persons have been freed based on modern DNA evidence, sometimes refuting eyewitness "certainty" over identifications. The Innocence Project has helped free almost 300 prisoners in 35 states, including 17 facing the death penalty. In three quarters of those cases, the conviction was based on faulty eyewitness identification, and in 36 percent, faulty identifications were made by multiple eyewitnesses.

As a result, the New Jersey Supreme Court, in an August 2011 decision, found that the current standard used to assess eyewitness identifications "does not fully meet its goals." Competent defense attorneys can help the wrongfully accused fight prosecutions based on such faulty identifications.

Source: MSNBC, "Witness error: How mind tricks can put the innocent behind bars," Miranda Leitsinger, Feb. 12, 2012