Witness: I have no idea why I told police that debutante's killers were white

[deadparrot]

SAVANNAH, Ga. (Court TV) - A man who witnessed the shooting death of a Savannah debutante on Christmas Eve 2005 told jurors Friday that he has no idea why he initially told police that two of the assailants were white men.

An hour after he watched his childhood friend, Jennifer Ross, get shot in the back during a botched robbery, Brannen Miles told police that two of the three attackers were white.

Michael Thorpe, 26, Webster Wilson, 25, and Kevin Huckabee, 21, are on trial for the murder of the 19-year-old college student. They are all black.

After the shooting, Miles told police that he got a good look at one of the assailants - a white man with "blond facial hair" - as he climbed into a Ford Taurus and fled the scene.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ct/20061208/cr_ct/witnessihavenoideawhyitoldpolicethatdebutanteskillerswerewhite

[MADem]

1. Jesus Christ on the Witness Stand!!!!!!

What a worthless douche of a witness...this whole testimony just STIIIIIINKS...!!!!

"I'm really good at cars. I can tell a car just by looking at the headlights in my rearview mirror," Miles said, adding that he had three subscriptions to automobile magazines. "But I'm awful at faces and names."


Defense attorneys pressed Miles about his memories of the attackers.


"So you're no longer certain about the white man, but the Ford Taurus, that hasn't changed?" Brian Daly, Wilson's lawyer, asked.


"Yes sir, I'm positive," Miles said.


"When did you decide that this white man was a black man?" Richard Darden, Thorpe's lawyer, asked.

"It wasn't a decision, it was after reviewing it in my head so many times," Miles said.

[Jackpine Radical]

3. Prosopagnosia?

[TahitiNut]

4. Now, there's a word I don't get to use every week.

Good 'un! :thumbsup:

[MADem]

7. Gee, would a sufferer not be able to get race?

Hell, I'm no car expert, and I might not be able to spot that Taurus, but I'd know the difference between a blue one and a red one....not being color blind, anyway!!

Be interesting if the guy ended up with that diagnosis...

[LeftishBrit]

12. Possible!

Prosopagnosia (inability to recognize faces) was recently found to be much commoner than had previously been thought. About one in 50 people have this condition from birth; and many aren't fully aware of it. Most can still distinguish between black and white people; but there are some who cannot (at least when they have to rely on memory).

Quite generally speaking, most people over-estimate their ability to recognize faces that they've seen briefly; and this can cause over-confidence in court testimony.

Alternatively, he might just have a poor memory, which was further impaired by stress in this situation.

[bananas]

5. "it was after reviewing it in my head so many times" nt

[Jackpine Radical]

13. A great formula for memory confabulation.

[karlrschneider]

2. And the inevitable knuckledragger Yahoo poster response:

http://news.messages.yahoo.com/bbs?.mm=&action=m&board=37447134&tid=ctwitnessihavenoideawhyitoldpolicethatdebutanteskillerswerewhite&sid=37447134&mid=6&thr=3&cur=3&dir=d

[shance]

6. How do we know Brannen wasn't telling the truth initially?

How do we know Brannen wasn't threatened and/or interrogated to change his story?

This could be an honest mistake, it could also be a cover up.

I honestly don't know what to believe from our own very racist, biased, Anglo owned and operated media anymore.

Those who own and operate the media have essentially lied to us about virtually everything of importance - who's to say this isn't another lie to cover up the truth?

[crispini]

8. A personal experience with being an eyewitness.

I was in a car wreck once. The truck that hit me then ran away. I was very shaken up but due to being in a hit and run a few years before, I had the presence of mind to grab pen and paper and write down the license plate. I was sure, as it pulled away from me, that it was a red truck. I called 911, gave them the plate, and the truck was pulled over a few blocks later by the cops.

It was a green truck.

Same plates and he had my paint on his bumper. He hit me, for sure. But I would have sworn on my life that it was a red truck, and it was a green truck.

So much for eyewitnesses.

[recoveringrepublican]

9. I once was an almost victim of road rage

just 15 with a learner's permit. Was driving to the twin cities with my friend and her mom. Car pulls in front of us, passenger points gun out window, my "oh shit" mode is turned on. I'm not really looking at faces, just the gun and the road, searching for the nearest exit. The driver also starts to point a gun at us. We get off and call the cops. I swear it was two white guys, my friend says two black guys, and the mom says one white one black. Damn this was over 12 years ago now...I could not tell you what kind of car they drive. Maybe I react differently then most to highly stressful/dangerous situations, maybe it was my age, but I'll never trust eyewitnesses testimony.

[intaglio]

10. IIRC his later testimony is likely to be wrong

because research has found eye witness statements get worse with time because people edit their memories to fit with other arguments and their prejudices.

[Judi Lynn]

11. This is the very FIRST one I've seen like this.

All the other ones I've heard which ended up in misidentification of the suspects had white people identifying the suspects as black, and, in some cases, deliberately lying about people who weren't even there at all, as in Susan Smith's claim a black man with a stocking cap drowned her two boys, and the man in the North East who claimed a black man shot his wife, whereas he did it himself. There have been a ton of these events directed at placing blame on black people for crimes committed by the "witnesses" themselves.

By now I've heard it so many times, I'm not close to going into shock if it finally happens with white people temporarily blamed.

Why not wait until more details are available before trying to work it up into some kind of a racial rampage?