0:00:02.097,0:00:06.569 The murder happened a little over 21 years ago, 0:00:06.569,0:00:10.848 January the 18th, 1991, 0:00:10.848,0:00:13.109 in a small 0:00:13.109,0:00:15.483 bedroom community 0:00:15.483,0:00:18.318 of Lynwood, California, just a few miles 0:00:18.318,0:00:20.816 southeast of Los Angeles. 0:00:20.816,0:00:23.651 A father came out of his house 0:00:23.651,0:00:27.058 to tell his teenage son and his five friends 0:00:27.058,0:00:29.837 that it was time for them to stop horsing around 0:00:29.837,0:00:32.747 on the front lawn and on the sidewalk, 0:00:32.747,0:00:35.655 to get home, finish their schoolwork, 0:00:35.655,0:00:38.401 and prepare themselves for bed. 0:00:38.401,0:00:41.971 And as the father was administering these instructions, 0:00:41.971,0:00:45.309 a car drove by, slowly, 0:00:45.309,0:00:48.211 and just after it passed the father and the teenagers, 0:00:48.211,0:00:52.199 a hand went out from the front passenger window, 0:00:52.199,0:00:57.461 and -- "Bam, Bam!" -- killing the father. 0:00:57.461,0:01:00.620 And the car sped off. 0:01:00.620,0:01:02.461 The police, 0:01:02.461,0:01:06.291 investigating officers, were amazingly efficient. 0:01:06.291,0:01:08.721 They considered all the usual culprits, 0:01:08.721,0:01:13.288 and in less than 24 hours, they had selected their suspect: 0:01:13.288,0:01:16.866 Francisco Carrillo, a 17-year-old kid 0:01:16.866,0:01:18.903 who lived about two or three blocks away 0:01:18.903,0:01:21.638 from where the shooting occurred. 0:01:21.638,0:01:26.286 They found photos of him. They prepared a photo array, 0:01:26.286,0:01:29.870 and the day after the shooting, 0:01:29.870,0:01:32.763 they showed it to one of the teenagers, and he said, 0:01:32.763,0:01:35.082 "That's the picture. 0:01:35.082,0:01:40.469 That's the shooter I saw that killed the father." 0:01:40.469,0:01:43.046 That was all a preliminary hearing judge had 0:01:43.046,0:01:48.155 to listen to, to bind Mr. Carrillo over to stand trial 0:01:48.155,0:01:50.842 for a first-degree murder. 0:01:50.842,0:01:54.049 In the investigation that followed before the actual trial, 0:01:54.049,0:01:57.460 each of the other five teenagers was shown 0:01:57.460,0:02:01.508 photographs, the same photo array. 0:02:01.508,0:02:04.332 The picture that we best can determine was probably 0:02:04.332,0:02:06.604 the one that they were shown in the photo array 0:02:06.604,0:02:10.301 is in your bottom left hand corner of these mug shots. 0:02:10.301,0:02:13.737 The reason we're not sure absolutely is because 0:02:13.737,0:02:18.170 of the nature of evidence preservation 0:02:18.170,0:02:20.454 in our judicial system, 0:02:20.454,0:02:25.202 but that's another whole TEDx talk for later. (Laughter) 0:02:25.202,0:02:28.108 So at the actual trial, 0:02:28.108,0:02:31.108 all six of the teenagers testified, 0:02:31.108,0:02:34.866 and indicated the identifications they had made 0:02:34.866,0:02:38.342 in the photo array. 0:02:38.342,0:02:43.123 He was convicted. He was sentenced to life imprisonment, 0:02:43.123,0:02:48.582 and transported to Folsom Prison. 0:02:48.582,0:02:50.671 So what's wrong? 0:02:50.671,0:02:55.437 Straightforward, fair trial, full investigation. 0:02:55.437,0:02:58.978 Oh yes, no gun was ever found. 0:02:58.978,0:03:03.132 No vehicle was ever identified as being the one 0:03:03.132,0:03:06.356 in which the shooter had extended his arm, 0:03:06.356,0:03:09.641 and no person was ever charged with being the driver 0:03:09.641,0:03:12.883 of the shooter's vehicle. 0:03:12.883,0:03:16.764 And Mr. Carrillo's alibi? 0:03:16.764,0:03:22.058 Which of those parents here in the room might not lie 0:03:22.058,0:03:24.877 concerning the whereabouts of your son or daughter 0:03:24.877,0:03:28.774 in an investigation of a killing? 0:03:30.874,0:03:33.596 Sent to prison, 0:03:33.596,0:03:37.094 adamantly insisting on his innocence, 0:03:37.094,0:03:41.831 which he has consistently for 21 years. 0:03:41.831,0:03:45.302 So what's the problem? 0:03:45.302,0:03:48.026 The problems, actually, for this kind of case 0:03:48.026,0:03:51.935 come manyfold from decades of scientific research 0:03:51.935,0:03:55.837 involving human memory. 0:03:55.837,0:03:58.651 First of all, we have all the statistical analyses 0:03:58.651,0:04:00.858 from the Innocence Project work, 0:04:00.858,0:04:03.555 where we know that we have, what, 0:04:03.555,0:04:07.336 250, 280 documented cases now where people have 0:04:07.336,0:04:11.408 been wrongfully convicted and subsequently exonerated, 0:04:11.408,0:04:17.754 some from death row, on the basis of later DNA analysis, 0:04:17.754,0:04:21.415 and you know that over three quarters of all of those cases 0:04:21.415,0:04:27.686 of exoneration involved only eyewitness identification 0:04:27.686,0:04:31.333 testimony during the trial that convicted them. 0:04:31.333,0:04:36.508 We know that eyewitness identifications are fallible. 0:04:36.508,0:04:38.728 The other comes from an interesting aspect 0:04:38.728,0:04:41.931 of human memory that's related to various brain functions 0:04:41.931,0:04:44.497 but I can sum up for the sake of brevity here 0:04:44.497,0:04:46.881 in a simple line: 0:04:46.881,0:04:51.629 The brain abhors a vacuum. 0:04:51.629,0:04:55.539 Under the best of observation conditions, 0:04:55.539,0:04:57.411 the absolute best, 0:04:57.411,0:05:01.124 we only detect, encode and store in our brains 0:05:01.124,0:05:04.819 bits and pieces of the entire experience in front of us, 0:05:04.819,0:05:07.148 and they're stored in different parts of the brain. 0:05:07.148,0:05:11.303 So now, when it's important for us to be able to recall 0:05:11.303,0:05:14.324 what it was that we experienced, 0:05:14.324,0:05:19.602 we have an incomplete, we have a partial store, 0:05:19.602,0:05:22.055 and what happens? 0:05:22.055,0:05:24.879 Below awareness, with no requirement for any kind of 0:05:24.879,0:05:30.050 motivated processing, the brain fills in information 0:05:30.050,0:05:32.475 that was not there, 0:05:32.475,0:05:34.925 not originally stored, 0:05:34.925,0:05:37.469 from inference, from speculation, 0:05:37.469,0:05:40.281 from sources of information that came to you, 0:05:40.281,0:05:43.416 as the observer, after the observation. 0:05:43.416,0:05:45.490 But it happens without awareness such that 0:05:45.490,0:05:49.124 you don't, aren't even cognizant of it occurring. 0:05:49.124,0:05:51.391 It's called reconstructed memories. 0:05:51.391,0:05:55.690 It happens to us in all the aspects of our life, all the time. 0:05:55.690,0:05:58.954 It was those two considerations, among others -- 0:05:58.954,0:06:03.459 reconstructed memory, the fact about the eyewitness fallibility -- 0:06:03.459,0:06:06.515 that was part of the instigation 0:06:06.515,0:06:08.964 for a group of appeal attorneys 0:06:08.964,0:06:12.436 led by an amazing lawyer named Ellen Eggers 0:06:12.436,0:06:16.564 to pool their experience and their talents together 0:06:16.564,0:06:18.401 and petition a superior court 0:06:18.401,0:06:23.471 for a retrial for Francisco Carrillo. 0:06:23.471,0:06:27.859 They retained me, as a forensic neurophysiologist, 0:06:27.859,0:06:30.001 because I had expertise 0:06:30.001,0:06:32.121 in eyewitness memory identification, 0:06:32.121,0:06:35.316 which obviously makes sense for this case, right? 0:06:35.316,0:06:38.660 But also because I have expertise and testify about 0:06:38.660,0:06:43.037 the nature of human night vision. 0:06:43.037,0:06:46.070 Well, what's that got to do with this? 0:06:46.070,0:06:49.372 Well, when you read through the case materials 0:06:49.372,0:06:52.094 in this Carrillo case, 0:06:52.094,0:06:54.924 one of the things that suddenly strikes you is that 0:06:54.924,0:06:58.414 the investigating officers said the lighting was good 0:06:58.414,0:07:01.948 at the crime scene, at the shooting. 0:07:01.948,0:07:05.405 All the teenagers testified during the trial 0:07:05.405,0:07:08.884 that they could see very well. 0:07:08.884,0:07:11.724 But this occurred in mid-January, 0:07:11.724,0:07:17.723 in the Northern Hemisphere, at 7 p.m. at night. 0:07:17.723,0:07:20.748 So when I did the calculations 0:07:20.748,0:07:22.960 for the lunar data and the solar data 0:07:22.960,0:07:26.139 at that location on Earth at the time of the incident 0:07:26.139,0:07:28.187 of the shooting, all right, 0:07:28.187,0:07:30.804 it was well past the end of civil twilight 0:07:30.804,0:07:33.060 and there was no moon up that night. 0:07:33.060,0:07:35.339 So all the light in this area from the sun and the moon 0:07:35.339,0:07:37.923 is what you see on the screen right here. 0:07:37.923,0:07:40.837 The only lighting in that area had to come 0:07:40.837,0:07:44.107 from artificial sources, 0:07:44.107,0:07:46.875 and that's where I go out and I do the actual reconstruction 0:07:46.875,0:07:49.672 of the scene with photometers, with various measures 0:07:49.672,0:07:51.646 of illumination and various other measures of 0:07:51.646,0:07:56.113 color perception, along with special cameras 0:07:56.113,0:07:58.242 and high-speed film, right? 0:07:58.242,0:08:01.171 Take all the measurements and record them, right? 0:08:01.171,0:08:03.328 And then take photographs, and this is what the scene 0:08:03.328,0:08:04.763 looked like at the time of the shooting 0:08:04.763,0:08:07.229 from the position of the teenagers 0:08:07.229,0:08:11.051 looking at the car going by and shooting. 0:08:11.051,0:08:13.356 This is looking directly across the street 0:08:13.356,0:08:15.684 from where they were standing. 0:08:15.684,0:08:18.037 Remember, the investigating officers' report said 0:08:18.037,0:08:20.270 the lighting was good. 0:08:20.270,0:08:22.704 The teenagers said they could see very well. 0:08:22.704,0:08:25.955 This is looking down to the east, 0:08:25.955,0:08:29.651 where the shooting vehicle sped off, 0:08:29.651,0:08:34.543 and this is the lighting directly behind the father 0:08:34.543,0:08:36.884 and the teenagers. 0:08:36.884,0:08:40.795 As you can see, it is at best poor. 0:08:40.795,0:08:44.668 No one's going to call this well-lit, good lighting, 0:08:44.668,0:08:47.862 and in fact, as nice as these pictures are, 0:08:47.862,0:08:51.323 and the reason we take them is I knew I was going to have to testify in court, 0:08:51.323,0:08:54.515 and a picture is worth more than a thousand words 0:08:54.515,0:08:56.915 when you're trying to communicate numbers, 0:08:56.915,0:09:00.187 abstract concepts like lux, the international measurement 0:09:00.187,0:09:05.363 of illumination, the Ishihara color perception test values. 0:09:05.363,0:09:08.524 When you present those to people who are not well-versed 0:09:08.524,0:09:11.640 in those aspects of science and that, they become 0:09:11.640,0:09:14.019 salamanders in the noonday sun. It's like 0:09:14.019,0:09:16.933 talking about the tangent of the visual angle, all right? 0:09:16.933,0:09:19.718 Their eyes just glaze over, all right? 0:09:19.718,0:09:24.077 A good forensic expert also has to be a good educator, 0:09:24.077,0:09:26.236 a good communicator, and that's part of the reason 0:09:26.236,0:09:28.531 why we take the pictures, to show not only 0:09:28.531,0:09:31.331 where the light sources are, and what we call the spill, 0:09:31.331,0:09:33.960 the distribution, but also so that it's easier 0:09:33.960,0:09:37.995 for the trier of fact to understand the circumstances. 0:09:37.995,0:09:40.868 So these are some of the pictures that, in fact, 0:09:40.868,0:09:43.283 I used when I testified, 0:09:43.283,0:09:45.148 but more importantly were, to me as a scientist, 0:09:45.148,0:09:47.131 are those readings, the photometer readings, 0:09:47.131,0:09:51.731 which I can then convert into actual predictions 0:09:51.731,0:09:55.251 of the visual capability of the human eye 0:09:55.251,0:09:57.627 under those circumstances, 0:09:57.627,0:10:01.275 and from my readings that I recorded at the scene 0:10:01.275,0:10:03.515 under the same solar and lunar conditions 0:10:03.515,0:10:06.507 at the same time, so on and so forth, right, 0:10:06.507,0:10:07.913 I could predict 0:10:07.913,0:10:10.105 that there would be no reliable color perception, 0:10:10.105,0:10:12.419 which is crucial for face recognition, 0:10:12.419,0:10:14.731 and that there would be only scotopic vision, 0:10:14.731,0:10:16.691 which means there would be very little resolution, 0:10:16.691,0:10:18.939 what we call boundary or edge detection, 0:10:18.939,0:10:21.254 and that furthermore, because the eyes would have been 0:10:21.254,0:10:25.059 totally dilated under this light, the depth of field, 0:10:25.059,0:10:28.217 the distance at which you can focus and see details, 0:10:28.217,0:10:33.611 would have been less than 18 inches away. 0:10:33.611,0:10:36.115 I testified to that to the court, 0:10:36.115,0:10:38.548 and while the judge was very attentive, 0:10:38.548,0:10:41.155 it had been a very, very long hearing 0:10:41.155,0:10:45.899 for this petition for a retrial, and as a result, 0:10:45.899,0:10:47.659 I noticed out of the corner of my eye 0:10:47.659,0:10:51.804 that I thought that maybe the judge was going to need 0:10:51.804,0:10:53.867 a little more of a nudge 0:10:53.867,0:10:56.375 than just more numbers. 0:10:56.375,0:10:58.667 And here I became a bit audacious, 0:10:58.667,0:11:00.187 and I turned 0:11:00.187,0:11:02.579 and I asked the judge, 0:11:02.579,0:11:04.987 I said, "Your Honor, I think you should go out 0:11:04.987,0:11:07.691 and look at the scene yourself." 0:11:07.691,0:11:10.832 Now I may have used a tone which was more like a dare 0:11:10.832,0:11:13.236 than a request — (Laughter) — 0:11:13.236,0:11:17.683 but nonetheless, it's to this man's credit and his courage 0:11:17.683,0:11:21.299 that he said, "Yes, I will." 0:11:21.299,0:11:25.291 A shocker in American jurisprudence. 0:11:25.291,0:11:27.763 So in fact, we found the same identical conditions, 0:11:27.763,0:11:29.804 we reconstructed the entire thing again, 0:11:29.804,0:11:33.814 he came out with an entire brigade of sheriff's officers 0:11:33.814,0:11:38.971 to protect him in this community, all right? (Laughter) 0:11:38.971,0:11:44.025 We had him stand actually slightly in the street, 0:11:44.025,0:11:47.205 so closer to the suspect vehicle, the shooter vehicle, 0:11:47.205,0:11:49.947 than the actual teenagers were, 0:11:49.947,0:11:52.171 so he stood a few feet from the curb 0:11:52.171,0:11:54.783 toward the middle of the street. 0:11:54.783,0:11:57.700 We had a car that came by, 0:11:57.700,0:12:02.651 same identical car as described by the teenagers, right? 0:12:02.651,0:12:04.588 It had a driver and a passenger, 0:12:04.588,0:12:08.411 and after the car had passed the judge by, 0:12:08.411,0:12:11.925 the passenger extended his hand, 0:12:11.925,0:12:16.499 pointed it back to the judge as the car continued on, 0:12:16.499,0:12:18.718 just as the teenagers had described it, right? 0:12:18.718,0:12:21.571 Now, he didn't use a real gun in his hand, 0:12:21.571,0:12:23.989 so he had a black object in his hand that was similar 0:12:23.989,0:12:25.968 to the gun that was described. 0:12:25.968,0:12:28.814 He pointed by, and this is what the judge saw. 0:12:28.814,0:12:35.913 This is the car 30 feet away from the judge. 0:12:35.913,0:12:38.825 There's an arm sticking out of the passenger side 0:12:38.825,0:12:41.198 and pointed back at you. 0:12:41.198,0:12:43.163 That's 30 feet away. 0:12:43.163,0:12:45.355 Some of the teenagers said that in fact the car 0:12:45.355,0:12:47.931 was 15 feet away when it shot. 0:12:47.931,0:12:51.595 Okay. There's 15 feet. 0:12:51.595,0:12:55.765 At this point, I became a little concerned. 0:12:55.765,0:13:00.499 This judge is someone you'd never want to play poker with. 0:13:00.499,0:13:04.787 He was totally stoic. I couldn't see a twitch of his eyebrow. 0:13:04.787,0:13:08.056 I couldn't see the slightest bend of his head. 0:13:08.056,0:13:11.557 I had no sense of how he was reacting to this, 0:13:11.557,0:13:14.597 and after he looked at this reenactment, 0:13:14.597,0:13:15.677 he turned to me and he says, 0:13:15.677,0:13:18.935 "Is there anything else you want me to look at?" 0:13:18.935,0:13:23.430 I said, "Your honor," and I don't know whether I was 0:13:23.430,0:13:26.387 emboldened by the scientific measurements that I had 0:13:26.387,0:13:30.083 in my pocket and my knowledge that they are accurate, 0:13:30.083,0:13:32.338 or whether it was just sheer stupidity, 0:13:32.338,0:13:35.163 which is what the defense lawyers thought — (Laughter) — 0:13:35.163,0:13:36.915 when they heard me say, 0:13:36.915,0:13:39.619 "Yes, Your Honor, I want you stand right there 0:13:39.619,0:13:43.955 and I want the car to go around the block again 0:13:43.955,0:13:47.309 and I want it to come and I want it to stop 0:13:47.309,0:13:51.499 right in front of you, three to four feet away, 0:13:51.499,0:13:54.955 and I want the passenger to extend his hand 0:13:54.955,0:13:56.971 with a black object and point it right at you, 0:13:56.971,0:14:02.691 and you can look at it as long as you want." 0:14:02.691,0:14:07.118 And that's what he saw. (Laughter) 0:14:07.118,0:14:10.958 You'll notice, which was also in my test report, 0:14:10.958,0:14:13.603 all the dominant lighting is coming from the north side, 0:14:13.603,0:14:15.346 which means that the shooter's face would 0:14:15.346,0:14:17.962 have been photo-occluded. It would have been backlit. 0:14:17.962,0:14:19.864 Furthermore, the roof of the car 0:14:19.864,0:14:24.138 is causing what we call a shadow cloud inside the car 0:14:24.138,0:14:27.468 which is making it darker. 0:14:27.468,0:14:31.580 And this is three to four feet away. 0:14:31.580,0:14:34.708 Why did I take the risk? 0:14:34.708,0:14:38.937 I knew that the depth of field was 18 inches or less. 0:14:38.937,0:14:40.604 Three to four feet, it might as well have been 0:14:40.604,0:14:45.076 a football field away. 0:14:45.076,0:14:47.284 This is what he saw. 0:14:47.284,0:14:51.084 He went back, there was a few more days of evidence 0:14:51.084,0:14:53.388 that was heard. At the end of it, 0:14:53.388,0:14:56.016 he made the judgment that he was going to grant 0:14:56.016,0:14:59.094 the petition for a retrial. 0:14:59.094,0:15:01.572 And furthermore, he released Mr. Carrillo 0:15:01.572,0:15:04.559 so that he could aid in the preparation of his own defense 0:15:04.559,0:15:10.578 if the prosecution decided to retry him. 0:15:10.578,0:15:12.888 Which they decided not to. 0:15:12.888,0:15:17.949 He is now a freed man. (Applause) 0:15:17.949,0:15:21.892 (Applause) 0:15:21.892,0:15:26.996 This is him embracing his grandmother-in-law. 0:15:26.996,0:15:31.071 He -- His girlfriend was pregnant when he went to trial, 0:15:31.071,0:15:35.156 right? And she had a little baby boy. 0:15:35.156,0:15:37.837 He and his son are both attending Cal State, Long Beach 0:15:37.837,0:15:44.025 right now taking classes. (Applause) 0:15:44.025,0:15:47.988 And what does this example -- 0:15:47.988,0:15:52.332 what's important to keep in mind for ourselves? 0:15:52.332,0:15:56.028 First of all, there's a long history of antipathy 0:15:56.028,0:15:58.108 between science and the law 0:15:58.108,0:16:00.508 in American jurisprudence. 0:16:00.508,0:16:03.956 I could regale you with horror stories of ignorance 0:16:03.956,0:16:08.292 over decades of experience as a forensic expert 0:16:08.292,0:16:12.798 of just trying to get science into the courtroom. 0:16:12.798,0:16:17.732 The opposing council always fight it and oppose it. 0:16:17.732,0:16:21.119 One suggestion is that all of us become much more 0:16:21.119,0:16:23.988 attuned to the necessity, through policy, 0:16:23.988,0:16:26.044 through procedures, 0:16:26.044,0:16:29.228 to get more science in the courtroom, 0:16:29.228,0:16:31.539 and I think one large step toward that 0:16:31.539,0:16:33.381 is more requirements, 0:16:33.381,0:16:35.940 with all due respect to the law schools, 0:16:35.940,0:16:41.051 of science, technology, engineering, mathematics 0:16:41.051,0:16:43.028 for anyone going into the law, 0:16:43.028,0:16:46.652 because they become the judges. 0:16:46.652,0:16:49.700 Think about how we select our judges in this country. 0:16:49.700,0:16:53.060 It's very different than most other cultures. All right? 0:16:53.060,0:16:55.470 The other one that I want to suggest, 0:16:55.470,0:16:57.900 the caution that all of us have to have, 0:16:57.900,0:16:59.740 I constantly have to remind myself, 0:16:59.740,0:17:02.843 about just how accurate are the memories 0:17:02.843,0:17:08.212 that we know are true, that we believe in? 0:17:08.212,0:17:11.596 There is decades of research, 0:17:11.596,0:17:15.764 examples and examples of cases like this, 0:17:15.764,0:17:17.732 where individuals 0:17:17.732,0:17:21.244 really, really believe. None of those teenagers 0:17:21.244,0:17:23.076 who identified him 0:17:23.076,0:17:26.352 thought that they were picking the wrong person. 0:17:26.352,0:17:29.706 None of them thought they couldn't see the person's face. 0:17:29.706,0:17:31.838 We all have to be very careful. 0:17:31.838,0:17:35.478 All our memories are reconstructed memories. 0:17:35.478,0:17:37.876 They are the product of what we originally experienced 0:17:37.876,0:17:40.609 and everything that's happened afterwards. 0:17:40.609,0:17:42.660 They're dynamic. 0:17:42.660,0:17:45.148 They're malleable. They're volatile, 0:17:45.148,0:17:49.172 and as a result, we all need to remember to be cautious, 0:17:49.172,0:17:52.492 that the accuracy of our memories 0:17:52.492,0:17:55.996 is not measured in how vivid they are 0:17:55.996,0:18:01.127 nor how certain you are that they're correct. 0:18:01.127,0:20:30.217 Thank you. (Applause)