Page 167 - The Social Animal

Social Cognition 149

bering, psychologists have repeatedly found, is a reconstructive
process. By this I mean that we cannot tap into a literal translation
of past events. It is not like playing back a tape recorder or a VCR;
instead, we recreate our memories from bits and pieces of actual
events filtered through and modified by our notions of what might
have been, and what should have been, and we would like it to have
been. Our memories are also profoundly influenced by what people
might have told us about the specific events—long after they oc-
54
curred. As Anthony Greenwald has noted, if historians revised and
distorted history to the same extent that we do in trying to recall
events from our own lives, they’d lose their jobs! Of course, most of
us would like to believe that our memories contain only the truth
about the past. To most people, the idea that their memory is falli-
ble is unsettling. But consider how frightening it was to Timothy
Hennis, who almost lost his life because the members of his jury be-
lieved that memory is infallible.
Let me explain. On July 4, 1986, Hennis was convicted of the
triple murder of Kathryn, Kara, and Erin Eastburn and the rape of
Kathryn Eastburn. The crime was a particularly grisly one. Appar-
55
ently, an intruder had broken into the Eastburn home, held a knife
to Kathryn Eastburn, raped her, and then slit her throat and stabbed
her 15 times. Three-year-old Erin and 5-year-old Kara were each
stabbed almost a dozen times.The police followed a quick lead. Ear-
lier in the week,Timothy Hennis had answered the Eastburns’ news-
paper ad requesting someone to adopt their black Labrador retriever.
Hennis had taken the dog on a trial basis.
During the trial, two eyewitnesses placed Hennis at the scene of
the crime. Chuck Barrett testified that he had seen Hennis walking
in the area at 3:30 AM on the morning of the murders. Sandra Barnes
testified that she had seen a man who looked like Hennis using a
bank card that police had identified earlier as one stolen from the
Eastburn residence. But Hennis had an airtight alibi for his where-
abouts on the night of the murder. Moreover, there was no physical
evidence (fingerprints, clothing fibers, footprints, blood stains, hair)
to link him to the scene. Nevertheless, the jury found the eyewitness
testimony convincing and convicted Hennis—sentencing him to
death by lethal injection.
Hennis spent 845 days on death row before a judge from the court
of appeals ordered a new trial on the basis of a procedural technicality