Stephen Patterson was a friendly young man who grew up in Alabama. His family later moved to South Central Los Angeles. In 2005, there was a gang shooting in their neighborhood that left a victim dead. Stephen heard the shots and witnessed perpetrators fleeing the scene. When the Police came to investigate, he gave them what information he knew. 

About a year later, Stephen was arrested for that murder after an eyewitness falsely identified him as the shooter. The identification was cross-racial and made at a distance, through window blinds, from inside a house. It has been scientifically shown that cross-racial identifications are less reliable than same-race identifications.

Setting aside any notions of racism, human beings tend to struggle when identifying someone outside of their race. According to Justin Brooks (founder and former director of the California Innocence Project), our ability to recognize people is encoded when we are very young. As a biological imperative for survival, it is critical for children to know who their parents are. And so, we tend to best recognize facial features associated with our family’s racial background. Unfortunately, this recognition skill does not develop to the same degree as we get older and venture out into the world. As such, human beings are not as good at identifying people of different races. 

Stephen Patterson was exonerated on March 13, 2024 through the hard work of the The Innocence Center and cooperation from the Conviction Integrity Unit at the District Attorney’s Office in Los Angeles County. He spent 18 years behind bars for a crime he did not commit.

The mini-documentary 🎥 above is about Stephen Patterson and his fight for freedom.

Written by:

Laurence Colletti