...Now give them back!

Once you encounter some of these stories, as well as experiments done to show how memory can be "coached", it makes you really shudder. One thing to always keep in mind is that even you don't remember everything as it really was. Some is wishful thinking. Some is reconstructed or interpolated.

The most famous experiment is the one where people were asked to say which cartoon characters they saw at Disneyland, and many of them included Bugs Bunny. Now imagine if Bugs Bunny was accused of murdering Mickey Mouse...

But seriously (that experiment was serious enough), you can't rely on memory. But there are crimes, like rape or child abuse, where your only evidence is the victim's testimony - assuming no semen can be collected at the time the complaint is filed. Would you trust the victim? If you do, you may be sending an innocent man to prison, based on reconstructed memory: the suspect looks a lot like the real culprit, and the police smile and nod when you point to him in the lineup. If you don't, you may be allowing the culprit to walk free, and putting the victim in constant danger.

Tough life