Psychology of Memory Applied to a Real Case of Wrongful Conviction

A group of four armed thieves entered a market in Buenos Aires. The episode ended tragically, with the murder of an employee. A local person was accused of the crime and sentenced to life in prison. Ten years later, with the support of Innocence Project Argentina and legal organizations that observed irregularities in the procedure, their case was reopened. Our team was consulted to review the files, analyzing from a psychological perspective the validity of the memory processes involved. Here we discuss the results of that analysis in the light of current theories on false memories formation, memory updating through the reconsolidation process, memory forgetting and general errors in recognition. In 2022, the judge in charge of M.'s case decided to release them, citing a lack of evidence to support their conviction. The material included in this case report was among the documents considered to reach that decision.