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Psychology 185

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Whether children can deliberately fabricate or conceal evidence. Are Children Credible Witnesses? ... To fabricate a story as coached by parents? ... – PowerPoint PPT presentation

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Title: Psychology 185


1
Psychology 185
  • Applied Developmental Psychology

2
Topic 3.
  • Are Children Credible Witnesses in Legal Cases?

3
Why do we need children as witnesses in legal
cases?
  • They are victims of crimes (e.g., sexual or
    physical abuse or neglect)
  • They are witnesses to crimes against others
  • They are parties concerned and affected in a
    legal case

4
General legal issues
  • Common law versus civil law
  • Criminal court versus civil court
  • Sworn testimony versus unsworn testimony
  • Court testimony versus hearsay
  • Voir Dire

5
History of children as witnesses
  • Early cases
  • Sweden (1668-1676) Sorcery
  • 16 adults burned and 27 beheaded
  • US (1690s) Salem witch trial
  • the Crucibles
  • 20 executed

6
History of children as witnesses
  • Recent cases
  • Child sexual and physical abuse
  • 500, 000 cases of child sexual abuse, of which
    about 25 were substantiated (1993)
  • 100,000 children testifying per year in North
    American
  • 50 of witnesses testifying about sexual abuse
    were preschoolers

7
History of children as witnesses
  • Recent cases
  • The Little Rascals Day Care case in North
    Carolina
  • Kelly Michaels case in New Jersey
  • Martensville case in Saskatchewan, Canada

8
History of children as witnesses
  • Childrens testimony before late 1980s
  • Children must show understanding of oath
  • Jury warning about childrens inherent
    unreliability as witnesses
  • Inadmissibility of hearsay evidence from children
  • Childrens testimony must be corroborated by
    other evidence

9
History of children as witnesses
  • Childrens testimony after late 1980s
  • Jury warning about childrens inherent
    unreliability as witnesses is abolished
  • Childrens testimony alone can be sufficient to
    be admitted as credible evidence
  • children do not have to show the understanding of
    oath
  • Some willingness to use close-circuit television
    or screen
  • Some willingness to admit hearsay evidence from
    children in civil cases but not criminal cases

10
What is credibility?
  • A psychological and legal construct that refers
    to the general believability of witness testimony
  • Capability
  • Reliability
  • Suggestibility
  • Veracity

11
Credibility
  • Capability
  • Whether children have the general cognitive
    ability to
  • appreciate their role and obligation to tell the
    truth
  • remember, understand, and communicate information
  • Reliability
  • Whether child witnesses can accurately recall and
    consistently report a witnessed event

12
Credibility
  • Suggestibility
  • Whether child witnesses are susceptible to
    suggestions or leading questioning that could
    distort their memory or testimony
  • Veracity (truthfulness)
  • Whether children can deliberately fabricate or
    conceal evidence

13
Are Children Credible Witnesses?
  • Are children capable?
  • Are children reliable?
  • Are children suggestible?
  • Are children truthful?

14
Are children capable?
  • Knowledge of the obligation to tell the truth
  • The concept of truth- and lie-telling
  • 3-5 know the basic element of the concept
  • 6-9 know the critical element of the concept
  • 10-11 reach the adult level
  • Moral judgment of truth- and lie-telling
  • from 3 years onward, children know the negativity
    of lying

15
Are children capable?
  • Knowledge of the obligation to tell the truth
  • Promise to tell the truth
  • 3-4 have difficulty, especially with promise
  • 5-6 can give examples
  • 7-8 can define and give examples

16
Are children capable?
  • Communication ability
  • By 4-5 years of age, children have nearly
    mastered their first language, with the following
    exceptions
  • passive voice
  • why questions -causation motive
  • clauses
  • tag questions and double negatives
  • they have difficulty in saying I dont know
    when they do not understand a question
  • legal terminology (e.g., swear, court)

17
Are children capable?
  • Cognitive understanding
  • Time and space
  • Number
  • Causation
  • Transductive reasoning

18
Are children reliable?
  • Memory accuracy
  • Short-term memory
  • Long-term memory
  • knowledge
  • scripts

19
A script demo
  • Rest, tired, awake, dream, snore, bed, eat,
    slumber, sound, comfort, wake, night

20
A script demo
  • Please indicate whether the following words
    appeared in the list
  • Computer
  • Sleep
  • Tired
  • Rest, tired, awake, dream, snore, bed, eat,
    slumber, sound, comfort, wake, night

21
Are children reliable?
  • Preschoolers recall less but highly accurate
    concerning central detail
  • Amount of accurate and inaccurate recall
    increases with age
  • Retention children retain accurate information
    when delay is lt 1 month, but their accuracy
    declines faster than adults as delay increases
    preschoolers declined faster than school aged
    children

22
Are children reliable?
  • Childrens memory of faces
  • Develops early
  • Subject to interference from changes in
    appearance until 11-12 years of age
  • paraphernalia effect
  • Subject to interference from procedural factors
  • line-up procedures

23
Line-up procedures
  • In-person line-up
  • Simultaneous line-up
  • Show-up
  • Photo line-up
  • Simultaneous line-up
  • Sequential line-up
  • Show-up

24
Simultaneous lineup identification (Lindsay since
1980s)
25
Simultaneous lineup identification (Lindsay since
1980s)
26
Memory in Childhood
27
Simultaneous lineup identification (Lindsay since
1980s)
28
Simultaneous lineup identification (Lindsay since
1980s)
29
Are children suggestible?
  • Age factor Preschoolers are more suggestible
    than school aged children and adults who are also
    suggestible
  • Interviewer bias Interviewer prior belief
    affects the outcome of interview if suggestive
    questions are used

30
Are children suggestible?
  • Interviewing techniques
  • Guided imagery
  • Stereotype induction
  • Interviewing style (warm versus cold)
  • Anatomically correct dolls naturally elicit
    sexually explicit behaviors when used with other
    instruments (e.g., fingers, spoons, stethoscopes)
    even if child not abused

31
Are children suggestible?
  • Interviewing techniques
  • Anatomically correct dolls
  • Abused and nonabused children perform similarly
    and professionals cannot differentiate
  • Naturally elicit sexually explicit behaviors when
    used with other instruments (e.g., fingers,
    spoons, stethoscopes) even if child not abused
    (3-18)
  • Anatomically correct dolls do not produced better
    memory reports than regular dolls or increased
    levels of disclosure

32
Are children suggestible?
  • Nature of events
  • Children are more suggestible about peripheral
    events than central events
  • However, they are also suggestible about central
    events if they are of sexual nature
  • Individual differences
  • Cognitive (knowledge base, memory)
  • Social (compliance, self-esteem)

33
Are children suggestible?
  • Repeated interviews
  • Across interviews versus within an interview
  • Neutral repeated interviews lead to more
    disclosure
  • Repeated suggestive interview results in false
    memory (its cessation leads to recovery)
  • Repeated suggestive interview results in highly
    credible testimony

34
Are children truthful?
  • Early notions
  • Assumptions underlying competence assumption
  • Veracity of children
  • Do children lie
  • To conceal their transgression?
  • To conceal their parents transgression?
  • To fabricate a story as coached by parents?

35
Can adults correctly evaluate childrens
credibility?
  • Adults judgement of credibility is determined
    by
  • Witness age age by content interaction
  • Juror gender females are more pro child victim
    than males
  • Victim gender female sexual victims are more
    believed than male victims by male jurors
  • Corroborating testimony more guilty verdict
  • Defendant factors prior, similar criminal record
    leads to more guilty verdict
  • Adults are poor at detecting the
    accuracy/veracity of childrens testimony

36
Implications for legal investigative practice
  • Competence examination
  • Procedure needs to be reformed or abolished
  • Children need to be asked to promise to tell the
    truth before any testimony
  • Credibility judgment
  • Jury instruction is needed
  • Legal training
  • Knowledge about child development
  • Child interview techniques
  • Child-victim friendly procedures
  • Lie-detection training
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