Children as alibi witnesses: the effect of age and confidence on mock-juror decision making

Abstract

This study investigated the influence of child alibi witness age and confidence upon mock juror decision making. Participants (N D 145) read a mock murder trial transcript containing the evidence of a defendant and a corroborating child alibi witness. Six versions of the trial transcript were created manipulating the alibi witness's age (8, 12, 16 years of age) and the confidence they displayed (high, low) while giving evidence. Despite a tendency towards returning not-guilty verdicts, no associations between alibi witness age, confidence and verdicts were found. However, confident alibi witnesses were perceived as more honest, accurate and reliable than unconfident alibi witnesses. The findings do not support the twofactor model of witness credibility, but do suggest that the alibi scepticism commonly found towards adult alibi witnesses may not extend as strongly towards children corroborating the defendant's alibi. More research is required before policy recommendations can be made.

Alibi believability: Corroborator certainty, cooperativeness and relationship with the defendant

“…It is thus quite likely that alibi corroborators may be uncertain about exactly what occurred, where, when and with whom. More research on alibi corroborator certainty is needed as there are few studies examining how corroborator certainty is viewed by mock jurors, but the current study and two others suggest that mock jurors do weigh corroborator certainty when evaluating alibis (Allison et al., 2014; Fawcett & Winstanley, 2019).…”

“…Future research could continue to examine how certainty is operationalised. For example, verbal hedges as used in Fawcett and Winstanley (2019) could be compared against numerical certainty as was used in this study. Do verbal hedges, like ‘I think’ reduce believability ratings like 65% did in this study?…”

“…Taken together, these results imply that the defence will benefit from alibi corroborators who are not close relatives and are thus less likely to lie about the alibi (e.g., Olson & Wells, 2004). There is also some benefit from alibi corroborators who are confident that they were with the defendant at the time of the crime (e.g., Fawcett & Winstanley, 2019), although more research on corroborator certainty would help to elucidate the impact of certainty on alibi believability. And the defence should perhaps encourage corroborators to cooperate with the police when those officers are behaving justly, as these initial findings show that cooperativeness was viewed positively by mock jurors, although more research is needed.…”

“…For example, alibis were more believable and corroborators were viewed positively when the corroborators were 100% versus 80% certain that they were with the defendant (Allison et al, 2014). Similarly, corroborators who did not use verbal hedges (I think, erm) were viewed as more honest, accurate and reliable than unconfident corroborators (Fawcett & Winstanley, 2019). However, Eastwood et al (2016) found that corroborator certainty had little impact on the perceptions that students, law enforcement students and police officers had of alibis.…”

“…Another corroborator characteristic that may affect alibi believability is the corroborators' certainty that they were with the defendant at the time of the crime (Allison et al., 2014; Eastwood et al., 2016; Fawcett & Winstanley, 2019). Corroborators may be asked about events long in the past (e.g.…”