Enhancing the credibility of complainants in child sexual assault trials: The effect of expert evidence and judicial directions

Abstract

This study investigated the knowledge and misconceptions of jury-eligible citizens about children's reliability as witnesses and responses to child sexual assault (CSA), and examined the influence of expert evidence and judicial directions in challenging common misconceptions. Community volunteers (N = 130) read one of five versions of a simulated jury trial, and completed a pre- and post-trial questionnaire to provide measures of their knowledge of children's responses to sexual abuse, perceptions of victim credibility, and verdict. Results revealed that endorsement of CSA misconceptions negatively impacted ratings of complainant credibility and verdicts. Judicial directions provided before the child complainant testified enhanced complainant credibility, which in turn predicted guilty verdicts. Comparisons of the effectiveness of two procedural legal mechanisms to manage juror misconceptions and improve knowledge about CSA provide guidance for future researchers investigating ways to increase fairness in cases of CSA.

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

“…Based on common perceptions of poor deception ability in children, it could be expected that the younger witnesses would be evaluated as more credible witnesses than older children and adults (Castelli, Goodman, & Ghetti, 2005;Goodman-Delahunty, Cossins, & O'Brien, 2010). However, as children's memory is inferior to adult memory (Bruer & Pozzulo, 2014), and they are more susceptible to suggestibility (Goodman & Melinder, 2007), children are not seen as more credible than adults in the courtroom (Bruer & Pozzulo, 2014;Klemfuss & Ceci, 2012).…”

“…In addition, high anxiety is associated with greater susceptibility to leading questions (Almerigogna, Ost, Bull, & Akehurst, 2007). Similarly, the courtroom environment is an 'unfamiliar, austere environment' (Cooper, Quas, & Cleveland, 2014, p. 814), the stress of which may intensify any existing stress from the crime witnessed (Goodman et al, 1992). This means that, compared to adults, child witnesses are more likely to display low confidence among other traits associated with lower credibility (Goodman, Golding, Helgeson, Haith, & Michelli, 1987).…”

Children Abuse: The Credibility of the Victim's Testimony in the Brazilian Justice

“…The victim obliged to testify in these conditions, as a rule, will suffer new victimization. Goodman-Delahunty, Cossins, and O'Brien (2010), based on research carried out in Australia, found that children who are victims of sexual abuse have been forced to make vaginal and anal examinations, which certainly adds suffering and constraints which are additional to those already incurred during the abuse. Despite the distrust in relation to the children's testimony, there studies, such as Cooper, Quas, and Cleveland (2014), Golding, Lynch, Wasarhaley, and Keller (2015) and Golding, Wasarhaley, Lynch, Lippert, and Magyarics (2015) that prove that small children's testimonies are more reliable than that of adolescents.…”

“…and showed that there was a greater number of convictions when in the process there were testimonies of additional witnesses, technicians or specialists, and that the jurors were ten times more likely to issue condemnatory decisions when the process was the testimony of a specialist trained to provide clarifications in judgment. Goodman-Delahunty et al (2010)draw attention to a detail: the testimony of experts only confers credibility to the testimony of victims when it is done in judgment before the testimony of the victim and, in advance, confirms what the child will later report. This particular situation denotes one of the significant differences in relation to the dynamics of the Brazilian criminal procedure, because, in Brazil, this procedure is only possible when the defense of the defendant agrees with the inversion of the legal order of the hearing ofthe enrolled persons, agreement that will only occur if the lawyer realizes that such action is beneficial to his or her client.Besides the testimony of an expert, there are other factors that can alter the level of the victim's credibility.…”

The effects of hypnosis and symptom interpretation on jurors' perceptions of recovered memories of child sexual abuse

“…Finally, knowledge of the child sexual abuse literature influenced jurors' perceptions of child sexual abuse cases. If mock jurors had less knowledge of the literature, they were less likely to find the child credible in these cases (Goodman-Delahunty, Cossins, and O'Brien, 2010).…”