Abstract
Children testify in courts of law, yet little is known about jurors' reactions to them. We describe the first studies of simulated jurors' reactions to child as compared to adult witnesses. Our methodology involved exposing mock jurors to trial descriptions. In the descriptions, the age of the eyewitness who provided crucial testimony varied. Across three experiments, potential jurors judged children to be less credible eyewitnesses than adults. Eyewitness age did not, however, determine the degree of guilt attributed to the defendant. This same pattern of results was found regardless of the sample tested (college students versus a more heterogeneous group), the type of trial presented (vehicular homicide versus murder), or the medium employed (written trial descriptions versus videotaped mock trial). Our findings indicate that biases against children's credibility are likely to appear when a child bystander witness takes the stand.
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We would like to thank Sharon Goldstein, Cindy Hazan, Debra Hepps, and Nancy Whitaker for research assistance. Dennis Faulk, District Attorney, Canyon City, CO, and Mark Perbix of the Denver Jury Use and Management Program provided valuable legal advice and materials. Harry Gollob served as a statistical consultant. We also thank Pamela Campos, Vandra Van Giffen-Lockridge, Kathy Van Giffen, and Ralph Lockridge for serving as actors in Experiment 3. This research was supported by a grant awarded to Gail S. Goodman and Marshall M. Haith from the Development Psychobiology Research Group, Department of Psychiatry, University of Colorado Health Sciences Center. Marshall M. Haith was supported by Research Scientist Award MH00367 from the National Institute of Mental Health.
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Goodman, G.S., Golding, J.M., Helgeson, V.S. et al. When a child takes the stand. Law Hum Behav 11, 27–40 (1987). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF01044837
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF01044837