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Assessing Children’s Competency to Take the Oath in Court: The Influence of Question Type on Children’s Accuracy

  • Original Article
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Law and Human Behavior

Abstract

This study examined children’s accuracy in response to truth–lie competency questions asked in court. The participants included 164 child witnesses in criminal child sexual abuse cases tried in Los Angeles County over a 5-year period (1997–2001) and 154 child witnesses quoted in the U.S. state and federal appellate cases over a 35-year period (1974–2008). The results revealed that judges virtually never found children incompetent to testify, but children exhibited substantial variability in their performance based on question-type. Definition questions, about the meaning of the truth and lies, were the most difficult largely due to errors in response to “Do you know” questions. Questions about the consequences of lying were more difficult than questions evaluating the morality of lying. Children exhibited high rates of error in response to questions about whether they had ever told a lie. Attorneys rarely asked children hypothetical questions in a form that has been found to facilitate performance. Defense attorneys asked a higher proportion of the more difficult question types than prosecutors. The findings suggest that children’s truth–lie competency is underestimated by courtroom questioning and support growing doubts about the utility of the competency requirements.

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Notes

  1. The search string was (“q” “q.” “q:”)/s (true truth lie lies lying pretend “make believe” story stories fib fibbing “made up” “make up”)/50 (“know what it means” “what happens” “what happened” “promise to” “promise not to” “are you going to” “are you gonna” “do you agree to” “do you agree not” “is it good” “good or bad to” “is it bad” “is it a good thing” “have you told” “have you ever told” “will you tell” “would that be” “would it be” “wrong to tell” “get in trouble if” “do you promise” “if I told you” “if I said” “difference between telling” “difference is between telling” “know the difference between” “what does it mean”) & child.

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Acknowledgments

Preparation of this article was supported in part by National Institute of Child Health and Human Development Grant HD047290 and National Science Foundation Grant 0241558. The authors thank Megan Sim, Kenneth Kronstadt, Paul Curtis, Natasha Behnam, Vera Golosker, Melanie Billow, Rebecca Blank, Chava Frankiel, Michael Ting, and Brooke Holmes who all assisted in data collection and coding.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Psychology Department, Brock University, 500 Glenridge Ave., St. Catharines, ON, L2S3A1, Canada

    Angela D. Evans

  2. University of Southern California, Gould School of Law, 699 Exposition Blvd., Los Angeles, CA, 90089-0071, USA

    Thomas D. Lyon

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  1. Angela D. Evans
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Correspondence to Angela D. Evans.

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Evans, A.D., Lyon, T.D. Assessing Children’s Competency to Take the Oath in Court: The Influence of Question Type on Children’s Accuracy. Law Hum Behav (2011). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10979-011-9280-6

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