Childrens Testimony - Research Paper Example

 Children’s Testimony Introduction There is considerable debate in general society and in the legal system about the risks to allowing children to testify in the event that their testimony is required in a legal case. Issues of credibility and competency are often raised by judicial overseers and attorneys, based on the current stages of moral development with the child in question. Research identifies many different legal precedents and childhood development theories which shed light on whether youth testimony should be allowable in certain legal cases. This paper identifies issues of credibility, competency, and stages of childhood development that are important factors in whether child testimony should be allowable in the courtroom in most legal cases involving witness scenarios or actual child involvement directly associated with the perpetrator of a crime. Assessing Credibility Jean Piaget is a renowned childhood psychologist who outlined the different developmental and moral stages of development that each child experiences throughout their developmental years. In what is referred to as the preoperational period, a developmental phase that runs from age two until seven, the child often cannot make solid linkages between logical thought and the state of their reality. At this stage the child’s thinking is very self-centered and often cannot rationalize distinctions between their own egocentrism and the direction of adults (Wankat and Oreovicz, 2007). For instance, a child between two and seven years of age will have difficulty deducing simple adult instructions, such as an adult telling a child on a tricycle that they are moving too quickly. This instruction will generally have little meaning for the child until they actually fall over and experience pain (Wankat and Oreovicz). A child fitting this developmental category who is being considered as a potential witness will likely have difficulty communicating more than crude observations and might be more apt to try to secure their own emotional needs rather than try to please the observing jury or the interviewer. Because of the difficulties with egocentrism, poor communication skills, and lack of rationalization at this stage, the credibility of children at this age is often questioned and their testimony denied full examination. Older children, those in Piaget’s concrete operational stage, which occurs after age seven through the age of 12, children have much better rationalization skills, can consider situations logically, and are much less self-motivated in discussion. During this stage, the child develops a strong respect for authority and has a well-developed view of punishment and they “judge acts by intentions rather than consequences and can evaluate wrongdoer’s intention when evaluating their guilt” (Kohlberg, 2008, p.1). A recent court case involving a child witness, R. v. Marquard, determined that credibility is measured by the child’s ability “to accurately perceive events, remember these events, and communicate events to the court” (Brown, 2001, p.2). Judges and most legal experts are equipped with fundamental knowledge of the stages of childhood development and can recognize their ability to function within a court environment and rationalize events accurately using logic. Credibility is often determined by the current stage of moral or intellectual development that categorizes each child and is dependent on individual judicial assessment of their ability to communicate events using a methodology that is consistent. Children older than the age of twelve can generally think abstractly about events and think much like an adult, therefore making their potential testimony more substantial and allowable based on their more advanced intellectual capabilities and ability to function among adult social groups. However, children between the ages of two and 12 are often subject to being influenced by adult suggestion, therefore credibility of their testimony relies on whether or not the child has been coerced through adult verbal manipulation. “A child who has experienced an event and has received false information about that event may subsequently confuse memories of the experience with false memories of the information” (Keenan, 2007, p.99). When determining child witness credibility, the parties involved in the judicial process, whether expert psychologists or the judge, need to identify whether or not the child has been exposed to adult conditioning prior to the interview and assess their relationship with the criminal or the perceived moral compass of their caretakers. In cases of sexual abuse requiring specific detail of the events from younger children in the preoperational stage, the stage marked by high egocentrism, children often exhibit contradictory behaviors in an attempt toward self-protectionism and based on the difficult emotional strain created by trauma stemming from the sexual abuse incident (Moriarty, 2006). Assessing child credibility, then, involves a combination of their moral and intellectual development combined with their perceived ability to recall events accurately and truthfully without perceived adult coercion, along with reference to previous judicial precedents that have allowed child testimony based on event recall and ability to communicate these events effectively. Child Witness Competency Competency, much different than credibility, is measured through a previous legal precedent which observed that a trial judge should assess “the child’s degree of understanding, and then if it appears that the child has sufficient natural intelligence, and understands the nature and effect of the oath, he should be permitted to testify whatever the age may be” (jec.unm.edu, 2010, p.2). In Territory v. DeGutman, competency was measured by the child’s service capacity, intelligence, “capacity for adequate memory, ability to communicate effectively, appreciation of their obligation to the truth, and awareness between truth and falsehood” (jec.unm.edu, 2010, p.2). All of these factors need to be considered in the legal process in order to deem a child competent to offer witness testimony. Depending on their current developmental or moral stages of reasoning, a child is deemed competent to offer their testimony in the courtroom if it can be accurately assessed that they will be prone to deliver the truth under oath, which can be measured by a competent judge based on both verbal and non-verbal cues. A recent experiment using children in both first and seventh grades was designed to measure individual capacity to tell the truth and further use non-verbal facial gestures to support their devotion to sincerity. The children were instructed to taste a sour drink and then specifically lie to the researchers, indicating that the drink actually tasted sweet rather than sour. A group of adults were then instructed to view the videos and make judgments, through non-verbal cues, as to whether the youths were telling the truth or making an accurate assessment. It was found that in most instances, the adults could easily distinguish between truth and fiction with the first graders, but had considerable difficulty assessing the comments made by the older children. This research project identified that younger children are often betrayed by their body language and other non-verbal gestures than that of their older counterparts (Goodman, Myers, Qin, Jodi, Quas, Castelli, Allison, Redlich and Rogers, 2006). When measuring competency, judicial knowledge of this phenomenon, at the psychological level, can give the interviewing party evidence as to whether the child will be prone to tell the truth under oath or whether the youth is giving false testimony. Competency, in many cases, relies on the accurate judgment and psychological education of the assessing party by conducting preliminary interviews prior to allowing the child to speak in the courtroom. Competency can also be based on another previous research study that involved the phenomenon of clothing bias that often occurs with young children who are instructed to identify a criminal perpetrator in the line-up scenario. A research experiment involving groups of six-year-old and ten-year-old children was conducted which had the children exposed to photographs. One photo included a man wearing certain body paraphernalia, such as hats or glasses, and another photo of a man without these adornments, but maintaining similar facial features. A second series of photos had the two men change places and the paraphernalia swapped between the two men. The younger children, in most cases, identified the hypothetical criminal incorrectly as they were apt to point out the actor wearing the paraphernalia even though the hat or glasses had been switched from actor to actor (Freire, Lee, Williamson, Stuart and Lindsay, 2004). Measuring child competency, based on experiments like these, can be filled with bias and the age of the child, along with their previously-identified characteristics related to communication skills and recognition of the oath, should all be measured when determining their competency to testify. Situations such as that involved with clothing bias again reinforces that children, depending on their intellectual development stages, will have different mechanisms for identifying physical characteristics or recalling certain events. Based on issues such as memory capacity and storage will impact whether the youth is able to testify successfully and provide the court system with information that is trusted and reliable. Their perceptual abilities, in different age groups, will vary differently with the passage of time or in how they are able to cognitively assess the information they have been exposed to. Conclusion The appropriateness of a child testifying in the event of a specific criminal case depends largely on their current intellectual and moral development stage. Younger children tend to provide answers that protect the self (egocentrism) and often have conflicted memories based on any level of adult coercion that might have occurred prior to the interview process. Older children, as a risk to the legal case, definitely have the ability to mask the truth, along with the logical reasoning skills available to try to influence communications outcomes. This is why age, along with the other described generic factors relating to credibility, must be considered before allowing testimony to be offered in front of a jury. Depending on the severity of the particular crime and its impact on the witness, assessing both credibility and competency involves having the foundation of childhood psychology, the ability to measure both verbal and non-verbal cues, and an accurate assessment of their overall cognitive abilities based on intellectual development. It is the responsibility of the court system, any interviewing party, and even the jury to decide whether the information being presented by the child can be deemed credible or the child competent to offer information about a certain situation involving the youth. There are many risks to not only the accused when considering allowing testimony, but as the evidence provided, there are risks to the child’s mental condition when being exposed to a courtroom environment depending on their level of intellectual development. When coupling these risks with different perceptual questions about credibility, oftentimes testimony is not considered allowable in a legal case as competent assessors are able to determine that the child simply is not equipped with the cognitive or moral ability to provide accurate and reliable information about events. References Brown, Heidi R. (2001). “The Child Witness: Tips from the Trenches”. Bogoroch & Associates. Retrieved March 30, 2010 from http://www.bogoroch.com/articles/childwitness.pdf. Freire, A., Kang, L., Williamson, K., Stuart, S. and Lindsay, R. (2004). “Lineup Identification by Children: Effects of Clothing Bias”, Law and Human Behavior, 28(3), p.341. Goodman, G., Myers, J., Qin, J., Jodi, A., Quas, C., Castelli, P., Redlich, A. and Rogers, L. (2006). Hearsay Versus Children’s Testimony: Effects of Truthful and Deceptive Statements on Jurors’ Decisions”, Law and Human Behavior, 30(3). Jec.unm.edu. (2010). “The Competency of a Minor to Testify”. New Mexico Judicial Education Center. Retrieved March 31, 2010 from http://jec.unm.edu/resources/benchbooks/child_law/ch_27.htm Keenan, Michael R. (2007). “Child witnesses: Implications of contemporary suggestibility research in a changing legal landscape”, Developments in Mental Health Law, 26(2), p.99. Kohlberg, A. (2008). “Piaget’s Theory on Moral Development”. Retrieved March 30, 2010 from http://faculty.mc3.edu/jhodges/PIAGETmoral%20theory%20.pdf Moriarty, Mariana. (2006). “Jury instructions, not problematic expert testimony, in child sexual assault cases”, Suffolk Journal of Trial and Appellate Advocacy, 11(20), p.181. Wankat, P. and Oreovicz, C. (2007). “Models of Cognitive Development: Piaget and Perry”, Teaching Engineering. Retrieved March 30, 2010 from https://engineering.purdue.edu/ChE/AboutUs/Publications/TeachingEng/chapter14.pdf Read More