The believability of hearsay testimony involving child witnesses: effects of age and format

Open court testimony poses difficulty for child witnesses required to face the defendant. Certain laws allow hearsay testimony to replace the alleged child victim's testimony. This study examines the relationship of the child's age to the relative believability of three hearsay testimony fonnats in a 2 (child witnesses: one 4-year-old and one 8-year-old) x 3 (hearsay conditions: interview of child, interviewer testimony in "gist" or summary form, or interviewer testimony in detailed, "verbatim" fonn) design. Transcripts were based on actual child sexual abuse interviews ( one 4 and one 8-year-old female) obtained for prior research with permission from Child Protective Services officials. College undergraduate students (N = 143) participated as mock jurors, each reading one of six randomly assigned hearsay transcripts. An overall verdict was rendered and believability was rated on a multidimensional scale. Jurors' ratings indicated their sensitivity to the structure of the interviews, judging the actual child interviews as consisting of more structured, leading and suggestive questions than the gist testimony. However, this was not reflected in their verdicts or ratings of overall believability of the child statements. Thus, these results indicated that "gist" adult hearsay testimony may be equally credible to the child's. Other influential factors that may affect the jurors' perceptions of credibility, such as interview quality and age stereotypes, are also discussed.

Grantor dc:publisher

University of Tennessee at Chattanooga

Author dc:creator

• Smith, Beverly J.

Contributors dc:contributor

• Warren, Amye
• Metzger, Richard L.; Ross, David F.
• College of Arts and Sciences

• Child witnesses United States
• Memory in children United States
• Child witnesses
• Memory in children
• United States

Licence

• https://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en

Language dc:language

English, eng

Identifier

LB2369.2 .S547 1999

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:scholar.utc.edu:theses-1628