Children 's Testimony Of Judicial Proceedings Throughout The Past Years Decades

Children are forced to forfeit their homes, their safety, their public and self-image, and their primary source of comfort and affection (Bernstein 2005). A national survey found that almost 70% of children when present when their parent was arrested (Bernstein 2005). Researcher Christina Jose Kamfner interviewed children who had witnessed their mother’s arrest and found that many suffered from post-traumatic stress symptoms; they could not concentrate or sleep and had flashbacks of the arrest (Bernstein 2005). The majority of the children at the scene of an arrest are taken away in a police car which is more intimidating than to say if they were taken away in a child welfare worker’s car (Bernstein 2005). Many of these children (is no other family is available) are shuffled around in the course of an arrest; the hospital for physical examinations first, then the police station for appropriate , “paperwork,” then to a juvenile detention center and lastly, they are deposited at a foster home (Bernstein 2005). Anyone can vouch that the process of what to do after the arrest is clearly a traumatizing one at that. After the arrest, children wait anxiously for the level of the sentence that their parent has to face. In most cases, children are unaware of why their parent is being sentenced because they were unaware that their parent was involved in the crime. Carl, for example, only remembered

One of the most interesting parts of this chapter was the section regarding child testimony in court. It mentioned a study by Myers et. al (1999) that questioned 248 jurors regarding child testimony and adult hearsay testimony. Jurors tend to find adult hearsay witnesses more consistent and credible than the child witnesses, most likely because adults can give more thorough, confident responses to questions asked of them by attorneys. This makes sense to me because most people understand that a child does not always fully comprehend their situation or understand what is being asked of them, especially in a legal setting. It can be hard to have them relive these traumatic experiences and expect the children to provide

asked to recall the event was not nearly the same as being asked to recall

A common assumption amongst those in the field of criminal justice is that most adult criminals were victims of physical abuse, sexual abuse, and/or neglect in their childhood. A study by Steele in 1975 found that, of 200 detained juvenile offenders, between 72% and 84% had backgrounds of child abuse (Weeks & Widom, 1998). A 1979 study by Lewis, Schanok, Pincus, and Glaser found that of a sample of male juvenile offenders, 75% had experienced childhood physical abuse. In follow-up interviews with the same subjects previously surveyed, 80% reported childhood physical abuse (Weeks & Widom, 1998). A study done by the Department of Correctional Services Research and Reporting Unit in 1983 had inmates answer a questionnaire; 25.2% of the inmates who answered the questionnaire reported childhood victimization (1998).

Is our justice system fair? Is our justice system truly set out to do what it was meant to do? Or are there social factors and memory errors that come into play that can change a conviction outcome. In today’s court rooms we have, Defense attorneys, Prosecutors, judges, juries, evidence, forensics experts, witness testimonies, and of course the human memory. What better type of evidence than the human memory, right? Unfortunately, human memory is subject to the power of suggestion and unable to truly recall an event when told to recall. In other words, the story may not be the same as the one that actually happened the day of that event because many variables come into play like cross examinations and the way a question can be asked can alter the answer or how the event was perceived. The main focus of this paper is to see how the human brain is not able to effectively recall events which could possibly convict an innocent person of wrong doing. Also how lawyers use the misinformation effect to their advantage. In order to understand how something as simple as a question can decide a person’s faith we must first answer some questions. First, How does memory actually work and how is memory retrieved when your need to answer a question or being cross examined? Second, how does the misinformation effect play a role when a witness needs to testify against the defense or vice versa? Third, how can structuring a word or sentence effect the outcome of a conviction?

The novel Unfair: the new science of criminal injustice, is a collection of short pieces addressing different situations in the criminal justice world where psychology plays a major role in determining outcomes. Chapter 6, "The Corruption of Memory”, addresses the problems with the process and using of an eyewitness testimony to convict someone (108-132). John Jerome White’s real-life example is used to demonstrate the problems with eyewitness testimony and how mistakes made during the process can ruin someone’s life. In the case of John Jerome White, he was misidentified as the man who raped and robbed a 74 year old women, by the victim herself (6 weeks later), which resulted in him spending 28 years in prison. To make it worse the actual guilty man, James Edward Parham, was in the lineup one person away from Mr. White and he was not caught again until he raped another victim. Many errors were made in how the case was handled and although they were not intentional they still magnify problems in the justice system and how we view our memories. From immediately after the crime to the point a suspect is put behind bars, the questioning, interrogation techniques, line up methods, and cross examinations can all effect the victims and witness’s recollection of events. Human memories are thought to be strong but with all the information that needs to be processed they are not as reliable as thought. However, this is not accounted for in the criminal justice system and it can greatly affect the outcomes of cases like John Jerome White’s. The point of the criminal justice system is to provide justice like it says in its name and although it happens more times than not, if there are possibilities of not providing justice they need to be fixed. Chapter 6, "The Corruption of Memory”, looks at what went wrong in order to wrongly convict an innocent man which ended up costing him half his life and how psychological principles could help prevent this from happening again.

It can be extremely difficult at times to provided appropriate and effective legal mechanisms in the area of age of criminal responsibility – that being the important transition from childhood innocence into the maturity and true responsibility that arises in adulthood and its association with the Australian criminal law. In order to deal with the grey area of age of criminal responsibility there are multiple specialised institutions such as the Children’s Court and juvenile detention centres. There have also been significant manipulations to particular pieces of legislation of the criminal justice system in order to clearly differentiate the legal rules of children and adolescents from that of legitimate adults.

The courts experience many challenges that include determining whether a child who commits a heinous crime should be sentenced in a manner that reflects their actions or based on their ability for rehabilitation. Children have the capacity to commit terrible acts of violence, and when they do the question posed is if they should be punished based on their actions or based on their ability to rehabilitate. The judges also look to see what’s in the best interest of the child (Chambliss, 2005), especially regarding their age. The age of the juvenile in question places tremendous weight on the judge as they want what is

Testimonies from children who have experienced sexual assault can mean the difference between guilty and not guilty verdicts for the defendant. Often times child victims are psychologically and even physically harmed jeopardizing their statements during the trial. There are a number of reasons for children to be unable to give full accounts of what has occurred to them. For the purpose of protecting child victims and making sure they are heard the courts have implemented innovations that make testifying less traumatic for children and allow for a more accurate description of the assault. Hearsay testimonies are one of the innovations that have been shown to give child victims of sexual assault the chance to be fully heard. Victims directly

“It all started in 1991 with a young girl in a yellow dress. She looked a bit sad, a bit lonely, a bit out of place. As Chief of Police Bill Hegarty walked through the Grand Rapids Police Department that day, the little girl caught his eye. And as he looked at her, he saw that she simply looked out of place. He saw that she looked scared” (Children’s Assessment Center, n.d.). About twenty years ago the Children’s Assessment Center of Grand Rapids opened their doors with the intention to reduce the amount of trauma children endured in the case of sexual assault. The Children’s Assessment Center is a place where children can be interviewed without being scared and can receive the treatment they need to heal from their abuse. “Traditionally, child forensic interviews have taken place in police departments, schools, and CPS offices. Such settings may be intimidating for children and could increase children 's beliefs that they are in trouble or have done something wrong” (Tavkar, 2007).

Jo’ana Meyer is a sociologist at the Rutger’s University who has carried out valuable research on children’s susceptibility to leading and suggestive interviews in the context of court testimony. She has discussed the effects of stress, prompting and imagination on children’s memories and powers of recall. She stresses the importance of Milgram’s research and points out that children are likely to obey authority at an even higher level than the adults in Milgrim’s experiments. Meyer has made important suggestions about ways to interview children that would increase the accuracy of their testimony. (“Meyer’” Inaccuracies in Children’s….).

“Wrongfully convicted at age 25, Calvin Johnson received a life sentence for the rape of a Georgia woman after four different women identified him. Exonerated in 1999, he walked out of prison a 41-year old man. The true rapist has never been found, (The Justice Project).” Eyewitness testimony is highly relied on by judges, but it can not always be trusted. Approximately 48% of wrong convictions are because of mistaken identity by eyewitnesses (The Psychology of Eyewitness Testimony). After we discovered this information, we became curious as to whether in a testimony, the eyewitness’ memory is more reliable after a short period of time or after a longer period of time? According to previous experiments, eyewitness testimony is unreliable. Likely, we want to know if a testimony that is given two to three hours after a crime has taken place is more reliable than a testimony given after a longer period of time.

The reviewed article is about a study in which children of two different age groups, and a group of adults were asked general-to-specific questions and misleading questions in an interview to see if the timing of the misleading questions and temperament affected the quality of the witness’s testimony. The researchers hypothesized that the use of misleading questions by interviewer’s causes the witness to unwittingly incorporate false information into their testimony.

The research that is present on the topic of allowing children to testify in court or being against that idea is persuasive. The literature makes taking a stance in favor of not allowing children to testify in court both easy to come by and provides an insightful knowledge base. There seems to be more evidence in favor of not allowing children to testify in court as it has been shown to have adverse effects on children who do so (Lipovsky & Stern, 1997). The amount of research that is presented is across a variety of differencing samples and differing techniques including interviews, surveys, and general observational techniques. However, one aspect of the research against allowing children to testify that does not help contribute to why

     The current anxiety about the validity of children’s testimony in court stems mostly from heavily publicized cases of child molestation during the 1980’s