Improving Children's Testimonies In Court

The McMartin Preschool Abuse Trial: Many children and people were harm due to false memory accusations. In the case, the Social Worker, Kee MacFarlene her style of interviewing the children was wrong and misleading to the witnesses. A social worker is conducting an interview, must be done in an ethical manner and style. Their goal is to have the witness give the correct and honest answers to the questions asked. A valuable lesson for a Social worker when they are speaking with a client is not to contaminate their client’ memory is to ask questions that are not suggestive, leading, and misleading questions. After viewing the different Elizabeth Loftus clips, I realize that your memory can be easily manipulated, by making you believe something

“Hey, they’re only kids.That is until they foul up, until they commit crimes, and the bigger the crime the more eager we are to call them adults.”Marjie Lundstrom since they are kids they can't smoke or drink, or go into rated R movies without our consent. So the question has been going around whether or not they should be tried as adults and spend life in prison without parole. I most strongly agree that they should sentence juveniles to life in prison without parole.

The Supreme Court has long considered competency to be a right of the criminal defendant in court. In many areas, insanity has been a criminal defense with a significant history. However, in the early part of this century, adult protections, including the competency requirement and common defenses like insanity, were not added into the juvenile court system. Because juvenile courts were established to protect juveniles from the rigors of adult court and punishments in adult facilities, states focused on achieving proceedings more compatible with juveniles' needs.

Today, the court system in this country is divided into two groups when comparing juveniles and adults. One is the Adult Criminal Justice System, and the other is the Juvenile Justice System. The terminology can be very different between the two systems. For instance; if an adult is arrested, they will be subject to a bail hearing. If a juvenile is arrested they must go through a detention hearing. Adults have trials which can be decided by a judge or jury. Juveniles go through a fact finding hearing and don’t receive verdicts because they are adjudicated. “They are not found guilty, but delinquent or involved” (Komiscruk). Another difference between the two is that juvenile court rooms are usually closed to the public, which

On 10/28/16 at 1838 hrs, I was dispatched to an assist citizen at 5660 82nd Ter N Pinellas Park, FL 33781 regarding a juvenile hitting the complainant vehicle and leaving the scene.

Michele Deith said “Children brains are still under developed, then why tired them as an adult in court”. A child being tried as an adult effect their lives in many ways. The message of loss hope builds up in their minds prompting the idea that they can’t make mistakes. Because they fear they will always be tired unfairly. Also, being in prison for a life time for an ignorant mistake will make them more likely to commit more crimes. Crime records as a juvenile holds less than an adult record. Majority of juvenile cases are only classified as minor offensives. While, some cases may be different because of the crime, children should still be recognized for learning and should be held responsible however, not on an adult level.

The question of whether or not juveniles have the knowledge or maturity to waive or exercise their rights comes to be very controversial in situations of juvenile interrogations. There is a discrepancy between whether juveniles should be responsible enough to exercise their rights or if they are immature, vulnerable, and all together incapable of understanding the rights they are granted. Many people believe that juveniles should have a parent present during interrogations to guide them through their rights while others believe that juveniles who commit crimes should be held equally as responsible for their actions as adults.

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.

Analysis As we were conducting our experiment, we collected data so we would be able to determine the differences between males and females. The students then had to take a mini quiz that we had made for the five males and five females, ten students of the age between fifteen through eighteen. We gave the students the quizzes so it would be indiscriminate and not planned. We conducted the quiz three times with each quiz having two questions.

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

A child is competent and capable to give sworn evidence, if they have the ability and mental capacity of understanding that they are under a duty to provide truthful evidence. However, this could cause many inconsistencies, as a child in their own particular nature, do not have the full capacity compared to an adult. It was held in the case of MK v R (2014) that questions like ‘do you know why it’s important to tell the truth?’ was considered inadequate to determine whether or not the child has a full understanding of the test found under s 13(3). For this reason, the use of specific and unpretentious terminology is necessary and a must when cross-examining children.

When an investigator is to being interrogation of a juvenile suspect that is believed to be involved in criminal gang activity, the investigator must follow a defined set of policies to ensure the protection of the juvenile and the criminal case that could follow. While these juveniles are suspected of committing a crime, they are still juveniles based on their age. Juvenile suspects are permitted to speak with their parents prior to the interrogation beginning; however the parents will not be allowed in the interrogation room. Interrogation should not begin until an attorney is present that can advise the juvenile being questioned or object to the line of questioning that they are being subjected to. When the individual is being Mirandize,

Second, we must look at the affects of being a witness not only on the legal system but also on the child as an individual. Children could be further traumatized emotionally and physically by involvement as a witness. Finally, we need to closely look at how the legal system is set up and how well children fit into this system. Are witness procedures set up in a way that children can understand and accurately give their testimony? These are the things that need to be looked at closely to determine if children can be reliable and credible witnesses in court.

While it is well established that children can provide accurate information when not asked leading questions, the opposite is also true. Children can provide false information when improper interviewing techniques are used (Bruck & Ceci, 1999; Ceci & Bruck, 1995; Cheit, 2014; Faller, 1996; Lamb, et al., 1995; Lamb, et al.,

First, children try to answer most questions even if they do not know the correct answer. This can lead an untrained interviewer to record inaccurate information. If the child's responses are used in a court setting, those inaccuracies could be used to discount the child's testimony. Second, children do not always understand the interviewers' questions. Unless the interviewer is careful to use language a child can understand, the interview can easily lead to misunderstanding the facts. Third, young children have limited attention spans and can experience difficulty keeping the topic of conversation in mind. The interviewer must be aware of this to avoid confusing the facts of a situation. Finally, untrained interviewers often misunderstand