Should Children Be Allowed To Testify In Court?
Over the past ten years, more research has been done involving
children's testimony than that of all the prior decades combined. Ceci & Bruck
(93) have cited four reasons for this :
- The opinion of psychology experts is increasingly being accepted by courts as
testimony,
- Social research is more commonly being applied to the issues of children's
rights,
- More research into adult suggestibility in accordance with reason naturally
leads to more research into child suggestibility,
- Children are more commonly being used as witnesses in cases where they are
directly involved (i.e. sexual abuses cases), requiring the development of
better ways for dealing with them as special cases.
Some psychologists deem children to be “Highly resistant to suggestion,
as unlikely to lie, and as reliable as adult witnesses about acts perpetrated
on their bodies” (Ceci & Bruck 1993). However, children are also described as “
Having difficulty distinguishing reality from fantasy, as being susceptible to
coaching by powerful authority figures, and therefore as being potentially less
reliable than adults” (Ceci & Bruck 1993). The suggestibility of child witnesses,
the effects of participation on children's reports, and the effects of postevent
information on a prior memory representation must be taken into account when it
comes to seeking answers to the reliability of their testimony, especially
because sexual abuse and sexual assault cases are a big part of children's
testimony and they are often the only witness.
Those psychologists who feel that children can be rated as “Highly
resistant to suggestion....” etc. seem to have a good argument, whereas those
who take the opposite view also seem to have just as valid an argument. Which
psychologists are right? Maybe both. It seems that without outside influences,
social encounters, or other interference's, children's testimony has the
potential to be quite valid. This is under ideal situations, however, which
unfortunately rarely occur.
One of the major problems when assessing the validity of child witnesses
is the suggestibility of the child. Ceci & Bruck (1993) define suggestibility
as “The degree to which children's encoding, storage, retrieval, and reporting
of events can be influenced by a range of social an...
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...t that no children should be allowed to testify
on account of the malleability of their recollection. However, children can
play a vital role in the legal system, and indeed there are many cases in which
a child is the only witness to a crime, but until the time that sufficient
research has been done to achieve a system of questioning that will eliminate
the suggestibility and social aspects of a child's testimony, all such
testimonies should be treated with caution.
Works Cited:
Bernstein, D. A., Roy, E. J., Srull, T. K., Wickens, C. D. (1994)
Psychology, 3rd edition. Houghton Mifflin Company, MA.
Ceci, S & Bruck, M. (1993). Suggestibility of the Child Witness: A
Historical Review and Synthesis, Psychological Bulletin. 113, 403 - 439
Lefrancois, G. R. (1992). Psychology, 2nd edition. Wadsworth Publishing
Company. California.
Luus, C. A. E., Wells, G. L., & Turtle, J. W. (1995). Child
eyewitnesses: Seeing is believing. Journal of Applied Psychology, 80, 317 - 326
Rovee-Collier, C. et al. (1993). Infants Eyewitness Testimony: Effects
of Postevent Information on a Prior Memory Representaion, Memory and Cognition,
21, 267 - 279
“ ….Judgments, right or wrong. This concern with concepts such as finality, jurisdiction, and the balance of powers may sound technical, lawyerly, and highly abstract. But so is the criminal justice system….Law must provide simple answers: innocence or guilt, freedom or imprisonment, life or death.” (Baude, 21).
My position: I am in disagreement with this statement and my analysis, based on contextual evidence, is as follows:
On top of justice is being done, we need to look at the functions of
Thirteen-year-old boy, Cristian Fernandez of Jacksonville, Florida was born on January 14 of 1999 to a mother who was as old as he is today. On March 15 2011, he was arrested relating to the alleged beating of his 2-year-old brother, David. At the time of his arrest, David was under care of St. Luke’s Hospital, receiving treatment for injuries he sustained the day before. It states that Cristian shoved his 2-year-old brother against a bookshelf, causing the young child to have severe head damage. Cristian’s mom, who was only 24 at the time, arrived at the apartment to reveal what happened just moments before. However, it states that his mom did not even call the police or take her son to the hospital until 6 hours after the accident happened. Both Cristian and his mom were charged with murder and Cristian went to court facing life in an adult prison. However, the court found out that Cristian had once been physically, emotionally, and sexually abused by his once stepfather. That been said, Cristian more than likely needed some sort of counseling. However, they still believed that this 12 year-old boy should be tried as an adult. Cristian has been detained for over a year and has not yet had a trial. He faces two trials on three separate indictments brought by State Attorney (“Reverse”). There is no logical reason to deny a child their right to the programs and treatment provided through the juvenile court system.
The contradictory outcomes of cases presenting very similar facts to the court leads some jurists to cry out for reform and to denounce the defects in the present common law rules. Some, are supportive of the implementation of a statutory obligation to make reparation for wrongfully caused mental
According to criminal.findlaw.com the definition of the juvenile justice system is the area of criminal law applicable to people not old enough to be held responsible for criminal acts. Juveniles are people 17 and under. Juveniles should be convicted as adults for violent crimes like assault or murder etcetera because if they can commit an adult crime they should get an adult punishment. Also if juveniles don’t get punished for their crimes then they’ll keep doing it because they got off unpunished the first time.
Thousands of kid criminals in the United States have been tried as adults and sent to prison (Equal Justice Initiative). The debate whether these kids should be tried as adults is a huge controversy. The decision to try them or to not try them as an adult can change their whole life. “Fourteen states have no minimum age for trying children as adults” (Equal Justice Initiative). Some people feel that children are too immature to fully understand the severity of their actions. People who are for kids to be tried as adults feel that if they are old enough to commit the crime, then they are old enough to understand what they are doing. There are people who feel that children should only be tried as adults depending on the crime.
When looking at the two opposing arguments I can see their perspectives are founded by
If children are too young to vote, drink alcohol, drive, and go watch rated R movies, why should they be tried as adults? It has always been an issue if whether an adolescent, under the age of eighteen, convicted of violent crimes should be tried as an adult or not. There are children as young as eleven years old that are being sent to adult prisons (Krikorian 2003). In such cases the jury does not take into consideration the fact that they are too young to stand trial, their brains are not fully developed, and that they are capable of rehabilitating.
The American Court System is an important part of American history and one of the many assets that makes America stand out from other countries. It thrives for justice through its structured and organized court systems. The structures and organizations are widely influenced by both the State and U.S Constitution. The courts have important characters that used their knowledge and roles to aim for equality and justice. These court systems have been influenced since the beginning of the United State of America. Today, these systems and law continue to change and adapt in order to keep and protect the peoples’ rights.
Every day a child is called on to testify in a courtroom. Children who have to testify in open court are easily influenced by outside sources. This paper will show the reasons children should not be used as witnesses in a courtroom. I will show all the different influences that a child receives and prove them uncredible. The interview process can influence a child greatly. Ceci and Bruck (1995) found a study that shows that child witnesses may be questioned up to12 times during the course of an investigation. The questioning process can take up to a year and a half to be completed. Children are not capable of remembering exact details for that period. Their answers to questions will change each time he or she is asked. This is because they do not retain information in the same way as an adult. Most studies have shown that children start to lose their ability to recall an event accurately only 10 days after the original event has happened. Another factor in a child’s ability to recall an event is stress. A child can go into a shock stage and repress all memories of what has happened to them. These memories may not resurface for many years. This affects a child’s ability to identify the suspect in photo and live line-ups. The amount of stress a child goes through affects their ability to answer questions in an interview, if they cannot remember what has happened, how are they supposed to answer the myriad of questions the interviewer will ask them.
Juveniles deserve to be tried the same as adults when they commit certain crimes. The justice systems of America are becoming completely unjust and easy to break through. Juvenile courts haven’t always been known to the everyday person.
all judiciary cases in which any fact is involved,) or may they act by representatives, freely and
This first assumption pertains to who does what in a justice system, as well as who the key players are in making and enforcing laws. Without these pieces, the flow of justice is interrupted, and the system becomes less about individuals and accountability, and
... a child making things like testifying difficult for them. Whether there will ever be a good way to use children as witnesses is still to be determined, however, children often prove a vital part of the criminal justice system’s success.