Historically, there has been a bias in the American judicial system against relying on eyewitness accounts of young children. Some of the apprehension about the veracity of children's recollections has arisen from a concern over the testimony provided by children during the Salem Witch Trials and been fueled further by research carried out

Knowledge of factors affecting eyewitness accuracy was examined in a sample of jurors, judges and law enforcement professionals. Participants completed a survey in which they were asked to agree or disagree with 30 statements about eyewitness issues, and their responses were compared to a sample of eyewitness experts who completed the same survey. Participant responses differed significantly from responses of eyewitness experts. Jurors disagreed with the experts on 87% of the issues, while judges and law enforcement disagreed with the experts on 60% of the issues. The findings show a large deficiency in knowledge of eyewitness memory amongst jurors, judges and law enforcement personnel, indicating that the legal system may benefit from expert assistance in the evaluation of eyewitness evidence. Copyright © 2005 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Current issues in alcohol-related violence are highlighted through the examination of correlational studies between alcohol and violent crime. Alcohol is associated with violent crime at a greater than chance level and at a significantly higher level than it is associated with nonviolent crime. Heavy drinking and a verbal argument usually precede the violent act and the victim is as likely as the offender to initiate the altercation. However, it is the precipitator of the altercation who is more likely to be intoxicated. Alcohol and aggression are more strongly related than expected with violent offenders demonstrating psychopathology. Marital violence appears related to alcohol independent of other marital problems. Although there exists a strong correlational relationship between alcohol and violent crime, the nature of the evidence prohibits the establishment of a causal link. In particular, methodological problems, such as a lack of appropriate comparison groups, make it difficult to draw conclusions in this area.

This article reports three experiments that examine how mock jurors respond to the testimony of a child witness as compared to the testimony of a young adult and elderly witness. In Experiment 1, mock jurors viewed a videotaped recreation of a court trial in which the age of the prosecution's key witness was presented as 8, 21, or 74. Contrary to prior research in this area, the testimony of the 8-year-old witness was rated as more credible than identical testimony given by the 21-year-old witness. The elderly witness was also viewed as more credible than the young adult witness, but less so than the child witness. These findings were replicated in Experiment 2, where mock jurors read a written transcript of the same trial that was presented via videotape in Experiment 1. In Experiment 3, a survey was taken of mock jurors' beliefs about age differences in eyewitness ability. In general, mock jurors were found to hold a negative stereotype of the child witness. These findings are discussed in terms of current theory and research on juror reactions to the child witness, and the more general issue of how stereotypes influence impression formation and social judgment. * We thank the Honorable Judge Betty Friedlander and attorneys William Sullivan and Frank Smithsen for playing the role of judge, prosecution, and defense in the videotaping of the mock trial used in this study. Moreover, we thank Beth Miller and Pat Moran for helping with data collection. This research was supported by a grant from the College of Human Ecology at Cornell to the first author.Requests for reprints should be sent to

Two experiments are reported that test the idea that jurors perceive child witnesses in terms of a 2‐factor model of credibility with the factors defined as cognitive ability and honesty (Leippe & Romanczyk, 1987; Ross, Millers, & Moran, 1989). In the first experiment, 300 mock jurors watched a realistic videotaped recreation of a sexual abuse trial and rated the credibility of the child witness. Mock jurors perceived the child witness in terms of 2 factors: cognitive ability and honesty. Only honesty predicted verdict. These findings were replicated in Experiment 2 (N= 300) when only the child's testimony was presented and the perceptions of the child witness were not contaminated by the testimony of the other witnesses in the trial.