Cross-Examination of Sexual Assault Complainants: A Developmental Comparison

Abstract

In light of recent research calling into question the way in which child complainants of sexual assault are cross-examined, the purpose of the present study was to use court transcripts to investigate the questions asked during cross-examination, and the responses given, as a function of whether the complainant was a child or an adult. Although cross-examining lawyers appeared to make some concessions for children, they asked complainants in both age groups a high proportion of very challenging questions. Moreover, adult complainants were not immune to the negative effects of cross-examination on their testimony; all adult complainants made at least one change to their earlier testimony under cross-examination, and adults made just as many changes as children. Many changes occurred in response to credibility challenging and leading questions. It is now imperative that laboratory research continues into crossexamination might affect witnesses' ability to provide accurate details of their past experiences.

Questioning Child Witnesses in New Zealand's Criminal Justice System: Is Cross-Examination Fair?

“…A series of New Zealand studies has examined the way child witnesses were questioned by lawyers (Zajac & Cannan, 2009;Zajac, Gross, & Hayne, 2003) 1 or by forensic interviewers 2 and lawyers (Davies & Seymour, 1998). 3 While these studies, like the present one, were based on nonrepresentative samples, they all reported that children were often asked age-inappropriate questions, particularly in the courtroom.…”

Pragmatic failure and referential ambiguity when attorneys ask child witnesses “do you know/remember” questions.

“…A few studies have criticized this type of ambiguity in courtroom questioning (Zajac et al, 2003; Zajac & Cannan, 2009), also known as “backward referencing” (Brennan, 1995; Kranat & Westcott, 1994), but the research has predominantly focused on documenting the frequency of potentially ambiguous questions, rather than how well children answer such questions. Zajac and Cannan (2009) were the first to consider children’s responses, but grouped ambiguous questions with a diverse range of questions they termed “complex,” making it difficult to determine if these questions in particular caused children difficulty. Future work can take into account the linguistic developmental work on children’s understanding of anaphora (e.g., Wigglesworth, 1990), as well as expand the range of linguistic devices that are likely to lead to ambiguity (e.g., ellipsis; Lyon, 2013).…”

Cognition and the Child Witness: Understanding the Impact of Cognitive Development in Forensic Contexts

“…This is because they often change answers in response to cross-examination -both their correct and their incorrect direct examination answers (Zajac & Hayne, 2003;Zajac, Jury, & O'Neill, 2009). In fact, preschoolers, older children and adults are vulnerable to the deleterious impact of crossexamination (Zajac & Hayne, 2006;Zajac & Cannan, 2009) -highlighting the fact that social pressures can undermine accurate memory reporting. Providing support persons for child witnesses and preparation for legal participation are procedures meant to alleviate some of the stresses of testifying for children and seem to offer some benefits (Malloy et al, 2007).…”