Child Witnesses: Fragile Voices in the American Legal System - Hardcover

McGough, Professor Lucy S.

9780300057485: Child Witnesses: Fragile Voices in the American Legal System

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0300057482 ISBN 13: 9780300057485

Publisher: Yale University Press, 1994

Children are frequently called to testify in court in criminal prosecutions, divorce and child custody hearings, dependency abuse proceedings, and other disputes. But is their testimony reliable? This book carefully assesses research on the cognitive capabilities of children as well as the emotional, social, and moral influences that might affect children's potential reliability, and it recommends reforms in American legal processes that will protect child witnesses from trauma and ensure accurate testimony.
Lucy S. McGough, a specialist in family law, examines the known developmental facts on perception, memory, and reporting that affect children's ability to serve as trial witnesses. She also analyzes many actual trials, including the McMartin Pre-School prosecution in California, the Morgan-Foretich custody and visitation controversy, and the five U.S. Supreme Court child sexual abuse cases, assessing how a child witness may be more prone to memory-fade, suggestibility, or fantasy than an adult witness. McGough also examines the legal processes and rules of evidence that affect how eyewitness accounts by children are received: trial processes for evaluating the credibility of witnesses; the hearsay rule and its exceptions; the Constitution's confrontation clause; and the use and abuse of expert witnesses. And she presents a proposal for the early videotaping of a child's eyewitness account in order to minimize the most serious potential reliability risks posed by child witnesses. The product of ten years of research and investigation, this book should help remedy the failure of American law to take into account all that we now know about the fragility of children's memories.

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About the Author:

Lucy S. McGough is Vinson and Elkins Professor of Law at Louisiana State University Law School, Baton Rouge.

From Booklist:

The central question of this book is, Are children reliable witnesses when brought into our legal system? Yes and no is the answer. In a judicial system based on an adversarial relationship between two parties, the witnesses can often be victimized, and this possibility is intensified when children are witnesses. Children can easily be traumatized. Their memories can be manipulated or otherwise coerced by adults, even those who are well-meaning. And yet, at times they can perform admirably, with little or no damage to themselves. Often, they are the only witnesses available. McGough's book does, however, call for changes in the system when children are involved, and provides the reader with a good understanding of courtroom procedures. Readable and informative. Brian McCombie

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