Forensic Developmental Psychology - Child Testimony Process

Child Testimony Process

Similar to adults, children who testify must undergo a testimony process in order to determine their relative competency, reliability, and credibility. This is important because trauma resulting from exposure to an open courtroom or confrontation with a defendant can ultimately lead to inaccurate testimony.

There are several similarities and differences between the competency evaluation for adults and for children. Both adults and children must be deemed as competent in order to testify in court. With regards to children, competency refers to a child's capacity and relative intelligence, his or her ability to distinguish between truth and lie, and his or her duty to tell the truth. In order to determine a child's competency, four factors may be considered:

• the child's ability to distinguish between true and lies along with the duty to speak the truth,
• the child's ability to perceive the occurrence accurately during that time,
• the child's ability to independently recollect the occurrence and
• the child's ability to verbally translate his or her memory of the occurrence and to answer simple questions about the event.

These guidelines were determined by the Wheeler v. United States (1985) Supreme Court case in which a 5-year-old boy was the only witness to a murder. The boy's testimony was ruled as admissible on the grounds that he was "sufficiently intelligent", could "distinguish between truth and lies", and understand that he was "morally obligated to tell the truth". Although federal guidelines exist for determining a child's competency, the capacities required for a child to be deemed competent also vary from state to state. For example, some states may require a child to be able to differentiate between truth and lie as well as recall past incidents, whereas other states may only require that the child is able to tell the truth.

Along with competency, a child's reliability and credibility must be tested as well. However, the guidelines for a determining a child's reliability and credibility are not as stringent as determining the child's competency. Although it is important to establish a child's relative reliability and credibility for his or her testimony, a judge cannot bar a witness from testifying on the grounds that he or she is competent but not credible.