Children's Out-of-Court Statements:  Effects of Hearsay on Jurors' Decisions in Sacramento County, California, and Maricopa County, Arizona, 1994-1997

The goal of this project was to investigate the effects of
children's out-of-court hearsay statements on jurors' perceptions of
witness credibility and defendant guilt. To accomplish this goal,
three studies were conducted. The studies represented a series of
increasingly ecologically valid investigations: mock jurors'
perceptions of children's live and hearsay statements about a mock
crime (Study 1), mock jurors' perceptions of real child sexual abuse
victims' hearsay statements (Study 2), and actual jurors' perceptions
of real child sexual abuse victims' hearsay statements (Study 3). In
these contexts, "hearsay statements" are the repetition of a child's
out-of-court statements in a court trial, either via a videotaped
recording of the child's testimony in a forensic interview with a
social worker or as described by an adult (the social worker or a
police officer) who interviewed the child. The three studies permitted
researchers to examine factors that jurors use to evaluate the
reliability of children's hearsay evidence. The mock crime in Study 1
was touching the child on the stomach, nose, or neck. Jurors were
instructed to consider those acts as if they were battery against a
child. In Study 1, elaborate mock trials concerning the above mock
crime were conducted under three trial conditions: (1) the child
testified live in court, (2) a videotape of a simulated forensic
interview with the child was presented, or (3) adult hearsay was
presented (i.e., a social worker testified about what the child had
said in the simulated forensic interview). A total of 370 mock jurors
participated in Study 1, which was conducted in Sacramento County,
California. In Study 2, videotapes of actual forensic interviews from
real child sexual abuse cases were incorporated into mock trials
instead of having live child testimony. The last two trial conditions
in Study 2 were the same as those for Study 1, except that a police
officer provided the adult hearsay testimony instead of a social
worker. For Study 2, 170 mock jurors served on 15 main juries, which
were held in Sacramento County, California. For both Studies 1 and 2,
pre- and post-deliberation questionnaires were completed by mock
jurors to ascertain their views on the credibility of the child and
adult testimonies, the importance of various pieces of evidence, and
the guilt of the defendant. Demographic questionnaires were also
filled out before the mock trials. In Study 3, real jurors from actual
child sexual abuse trials were surveyed regarding their judgments of
child and adult testimonies. The three trial conditions that were
present in Studies 1 and 2 (live child testimony, videotaped
testimony, and adult hearsay testimony) were also experienced by the
Study 3 participants. These jurors also indicated the importance of
various types of evidence and provided demographic data. A total of
248 jurors representing 43 juries from Sacramento County, California,
and Maricopa County, Arizona, participated in Study 3. This collection
includes aggregated data prepared from the Study 3 data to provide
mean values for each of the 42 juries, as calculated from the
individual juror responses. Data for one jury were eliminated from the
aggregated data by the principal investigators. Variables from the
demographic questionnaire for Studies 1 and 2 include trial condition,
respondent's age, gender, marital status, occupation, ethnic
background, religious orientation, and highest grade attained in
school, if the respondent supported the death penalty, if the
respondent was ever a victim of crime, number of children the
respondent had, if the respondent was a United States citizen, if the
respondent's native language was English, and if he or she had ever
been a police officer, a convicted felon, a lawyer, or a judge. The
pre-deliberation questionnaire for Study 1 asked jurors if they felt
that the defendant was guilty, and how confident they were of the
defendant's guilt or innocence. Jurors were also asked to assess the
accuracy of various facts as given in the social worker's interview of
the child and the child's statements in the taped interview, and what
the likelihood was of the child's being influenced by the social
worker, prosecutor, and/or defense attorney. Questions about the trial
included the juror's assessment of the defendant, the social worker,
and the research assistant. Jurors were also asked about the influence
of various factors on their decisions regarding whether to believe the
individuals in the case. Jurors' open-ended comments were coded on the
most important factors in believing or doubting the child or the
social worker, the most important evidence in the case, and whether
anything could have been done to make the trial more
fair. Post-deliberation questions in Study 1 included whether the
defendant was guilty, how confident the juror was of the defendant's
guilt or innocence regarding various charges in the case, and the
final verdict of the jury. Questions similar to those in Study 1 were
asked in the pre-deliberation questionnaire for Study 2, which also
included respondents' opinions of the police officer, the mother, the
doctor, and the use of anatomical dolls. The Study 2 post-deliberation
questionnaire included questions on whether the defendant was guilty,
how confident the juror was of the defendant's guilt or innocence, and
the juror's assessment of the social worker's videotaped interview and
the police officer's testimony. Variables from the Study 3 juror
survey include the county/state where the trial was held, the juror's
age, gender, ethnic background, and highest grade attained in school,
if the juror supported the death penalty, if he or she was ever a
victim of crime, and the amount of contact he or she had with
children. Questions about the trial include the number of children the
defendant was charged with abusing, the main child's age and gender,
if a videotape was shown at trial, who interviewed the child on the
videotape, the impact of seeing the videotape on the juror's decision
to believe the child, the number of children who testified at the
trial, and if the child was involved in a custody dispute. Additional
questions focused on the defendant's relationship to the main child,
who the first person was that the child told about the abuse, if the
main child testified in court, the most important evidence in the case
in the opinion of the juror, the jury's verdict, and how fair the
juror considered the trial. Finally, jurors were asked about the
influence of various factors on their decision to believe or doubt the
individuals in the case. Data in Study 3 also include coded open-ended
responses to several questions. Variables provided for the Study 3
aggregated data consist of the calculated mean values for each of the
42 juries for most of the variables in the Study 3 juror survey data.

Tags: child-abuse, evidence, hearsay-evidence, juries, sexual-abuse, testimony, trials, witness-credibility
Organization: Department of Justice