Greater Knowledge Enhances Complainant Credibility and Increases Jury Convictions for Child Sexual Assault

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Goodman-Delahunty, J
Martschuk, N
Lee, E
Cossins, A
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2021
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Abstract

Child sexual assault (CSA) cases reliant on uncorroborated testimony yield low conviction rates. Past research demonstrated a strong relationship between verdict and juror CSA knowledge such as typical delays in reporting by victims, and perceived victim credibility. This trial simulation experiment examined the effectiveness of interventions by an expert witness or an educative judicial direction in reducing jurors' CSA misconceptions. Participants were 885 jurors in New South Wales, Australia. After viewing a professionally acted video trial, half the jurors rendered individual verdicts and half deliberated in groups of 8–12 before completing a post-trial questionnaire. Multilevel structural equation modeling exploring the relationship between CSA knowledge and verdict demonstrated that greater CSA knowledge after the interventions increased the odds ratio to convict by itself, and that the judicial direction predicted a higher level of post-trial CSA knowledge in jurors than other expert interventions. Moreover, greater CSA knowledge was associated with heightened credibility perceptions of the complainant and a corroborating witness. At the conclusion of the trial, the more jurors knew about CSA, the higher the perceived credibility of both the complainant and her grandmother, and the more likely jurors were to convict the accused.

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Frontiers in Psychology

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12

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© 2021 Goodman-Delahunty, Martschuk, Lee and Cossins. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

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Psychology

Criminology

Legal theory, jurisprudence and legal interpretation

Biomedical and clinical sciences

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Goodman-Delahunty, J; Martschuk, N; Lee, E; Cossins, A, Greater Knowledge Enhances Complainant Credibility and Increases Jury Convictions for Child Sexual Assault, Frontiers in Psychology, 2021, 12, pp. 624331

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