NCJ Number
130677
Journal
Law and Human Behavior Volume: 15 Issue: 3 Dated: (June 1991) Pages: 253-271
Date Published
1991
Length
19 pages
Annotation
Federal and State rules of evidence and case law regarding children's competency are reviewed.
Abstract
The article outlines the legal requirements concerning children and their competency, reviews the psychological literature on children's definitions of the truth, and describes a recent investigation. In nearly every state, a child must be able to tell the difference between the truth and a lie to be regarded as a competent witness, but only a limited amount of psychological research has been devoted to an understanding of children's definitions of truth and of lies. The results of the investigation show that nearly all of a group of children between the ages of four and six knew that telling something that is untrue to the police is a lie, even if prompted to do so by a parent. A relatively high percentage of young children in the investigation had inaccurate memories about a central aspect of the videotape that they saw, despite the fact that they saw the videotape twice. The results suggest that children do have definitions of the truth in one regard that make it appropriate for them to be considered competent witnesses yet raise concerns about the eyewitness ability of young children. 3 tables and 53 references (Author abstract modified)