Evans and Lyon (2012)

Evans and Lyon (2012)

1. Assessing children's competency to Take the Oath in Court

   • Judges virtually never found children incompetent to testify
   • Attorneys rarely asked hypothetical Q's in a way found to facilitate performance.
   • Defence attorneys used a higher proportion of more difficult Q types than prosecutors

2. Examined children's accuracy in response to T/L competency questions

   • Participants
     • 164 from criminal child sex abuse cases over 5 years
     • 154 quoted in U.S state and federal appelate cases over 35 yrs.
   • Results
     • T/L competency is underestimated by courtroom Q'ing
       • Supports doubts about the utility of the competency requirements
   • Children exhibited variability in performance based on question type
     • Definition questions - meaning of T&L hardest - Errors in response to 'Do you know' Q's
     • Q's about consequences of lying harder than Q's evaluating morality or lying.
     • High rates of error to Q's about whether they had ever told a lie.