Trial Advocacy Tips for Handling a Child Witness
Sunday, August 23, 2009 at 8:18PM A child witness can play a key role in your case, but it can be tricky both to establish their credibility and to ensure their reliability as a witness. Let’s talk about a few ways to accomplish both of these goals and to make the experience as painless as possible for your child witness.
1. Easy Does It
The courtroom is especially intimidating for a child. If you have a dramatic and pronounced style as an advocate, this might be a good time to tone it down. While you might want to use dramatics to engage the jury, a strong and boisterous delivery will only serve to make your already nervous witness completely petrified. Try to keep your tone and inflection settled and calm. Your body movements need not be dramatic. Your primary goal should be to make the child witness feel comfortable enough to deliver the testimony that your case is banking on.
2. Reality v. Fantasy
With adolescent child witnesses its critical that you establish their credibility before you get into the substance of their testimony. By credibility, we are referring to the ability to distinguish reality from fantasy. Obviously if the child witness is too young or immature to tell the difference between what is on television and what happens in real life, then their testimony ceases to have any significance in the case.
Example:
A: Jimmy, what’s your favorite movie?
C: Star Wars
A: Jimmy, do you know that Star Wars is make believe and not real life?
C: Yeah, I mean, it’s just a movie. You could never do that kinda stuff in real life.
3. Truth and Lies
Equally important in establishing the credibility of the child witness is determining if he/she knows it’s wrong to tell a lie. Obviously if the child has no regard for the significance of truthfulness in a court of law, his/her credibility as a witness vanishes. For one example of how this is done, visit our neighbors at Before Class Media.
4. Lead the Way
It’s important to know that most courts will permit you to lead a child witness on direct examination. Generally speaking you are not allowed to lead a witness on direct examination. There are a limited number of exceptions and a child witness falls into this category. Of course, don’t over do it. Putting testimony into a child’s mouth will get you in trouble with the court. There is a fine line between leading a child witness who needs a bit of help in delivering his/her testimony and simply forcing the child to deliver a specific testimony.
5. Child on Cross
This may seem obvious, but when you are cross examining a child witness in front of a jury this may not be the best time flex your cross exam skills by verbally attacking the witness. The jury will not likely respond well to an aggressive cross-examination of a child witness. If you need to impeach the child’s testimony, do so gently and directly.
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