Child Witnesses and the First Amendment: A Psycholegal Dilemma

Abstract

There have been a number of recent proposals for procedural reforms to protect child victims in their role as witnesses. The Supreme Court's decision in Globe Newspaper Co. v. Superior Court suggests both the constitutional limits of these reforms and some circumstances in which social‐science evidence in unlikely to be given weight by the judiciary. Globe is particularly interesting with respect to the latter issue because its judgment appeared to turn on perceptions of empirical data. The Court's use of these data is analyzed, and suggestions are made for future research about children's involvement as witnesses. It is argued that attention might be better paid to making the present system more responsive to the needs of child witnesses than to attempting major procedural changes.