Mock Juror Perceptions of Child Witnesses on the Autism Spectrum: The Impact of Providing Diagnostic Labels and Information About Autism

Laura Crane,Katie L Maras,Wing Chui,Carmen Marti-Sanchez,Rachel Wilcock,Lucy A Henry

doi:10.1007/s10803-018-3700-0

Abstract

Research suggests that autistic children can provide accurate and forensically useful eyewitness evidence. However, members of a jury also rely on non-verbal behaviours when judging the credibility of a witness, and this could determine the verdict of a case. We presented mock jurors with videos (from an experimental study) of one of two child witnesses on the autism spectrum being interviewed about a mock minor crime. Results demonstrated that providing jurors with generic information about autism and/or informing them of the child’s diagnostic label differentially affected credibility ratings, but not for both children. Implications for how to present information about child witnesses with autism to a jury—highlighting the need for approaches tailored to individual children—are discussed.

Highlights

Eyewitness evidence can be a key factor in a jury’s decision making about a defendant’s guilt or innocence (Nicholson et al 2014); if jurors do not find a witness to be credible, they are less likely to decide that the defendant is guilty (Pica et al 2017)
Prior to exploring the effect of providing jurors with information about autism and/or the child’s diagnostic label, a principle component analysis (PCA) using Oblimin rotation was conducted on the 11 credibility ratings
Kelley’s (1971, 1972) discounting principle may only have applied to Child B, who displayed atypical behavioural characteristics possibly associated with autism. This might link to our mock jurors’ ratings of their knowledge/ experience of autism, which correlated with credibility ratings for Child B but not Child A. These findings suggest that knowledge/experience of autism may affect credibility judgements only when the child is displaying more atypical behavioural characteristics, which has implications for children who may not match the stereotypical view of an autistic child, such as some girls on the autism spectrum (Gould and Ashton-Smith 2011), an important area that warrants further investigation

Summary

Introduction

Eyewitness evidence can be a key factor in a jury’s decision making about a defendant’s guilt or innocence (Nicholson et al 2014); if jurors do not find a witness to be credible, they are less likely to decide that the defendant is guilty (Pica et al 2017). A growing body of empirical evidence has explored the performance of autistic individuals (largely those who do not have intellectual disabilities) when giving evidence in a criminal justice context. This illustrates how both children and adults on the autism spectrum tend to recall less information than their typically developing peers when free recalling information about an event (e.g., Bruck et al 2007; Henry et al 2017b; Maras et al 2012; Mattison et al 2015; McCrory et al 2007), but can perform in more structured interviews (e.g., Henry et al 2017a; Maras and Bowler 2010), or when additional supports (e.g., more specific questioning, physical reinstatement of context, or concrete visual prompts) are provided at recall

Methods

Results

Discussion

Conclusion