Wrongful Acquittals of Child Sexual Abuse
Date
2015
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Journal of Interpersonal Violence
Abstract
Ross Cheit’s book The Witch-Hunt Narrative highlights the difficulties of prosecuting child sexual abuse. Drawing examples from a single case, Alex A., we examine the ways in which false acquittals of sexual abuse are likely to occur. First, prosecutors tend to question children in ways that undermine their productivity and credibility. Second, prosecutors have difficulty in explaining to juries the dynamics of sexual abuse and disclosure, making children’s acquiescence to abuse and their failure to disclose when abuse first occurs incredible. Third, attorneys undermine children’s credibility by pushing them to provide difficult to estimate temporal and numerical information. A postscript to the Alex A. case illustrates the costs of wrongful acquittals.
Description
item.page.type
Article
item.page.format
Keywords
child sexual abuse, prosecution, wrongful aquittal, children's credibility
Citation
Lyon, T. D., Stolzenberg, S. N., & McWilliams, K. (2015). Wrongful Acquittals of Child Sexual Abuse. Journal of Interpersonal Violence, Forthcoming, 15-37.