Testifying with confidence.

Taking a Stand on Taking the Stand: The Effect of a Prior Criminal Record on the Decision to Testify and On Trial Outcomes

This Article uses unique data from over 300 criminal trials in four large counties to study the relations between the existence of a prior criminal record and defendants testifying at trial, between defendants testifying at trial and juries’ learning about criminal records, and between juries’ learning about criminal records and their decisions to convict or acquit. Sixty percent of defendants ...

Testifying in criminal court: emotional effects on child sexual assault victims.

Child victims must cope not only with the emotional consequences of criminal acts but also with the potentially traumatizing effects of legal involvement. Dramatic increases in the reporting of child sexual abuse are bringing greater numbers of children into contact with the criminal justice system, raising fears that child victims of sex crimes will be further harmed by the courts. In the pres...

Childhood sexual assault victims: long-term outcomes after testifying in criminal court.

We report a longitudinal study of long-term outcomes of participating in criminal cases following child sexual abuse (CSA). In the 1980s, 218 child victim/witnesses took part in a study of short-term sequelae of legal involvement. Approximately 12 years later, 174 of them, as well as a comparison group of 41 matched individuals with no CSA history, were interviewed about their mental health and...

Forensic work and nonforensic clinicians part III: testifying in court.

Forensic psychiatry, its place and its promise.

Forensic psychiatrists have always experienced problems when testifying before the bar of justice-some burdensome, some answered relatively easily. Indeed their position in court was ill defined until Benjamin Rush ( 18 12) and Isaac Ray (1 838) placed psychiatry on a more credible basis. After Ray solidified the field testifying was largely in the hands of Superintendents of Insane Asylums fro...