Children are often the primary source of evidence in maltreatment cases, particularly cases of child sexual abuse, and may be asked to testify in court. Although best-practice protocols for interviewing children suggest that interviewers ask open-ended questions to elicit detailed responses from children, during in-court testimony, attorneys tend to rely on closed-ended questions that elicit simple (often "yes" or "no") responses (e.g., Andrews, Lamb, & Lyon, 2015; Klemfuss, Quas, & Lyon, 2014). How then are jurors making decisions about children's credibility and ultimately the case outcome? The present study examined the effect of two attorney-specific factors (e.g., temporal structure and questioning phase) on mock jurors' perceptions of attorney performance, child witness credibility, storyline clarity, and defendant guilt. Participants were randomly assigned to read a trial excerpt from one of eight conditions and were then asked to evaluate the attorney, child witness, and the case. Selected excerpts were from criminal court case transcripts and contained either high attorney temporal structure (e.g., use of temporal markers) or low temporal structure (e.g., frequent topic switching), involved direct or cross-examination, and represented cases resulting in a conviction or acquittal. Child responses were kept consistent across all excerpts. Results showed that participants perceived the attorney's performance and child's credibility more favorably and thought the storyline was clearer when attorneys provided high rather than low temporal structure and when the excerpt contained direct rather than cross-examination. Participants who read a direct rather than cross-examination excerpt were also more likely to think the defendant was guilty. The study highlights the impact of attorney questioning style on mock jurors' perceptions. Copyright (C) 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
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机译：儿童通常是虐待案件，特别是儿童性虐待案件中的主要证据来源，并可能被要求出庭作证。尽管针对儿童进行面试的最佳实践方案建议，访谈员会提出开放性问题以引起儿童的详细回答，但在庭内作证时，律师倾向于依靠封闭性问题来引出简单（通常为“是”或“否”） ）的回应（例如，Andrews，Lamb和Lyon，2015; Klemfuss，Quas和＆Lyon，2014）。那么，陪审员如何决定儿童的信誉，最终决定案件的结果？本研究调查了两个特定于律师的因素（例如，时间结构和质询阶段）对模拟陪审员对律师绩效，儿童证人的可信度，故事情节清晰和被告有罪感的看法的影响。参加者被随机分配阅读八种条件之一的试验摘录，然后被要求评估律师，儿童证人和案件。选定的摘录来自刑事法院案件笔录，并包含较高的律师时间结构（例如，使用时间标记）或较低的时间结构（例如，频繁的话题切换），涉及直接或交叉盘问，并代表导致定罪或被定罪的案件。开释。在所有摘录中，儿童的回答都保持一致。结果表明，参与者对律师的表现和孩子的信誉更加满意，并认为当律师提供高而不是低的时间结构以及摘录包含直接而不是交叉询问时，故事情节更加清晰。阅读直接摘录而不是盘问摘录的参与者也更有可能认为被告有罪。该研究强调了律师质询方式对模拟陪审员感知的影响。版权所有（C）2016 John Wiley＆Sons，Ltd.
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