Mock Jurors' Understanding and Credibility Judgment of Sexually Abused Child Victim's Testimony
The Citizen Participation Trial System in South Korea allows laypeople to serve as jurors, interpreting evidence and rendering verdicts in criminal trials. However, jurors are vulnerable to the influence of their personal biases especially in child sex abuse cases where the child’s testimony often plays a crucial role but differs significantly from that of adults. In real-life Citizen Participation Trials, jurors’ preexisting beliefs or biases regarding child sex abuse victims might influence their verdicts. Thus, this study aims to examine laypeople’s perception of child sex abuse victims and how these perceptions influence credibility judgment of children’s testimony. In this study, participants will be randomly assigned to one of four conditions in a 2(Type of sexual crime: Molestation vs. rape) x 2(Victim Age: 8 vs. 13) between-subjects design. A survey is conducted with 200 adult participants using vignettes based on real-life cases. It was hypothesised that: (1) Mock juror would rate the testimony of 8-year-old victim as less credible than that of 13-year-olds; (2) testimony in rape case would be rated more credible than in molestation case; and (3) an interaction effect would emerge such that 8-year-old victim in rape case will be rated as less credible than in molestation case whereas no such difference is anticipated for 13-year-olds. This research seeks to reveal laypeople’s preexisting beliefs about child victims of sexual abuse and empirically analyse how these beliefs manifest in mock trial settings. The needs for juror education in real-life child sex abuse trials are discussed.