Your response should either add to their summary or respectfully challenge their position based on information that you have found in a peer-reviewed journal article. Your reply post should consist of 300 to 400 words. The use of quotations is not allowed.
Please upload a copy of your article with your reply post.
Use APA format. in-text citations and references
Peer: Maya
I decided to take a different approach this week and refute the idea that plaintiffs in civil trials should have the right to be coached by their attorneys. In a peer-reviewed article, George et al. (2021) explain that children can often become plaintiffs. They could be easily coerced into saying that their attorney, mother, or another adult told them what to say, which may or may not even be true. I believe that plaintiffs should not be coached by their attorneys, especially if they are children because it could ruin their credibility, make them easily influenced, and often cause them to become confused about how to answer questions from a prosecutor or judge.
George et al. (2021) conducted a study with children and their defense attorneys. The children were all victims of sexual abuse, and the goal was to see whether or not the questioning from other attorneys would influence the answers of the children and get them to say that they were told to say certain things. The authors believed that being in a plaintiff position, children could be more susceptible to coercion. That statement is because children can lack cognitive skills, and depending on the defense, they can purposely ask questions that make it seem like the child was coached into saying certain things (George et al., 2021).
The article mentions attacking the credibility of a child by the use of polysemous implicatures. According to George et al. (2021), polysemous implicature is a statement’s implied meaning is different from the actual meaning. For example, the defense may ask the child if anyone helped them remember something when they really meant if someone told them what to say. This technique affects the child’s credibility, so their statements are taken with a grain of salt because they are potentially coached and false. Sometimes, this can confuse the child because they may need help understanding precisely what is being asked, so they don’t know if they should be answering it or not. Another way to confuse children is when the defense tries to influence the child with previous answers or conversations they had earlier in the trial, which makes them confused on why they are being asked again or confused because the defense may keep asking if someone helped them remember that.
If children are the plaintiffs, coaching them could cause issues when they get called upon to answer questions. Regardless of whether the plaintiff is an adult or a child, we probably shouldn’t coach so we can ensure that everyone is being their authentic selves on the stand and providing genuine testimony.
References
George, S. St., Sullivan, C., Wylie, B. E., McWilliams, K., Evans, A. D., & Stolzenberg, S. N. (2021). Did your mom help you remember?: An examination of attorneys’ subtle questioning about suggestive influence to children testifying about child sexual abuse.
Journal of Interpersonal Violence,
37(15–16). https://doi.org/10.1177/08862605211006369
