{"id":824,"date":"2013-02-25T17:23:58","date_gmt":"2013-02-25T17:23:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.littlerascalsdaycarecase.org\/?p=824"},"modified":"2016-07-04T10:41:50","modified_gmt":"2016-07-04T10:41:50","slug":"give-childs-testimony-same-weight-as-adults","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.littlerascalsdaycarecase.org\/?p=824","title":{"rendered":"&#8216;Give child&#8217;s testimony same weight&#8217; as adult&#8217;s?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"style187\" style=\"text-align: right;\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright size-full wp-image-825\" src=\"http:\/\/www.littlerascalsdaycarecase.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/01\/130225McAllaster.jpg\" alt=\"130225McAllaster\" width=\"120\" height=\"180\" \/>Feb. 25, 2013<\/p>\n<p class=\"style184\">\u201cThe 99 guilty verdicts against (Bob) Kelly appear to have set a benchmark for such cases: that youthful witnesses can have enough credibility to win convictions on their word alone.<\/p>\n<p class=\"style184\">\u201c\u2018This validated child witness testimony,\u2019 said Carolyn McAllaster, who teaches a child advocacy clinic at Duke University\u2019s law school and trial practice at the University of North Carolina School of Law.<\/p>\n<p class=\"style184\">\u201c\u2018I think the reason a lot of prosecutors hesitate to take these cases is they fear these children won\u2019t be believed by juries,\u2019 she said. \u2018They should give a child\u2019s testimony the same weight they would give an adult\u2019s testimony. I think that children are very believable and that their testimony can be judged on its own merits.\u2019 \u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"style173\" style=\"text-align: right;\">\u2013<em>\u00a0From \u201cRascals verdict affirms children\u2019s credibility\u201d\u00a0in the Raleigh News &amp; Observer (April 26, 1992)<\/em><\/p>\n<p class=\"style184\"><a href=\"http:\/\/law.duke.edu\/fac\/mcallaster\/\" target=\"_blank\">McAllaster<\/a>\u00a0has gone on to become director of the AIDS Legal Project and a clinical professor of law at Duke.<\/p>\n<p class=\"style184\">Has she changed her mind about the credibility of child witnesses?<\/p>\n<p class=\"style184\">I asked her.<\/p>\n<p class=\"style184\">She hasn\u2019t responded.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Feb. 25, 2013 \u201cThe 99 guilty verdicts against (Bob) Kelly appear to have set a benchmark for such cases: that youthful witnesses can have enough credibility to win convictions on their word alone. \u201c\u2018This validated child witness testimony,\u2019 said Carolyn McAllaster, who teaches a child advocacy clinic at Duke University\u2019s law school and trial practice [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-824","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blog"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.littlerascalsdaycarecase.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/824","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.littlerascalsdaycarecase.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.littlerascalsdaycarecase.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.littlerascalsdaycarecase.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.littlerascalsdaycarecase.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=824"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.littlerascalsdaycarecase.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/824\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2469,"href":"https:\/\/www.littlerascalsdaycarecase.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/824\/revisions\/2469"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.littlerascalsdaycarecase.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=824"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.littlerascalsdaycarecase.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=824"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.littlerascalsdaycarecase.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=824"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}