Since children's testimonies of child sexual abuse (CSA) often lack concrete evidence to corroborate a child's claims, attorneys devote a substantial amount of time to establishing a child as credible during the course of a trial. The results of the current study revealed that although prosecutors examined plausibility more often to establish credibility, defense attorneys focused their assessments on suggestibility/honesty and potential inconsistency; however, both attorneys asked many more questions about children's consistency than any other area of potential credibility. Furthermore, while prosecutors ask proportionally more credibility-challenging questions of older children, the defense did not. These results suggest that prosecutors may be missing an opportunity to establish children as honest and consistent and elucidate a need to train attorneys on the implications of children's inconsistencies, suggestibility, and plausible abuse dynamics. (publisher abstract modified)
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