How hostile lawyers discredit witnesses with learning disabilities

Cross-examination lawyers ask witnesses with learning disabilities questions which are designed to discredit their testimony.

This was the finding of a paper presented on Friday 14 April 2000, to The British Psychological Society’s Division of Clinical Psychology Conference by Dr Chris Hatton (Lancaster University), Dr Mark Kebbell (University of Birmingham) and Shane Johnson (Liverpool University).

Although many people with learning disabilities can give accurate accounts of past events, the accuracy of their testimony is vulnerable to certain types of questions, such as yes/no and leading questions.

The researchers investigated whether lawyers used such unhelpful questions. They coded the transcripts of 16 court cases where a witness with learning disabilities was questioned by a friendly lawyer in direct examination and a hostile lawyer in cross-examination. The researchers compared the questioning strategies of the lawyers.

 Friendly lawyers were more likely to ask helpful types of questions, such as open questions. Hostile lawyers were more likely to ask unhelpful questions designed to confuse or discredit the witness, particularly yes/no questions (85 per cent of cross-examination questions), heavily leading questions (22 per cent) and questions with negatives (14 per cent).

Hostile lawyers also asked more questions with several parts to them and questions about times and dates of events. These results show that cross-examination lawyers deliberately try to discredit witnesses with learning disabilities by using questioning strategies designed to produce inaccurate testimony.