Objection, your Honour: examining the questioning practices of Canadian judges

IF 1.1 4区社会学 Q3 CRIMINOLOGY & PENOLOGY

Psychology Crime & Law Pub Date : 2022-01-31 DOI:10.1080/1068316X.2022.2030737

Christopher J. Lively, L. Fallon, Brent Snook, Weyam Fahmy

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引用次数: 0

Abstract

ABSTRACT Judges are the gatekeepers of evidence in the justice system. Granted that witness testimony is pivotal to the truth-seeking function of the criminal justice system, and that judges sometimes intervene and ask questions in the courtroom to help ensure the testimony is accurate, little is known about judges’ questioning practices. In the current study, we examine the questioning practices of a sample of Canadian judges. A total of 3,140 utterances spoken by 15 different judges across 22 criminal cases (169 witness examinations) were classified as one of 13 utterance types, and assessed as a function of examination type; utterance and response lengths were also calculated. Results showed that, when talking to witnesses directly, most of the questions asked were clarification (37%), followed by facilitators (17%), and closed yes/no (10%); less than 1% of all question types were open-ended. The longest answers were provided in response to open-ended questions. We also found that closed yes/no questions were the most frequently used question types during judge-led lines of questioning (i.e. examinations per curium), as opposed to lawyer-led lines of questioning (i.e. during direct and cross examinations). Implications for the truth-seeking function of the justice system are discussed.

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反对，法官大人:审查加拿大法官的质询行为

法官是司法系统中证据的守门人。尽管证人证词对刑事司法系统寻求真相的功能至关重要，法官有时也会在法庭上进行干预和提问，以帮助确保证词的准确性，但人们对法官的问话做法知之甚少。在当前的研究中，我们考察了加拿大法官的提问实践样本。将22起刑事案件(169次证人证言)中15名法官的3140次证言分为13种，并根据证言类型的函数进行评价;话语和反应长度也被计算。结果表明，当与证人直接交谈时，询问的问题最多的是澄清(37%)，其次是促进(17%)和封闭的是/否(10%);所有问题类型中只有不到1%是开放式的。最长的答案是对开放式问题的回答。我们还发现，封闭式的是/否问题是法官主导的提问(即每学期考试)中最常用的问题类型，而不是律师主导的提问(即直接和交叉询问)。讨论了司法系统寻求真相功能的含义。

本文章由计算机程序翻译，如有差异，请以英文原文为准。

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来源期刊

Psychology Crime & Law Multiple-

CiteScore

3.10

自引率

7.10%

发文量

期刊介绍： This journal promotes the study and application of psychological approaches to crime, criminal and civil law, and the influence of law on behavior. The content includes the aetiology of criminal behavior and studies of different offender groups; crime detection, for example, interrogation and witness testimony; courtroom studies in areas such as jury behavior, decision making, divorce and custody, and expert testimony; behavior of litigants, lawyers, judges, and court officers, both in and outside the courtroom; issues of offender management including prisons, probation, and rehabilitation initiatives; and studies of public, including the victim, reactions to crime and the legal process.