ABSTRACT

The natural fading of memory presents a difficulty for complainants who report childhood sexual abuse after a significant delay. The complainant’s recollections, and their failures to recollect, may be the only source of evidence about the alleged offense and so may be determinative of outcome. We analyzed 101 published judicial decisions of timely tried and delayed complaints of child sexual abuse and coded for judge’s comments related to complainants’ memory failures. We utilized qualitative and quantitative methods for this study. There were more memory failure comments reported for cases with a delay to trial compared to no delay to trial. Further, there were more memory failure comments in cases that ended in acquittals than convictions when there was a delay to trial. Judicial discussion of memory failures about abuse setting or circumstances accounted for the highest percentage of comments.

摘要

记忆的自然消退给在很长一段时间后报告童年性虐待的投诉人带来了困难。投诉人的回忆以及他们未能回忆起，可能是有关所指控罪行的唯一证据来源，因此可能决定结果。我们分析了 101 份关于及时审理和延迟的儿童性虐待投诉的已发表司法判决，并编码法官对投诉人记忆力衰退的评论。我们在本研究中使用了定性和定量方法。与没有延迟审判相比，延迟审判的案例报告了更多的记忆失败评论。此外，在审判延迟的情况下，在以无罪判决告终的案件中，记忆失败的评论多于定罪。