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Abstract
We surveyed 170 Chinese judges about their knowledge and beliefs about eyewitness testimony, and compared their answers to a prior survey of 160 US judges. Although the Chinese judges were less knowledgeable than the US judges, both groups had limited knowledge of eyewitness testimony, including for such important issues as whether lay people can distinguish between accurate and inaccurate eyewitnesses. Unlike the US judges, greater knowledge of eyewitness factors for the Chinese judges was not related to beliefs that may be necessary to reduce eyewitness error. Compared to the US judges, the Chinese judges were much less likely to believe that they needed additional eyewitness training and that they knew more about eyewitness testimony than lay persons. We also discuss the impact of culture, legal systems, investigative procedures, and judges' function on the Chinese judges' responses, and the legal reforms that China may need to implement to reduce eyewitness error.
Notes
1. The judges were given two different sets of responses for the eyewitness statements. For eyewitness statements 7–11, judges answered whether they believed the statement was generally true, generally false, or I do not know. For the remaining eyewitness statements, the judges used a five-point Likert scale to respond that had the labels of strongly agree, agree, neither agree nor disagree, disagree, and strongly disagree. Generally true or generally false was used as the responses for eyewitness statements 7–11 because judges not only indicated how they would respond to the statement but also how they believed the average juror would respond. In addition, for these statements the US judges indicated what legal safeguards they would permit attorneys to use to educate jurors about the eyewitness factors.