Veil study yields unexpected results
By Ed Prutschi
First posted: Monday, July 04, 2016 10:08 PM EDT | Updated: Monday, July 04, 2016 10:16 PM EDT
If the eyes are the windows to the soul, is the voice the gateway to truth?
That seems to be the suggestion of a new study that examines our ability to detect lies in both veiled and unveiled witnesses.
This counter-intuitive result runs headlong against recent Canadian judicial decisions in which trial judges have ordered witnesses to remove the niqab — a head covering that conceals the entirety of the head and face except for the eyes — before testifying in court.
The Canadian common law has a long tradition granting an accused person the right to face his or her accuser. This right forms the foundation of the well-known practice of cross-examination in which a complainant in a criminal case is obligated to present his or her evidence from the witness stand in full view of the defendant.
Certain exceptions have been made for vulnerable witnesses such as children in sexual assault cases where the witness testifies either behind a screen or via a closed-circuit TV system. In both scenarios, while the witness is spared a view of the accused, the accused — as well as the judge and jury — are able to see and scrutinize the witness.
This process of face-to-face confrontation has been ruled so important that it overrides the religious freedom argument presented by a witness who feels religiously obligated to keep her face covered in public.
The clearly articulated concern is that a defendant may not be able to expose the lies of a witness effectively in the absence of the visual cues that can be observed on the face during questioning.
Yet, in a controlled experiment, researchers found mock jurors were actually better able to discern lies testified to by veiled witnesses than those lies told by the unveiled witnesses. The study hypothesizes that the visual cues Canadian courts consider so important in assessing credibility are in fact confounding distractions. Jurors do a better job when focussing solely on the words that come out of a veiled mouth rather than on the flushing of a cheek or the raise of an eyebrow.
If these results can be replicated in larger experiments, it raises fundamental questions about how we conduct trials.
If an unveiled face is a visual distraction undermining a juror’s ability to distinguish truth from lies, perhaps every courtroom witness should testify behind a veil. Indeed, why not go a step further and remove the audio distraction of a quivering voice or a foreign accent by having a digital voice repeat the testimony of an invisible absentee witness.
We are already socialized to mindlessly accept directions from our onboard navigation systems. Could we be just a step away from Siri becoming the face and voice of witnesses in a future iTrial?
— Prutschi is a defence lawyer Criminal Law Firms Toronto: Adler Bytensky Prutschi Shikhman 416-365-3151- Criminal Defense Lawyer Toronto.
Veil study yields unexpected results | GUEST COLUMN | Home | Toronto Sun
By Ed Prutschi
First posted: Monday, July 04, 2016 10:08 PM EDT | Updated: Monday, July 04, 2016 10:16 PM EDT
If the eyes are the windows to the soul, is the voice the gateway to truth?
That seems to be the suggestion of a new study that examines our ability to detect lies in both veiled and unveiled witnesses.
This counter-intuitive result runs headlong against recent Canadian judicial decisions in which trial judges have ordered witnesses to remove the niqab — a head covering that conceals the entirety of the head and face except for the eyes — before testifying in court.
The Canadian common law has a long tradition granting an accused person the right to face his or her accuser. This right forms the foundation of the well-known practice of cross-examination in which a complainant in a criminal case is obligated to present his or her evidence from the witness stand in full view of the defendant.
Certain exceptions have been made for vulnerable witnesses such as children in sexual assault cases where the witness testifies either behind a screen or via a closed-circuit TV system. In both scenarios, while the witness is spared a view of the accused, the accused — as well as the judge and jury — are able to see and scrutinize the witness.
This process of face-to-face confrontation has been ruled so important that it overrides the religious freedom argument presented by a witness who feels religiously obligated to keep her face covered in public.
The clearly articulated concern is that a defendant may not be able to expose the lies of a witness effectively in the absence of the visual cues that can be observed on the face during questioning.
Yet, in a controlled experiment, researchers found mock jurors were actually better able to discern lies testified to by veiled witnesses than those lies told by the unveiled witnesses. The study hypothesizes that the visual cues Canadian courts consider so important in assessing credibility are in fact confounding distractions. Jurors do a better job when focussing solely on the words that come out of a veiled mouth rather than on the flushing of a cheek or the raise of an eyebrow.
If these results can be replicated in larger experiments, it raises fundamental questions about how we conduct trials.
If an unveiled face is a visual distraction undermining a juror’s ability to distinguish truth from lies, perhaps every courtroom witness should testify behind a veil. Indeed, why not go a step further and remove the audio distraction of a quivering voice or a foreign accent by having a digital voice repeat the testimony of an invisible absentee witness.
We are already socialized to mindlessly accept directions from our onboard navigation systems. Could we be just a step away from Siri becoming the face and voice of witnesses in a future iTrial?
— Prutschi is a defence lawyer Criminal Law Firms Toronto: Adler Bytensky Prutschi Shikhman 416-365-3151- Criminal Defense Lawyer Toronto.
Veil study yields unexpected results | GUEST COLUMN | Home | Toronto Sun
