Credibility as an Interactional Accomplishment

Abstract

Although assumptions about “truthfulness” are necessarily involved in everyday social interaction, individuals rarely try explicitly to “test” one another's credibility. The trial court, and particularly the cross-examination of testimony, is one social occasion where such “testing” of credibility is done. In this article we analyze the cross-examination of a defendant accused of perjury in order to elucidate how credibility (or its lack) is established for all practical purposes. Ethnographic interviews and transcribed tape recordings of testimony provide materials for our analysis. We argue that in this case the prosecutor's cross-examination strategy places the defendant in “the witness's dilemma”—an untenable choice between claiming to have acted “unreasonably” or agreeing to the prosecution's accusation. The defendant responds to this dilemma by giving delayed and qualified responses, expressing apparent confusion about the questions, and agreeing with the prosecutor in only a hypothetical and minimized way. These responses are, in turn, reflexively exposed and framed by the prosecutor and other court participants as attempts to evade accusation. Credibility is thus assessed in reference to the “reasonableness” of both the witness's explanations of past events and his or her comportment on the stand when those explanations are challenged.