A court's decision about allowing the use of the term ‘victim’ versus ‘complaining witness’ may seem trivial, and yet language is known to have powerful effects. The term ‘victim’ can be argued to presuppose what a trial is meant to determine and therefore deny defendants' right to the presumption of innocence (no different than if a defendant is called a ‘criminal’ prior to a Jury verdict). On the other hand, ‘victim’ is used in statutes and does not necessarily presuppose criminal activity by the defendant. Modern case law on the issue varies. The general principle is that it is acceptable to use the term ‘victim’ in cases where there is an undisputed injured party. In cases where the determination of whether the Accuser was harmed at all is to be adjudicated, the use of the term ‘victim’ sometimes has been held to be improper, most frequently in sexual assault cases (see, for review, Conklin, 2020). and ‘complaining witness’ might lead jurors to assume an accuser is making a trivial or annoying complaint. Conklin (2020) studied whether the use of the terms ‘victim’ or ‘complaining witness’ affected verdicts in criminal trials....