Dear Friend of Justice,
What needed to be made crystal clear to the
Shanley jury -- as well as to the media and the public -- was that
"repressed memory" (more accurately "traumatic amnesia" or "dissociative
amnesia"), if it exists, is something radically different than the
kind of forgetting, forgetting about, and remembering that all of us are
very familiar with from our own experiences.
We all forget, or forget about experiences,
often for years, and often we recall them when we encounter an
appropriate trigger. We can and do forget or forget about unpleasant
experiences, even very unpleasant experiences. (My own pet theory is that we
are especially prone to forget about experiences in which we behaved
in ways we are not proud of, or experiences that deeply embarrassed us.
Events, in other words, that cause what is called cognitive
dissonance. But I don't know the literature well enough to know if
research has been done in this area.)
The theory of traumatic amnesia is that -- at
least for some significant number of people -- very disturbing,
traumatic events (especially repeated traumatic events) are somehow banished
from consciousness in order to protect the individual. As
Dr. Chu testified at the Shanley trial, these memories are locked up behind
what he called a "dissociative wall" and are not accessible until something
happens to break the wall. Only when the wall is broken will the memories
come flooding back.
The memory wars are about a number of
issues. Is there any reliable and credible evidence that traumatic
amnesia even exists? If it does exist, how common is it?
If it exists and the "dissociative wall" is broken, are the "recovered
memories" reliable? (These are not the only issues, but these are a
few of them.)
The memory wars are being
fought within the clinical, not the scientific, communities.
Scientists, as a rule, are extremely skeptical about "traumatic amnesia"
because the evidence to support it simply doesn't exist. Evidence that has
been advanced to support the theory, on examination, has thus far turned out
to be too flawed to be of scientific use.
I was hesitant to write the preceding short
paragraphs, because most of the world's leading experts on memory happen to
be members of this list. I expect to receive some corrections from them. (In
my defense, I didn't consult any sources, I just wrote those paragraphs off
the top of my head.)
Paul Busa -- Paul Shanley's accuser -- claims
to have been repeatedly raped on a near weekly basis by Paul Shanley over a
period of six years. Busa only discovered this three years ago, however,
because he claims to have suffered traumatic amnesia. There is no evidence
other than his recovered memories to corroborate his accusations. Although
Busa claimed that Shanley regularly removed Busa from class in order
to rape him, Rooney could produce not a single witness who ever saw this
happen. Not one teacher. Not one student.
Since the only evidence against
Shanley was Paul Busa's uncorroborated recovered memories, it was critical
that the jury know (1) what traumatic amnesia is supposed to be and (2) what
the evidence is that it even exists and (3) whether memories "recovered"
after years of being locked away by traumatic amnesia are
reliable.
Had Dr. Elizabeth Loftus been given 10 to 15
minutes to make a short presentation, she would have made all of this
extremely clear. Only a handful of people in the world know this material as
well as she does.
Unfortunately, that is not how courtrooms work.
Loftus could only present information in response to questions. Dr. Loftus
was first at the mercy of a defense attorney who didn't seem to know the
questions he should ask, and then at the mercy of a ruthless and
underhanded prosecutor who was only interested in distorting Loftus'
work so that it would seem to prove the very opposite of
what it in fact does prove. Finally, Loftus was again at the mercy
of a defense attorney who did not give her the opportunity to undo
Rooney's dirty work in redirect examination.
While I retain some hope, I do not expect to
see justice done in this very important case.
-Bob Chatelle
Dear Friend of Justice,
I had thought that my many posts on the subject
had made clear my position on the Shanley case. But I still get many emails
asking me questions that I thought I'd already answered. So I thought I'd
send one email to try to summarize my views, beliefs, and
concerns.
1. I believe without a shred of doubt that Paul
Shanley is innocent. The only evidence presented against him at trial was
the uncorroborated recovered memories of a very disturbed young man who had
received $500,000 from the Archdiocese in a settlement of a suit against the
church that never went to trial.
2. There is no reliable and credible evidence
that the kind of traumatic amnesia claimed by Paul Busa exists. It follows
that Paul Busa did not tell the truth. I don't know whether he was strictly
lying, because he may well believe all of this nonsense by now. There are a
number of ways his "memories" could have been created. But since there's no
reason to believe that these "memories" are true, this is not a matter that
much concerns me. The validation of traumatic amnesia by a jury is
a serious matter that may well have disastrous consequences. While it
is proper for juries to decide credibility, it is not and should not be the
province of a jury to make decisions about the reliability of
evidence.
3. There is no evidence that Paul Shanley
is or ever was a pedophile. The only accusations that Paul Shanley ever
sexually misbehaved with children came from Paul Busa and his three
co-suers. People do not suddenly become pedophiles.
4. Paul Shanley lost no civil suit against
Busa. Busa and his chums were smart enough to realize that there is no
profit in suing someone without money. They were no dummies. They sued the
church. And the church settled.
5. An alarming number of people have expressed
the opinion that while Paul Shanley was innocent of the crimes for which he
stood trial, nevertheless it was right that he was convicted because he did
"other bad things." First of all, I don't even know whether this is true. I
suspect (but don't know) that Paul Shanley had sexual relationships with
young men and teenagers. And let's assume that this is true for the
sake of argument. I further don't know whether some of them might have been
under the age of consent in Massachusetts, which is 16. If these young
men and teenagers were being counseled by Shanley, this is a most serious
breach of professional ethics for someone who was acting as a social
worker. Regardless of the age of the young men involved. But a
breach of ethics is not the same as a crime.
6. People should be convicted or acquitted of
the charges before them. People should never be convicted because jurors
believe that the defendant may have "done other bad things." That is not due
process. That is not justice.
7. Due process, like freedom of speech and the
other rights protected by the U.S. Constitution, belongs to all equally or
it belongs to none of us. Paul Shanley and the killers of Matthew Shepard
should have had the right to due process. Nazis should have the right to
free speech. As Barney Frank once said in a speech that I attended (and I
don't claim to quote precisely), "If you believe in a right you must support
that right even when it is exercised in a way that you find most
obnoxious."
8. If you believe that the Constitution
protects the rights of "good" people, but not "bad" people, then you don't
understand the founding principles of this nation. People sometimes
ask me about my politics. I would describe myself as an
ultra-reactionary. I would like to see this nation return to the principles
it was founded upon over 200 years ago. But if that ever happens, I
certainly won't live to see it.
-Bob Chatelle