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Archives > Volume 8 Issue 5 - January 19, 2010 Massachusetts Supreme Court upholds recovered memories, Shanley conviction...The Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court agreed with a Superior Court judge who ruled earlier that repressed memory theory, or "dissociative amnesia," is controversial, but generally accepted in the relevant scientific community. The high court said the theory is supported by "a wide collection of clinical observations and a survey of academic literature." AP News story here 
Middlesex District Attorney Gerry Leone, whose office prosecuted Shanley, said he was pleased that the court upheld Shanley's convictions.
"Repressed memories of abuse is a legitimate phenomenon and provided a valid basis for the jury to find that the victim, a child at the time of the assaults, repressed memories of the years of abuse he suffered at the hands of Paul Shanley, someone who was in a significant position of authority and trust," Leone said in a statement. During Shanley's trial, the victim tearfully described how the popular priest used to pull him out of classes and rape him, beginning when he was just 6 years old and continuing until he was 12. Shanley, now 78, was known in the 1960s and 1970s as a "street priest" who reached out to Boston's troubled youth. Internal records showed that church officials were aware of sexual abuse complaints against him as early as 1967. See vol3_iss6, vol3_iss7, vol3_iss8, vol3_iss9, and vol3_iss10 for the story of his trial. The clergy sex abuse crisis erupted in Boston in 2002 after church records were made public showing that church officials had reports of priests molesting children, but kept the complaints secret and shuffled some priests from parish to parish rather than remove them. The crisis, which led to the resignation of Boston Cardinal Bernard Law, spread as similar sexual abuse complaints were uncovered in dioceses across the country. See eGuide/clergy abuse for more information. DA: "child rapist" Polanski doesn't deserve special treatment... Los Angeles prosecutors argued Friday against allowing director Roman Polanski, under house arrest at his Swiss chalet, to be sentenced in absentia after making "a mockery of our criminal justice system" for more than three decades. CNN News story here 
The famed director, who pleaded guilty to having unlawful sex with a 13-year-old girl in 1977, has been the subject of an international extradition battle since he was arrested in September on a U.S. fugitive warrant.
Polanski's attorney, Chad Hummel, has been pushing for Polanski to be sentenced without having to return to Los Angeles. Prosecutors have vigorously opposed sentencing him in absentia. In court papers filed Friday, Deputy District Attorney David Walgren stated the reasons in no uncertain terms. "The defendant is a fugitive," Walgren wrote. "A fugitive child rapist, who for 32 years has made a mockery of our criminal justice system, should not be given the power or authority to request anything of this court until he, the criminal, acknowledges this court's lawful authority by surrendering on his outstanding warrant." Walgren added that the only just solution would be for Polanski to waive extradition. "The operation of a fair and equitable judicial system mandates that criminals, even those with celebrity status and wealthy means, abide by lawful court orders," he wrote. Compelling Polanski to obey the court's order "is the only way the integrity of our system can possibly be maintained," he concluded. Hummel could not be reached for comment following Friday's court filings. For years, Polanski, 76, and various lawyers have made quiet overtures to resolve the case, but negotiations have always bogged down over prosecutors' insistence that he return to the United States and appear in a Los Angeles courtroom. For more information on this story, see vol7_iss77. In other news... 
A 15-year-old California girl who claimed she had been kidnapped off the street at gunpoint and raped in the same town where another teenager was assaulted in a gang rape three months earlier told police Sunday she made up the story, authorities said. CBS News story here The 15-year-old had claimed she was forced Friday night into a car with four males at gunpoint and driven around for several hours before two of them raped her. But the girl called Richmond police around 1 p.m. Sunday and told them the story was not true, said Lieutenant Mark Gagan. The girl told police Sunday that she had had consensual sex with someone, but needed an explanation for why she was late getting home Friday night, Gagan said. The girl's accusations prompted a major police investigation in Richmond, where the gang rape of a high school girl outside a homecoming dance made national headlines in October. On Sunday afternoon, police found evidence, including video footage, that confirmed the girl had made up her initial story, Gagan said. Richmond police are trying to determine what happened Friday night and could pursue statutory rape charges if the person she had sex with is an adult, he said. Investigators have not determined whether they will pursue charges against the girl for making the false report. See vol7_iss62, vol7_iss63, and vol7_iss64 for more on the earlier gang rape.
In Ireland pressure continues to grow on Gerry Adams, the Sinn Fein leader, after his party was forced to admit that it has suspended a member over allegations of child sex abuse. The Times story here The allegations have been made in the wake of Mr. Adams' own difficulties over his brother Liam, who is wanted by the police on sex abuse charges. Mr. Adams revealed last month that his father Gerry Adams Senior sexually abused some of his children. The interview garnered him some public support while others suspected that he had chosen to make the revelation in a bid to divert attention from his own role in an alleged cover-up of Liam Adams's alleged abuse. A week later Peter Robinson, the Democratic Unionist leader who has temporarily stood down as Northern Ireland First Minister, gave an emotional televised statement in which he revealed that his wife Iris had an affair with a teenager and had attempted suicide. Two days later the BBC Spotlight program revealed that Mrs. Robinson had procured £50,000 for her lover, Kirk McCambley, from two property developers. The Robinson scandal has dominated the headlines but attention is turning to Sinn Fein and its alleged cover-ups of sexual abuse.
An Ohio youth prison guard was fired and two others were disciplined after a teen offender's attempt to hang himself in a juvenile detention cell was ignored, according to an investigative report obtained by The Associated Press. AP News story here One guard, who was fired Thursday, saw the youth with a blanket around his neck, wrote "attempting to hang self" on a log and walked away, according to the report by the Ohio Department of Youth Services, which was released through a public records request. A second guard who knew the teen was attempting to hurt himself walked away from the unit without checking on the youth, and a third guard acknowledged he knew the youth might be preparing to commit suicide but did nothing to intervene. The youth, 19, was turning red and had trouble breathing but survived the November 1 hanging attempt at Indian River Juvenile Correctional Facility in Massillon in northeast Ohio, the report said. "The staff behavior was unsafe, unacceptable and callous," department spokeswoman Kim Parsell told the AP. "This kind of indifference to youth safety will not be tolerated."
Slashing red tape or ignoring ordinarily required paperwork, officials in the United States and the Netherlands have cleared the way for scores of Haitian orphans to leave their earthquake-ravaged homeland, according to officials from the two countries. CNN News story here All of the children had adoptions pending with prospective parents in the two countries before Tuesday's 7.0-magnitude quake, and government officials said paperwork was expedited or put on hold to make transfers happen on an emergency basis. 300 children have pending adoption cases with American families. Six children arrived in Florida Sunday night, met by their adoptive parents with hugs and tears of happiness. Meanwhile, as Haitians struggle to recover from the devastation of Tuesday's 7.0-magnitude earthquake, mental health experts caution that the most severe psychological effects won't take form until individuals' situations stabilize. companion CNN story here Feelings of confusion, fear, agitation, grief and anger that surround a large-scale traumatic event such as the Haiti earthquake give way to more pronounced psychological disorders once people's basic human needs are taken care of, experts say. "Once the initial resources are in, when actually most people are going to start feel out of danger, is when the psychological aftereffects are going to hit people," said Dr. Daniella David, professor of clinical psychiatry at the University of Miami's Miller School of Medicine. "People need to ask for help when that happens."
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