To be fucking appalled by Dr Loftus

[NewtoHolland]

Imagine being a privileged and educated woman and deciding to put your expertise to use in defending rich and powerful rapists and paedophiles. Being paid to essentially tart up facts that most lay people know, that memory changes over time. And using that fact to try to discredit victims accounts. Honestly out of all the things she could do. Bet her mama Is really proud.

AIBU to be appalled by this woman and her grimey choice of job?

www.google.com/amp/s/www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/crime/ghislaine-maxwell-false-memory-witness-b1977599.html%3famp

@BorisBooster

But this is every defence lawyer !

What do you mean? She’s not a lawyer, she’s a witness.

The right to a fair trial includes the right to legal representation. It’s a fundamental precept of democracy. And entirely irrelevant here, as the woman is not a lawyer and is representing nobody.

I think it sounds pseudo-scientific tbh. I sometimes wonder how the courts decide who is a reliable 'expert'.

Both the prosecution and defence may field expert witnesses. It is ultimately for the jury to decide who is reliable.

Yes, I agree. But there have been cases of wrongful conviction based on the testimony of experts. The science around recovered memories isn't settled and in this case we're not talking about young children who may have experienced something traumatic they couldn't make sense of. I understand mounting a robust defence but surely someone presented as an expert should have cast iron credentials? My concern is somebody like this giving a veneer of credibility to a spurious argument which the jury are told to treat as gospel. It doesn't seem to me to meet the standards expected for evidence in a court case. Hopefully the prosecution will do their job well and demolish this as it seems another abusive tactic used against (alleged) victims.

@NewtoHolland

I get where you are coming from defence lawyer wise, but I guess I see specifically focusing on spouting utter shit that everyone knows about memory in order to discredit victims as somehow a bit worse in some way...it just seems like such an utter poison bullshit job. What do you do? I exploit the fact that memory isn't 100% reliable to increase juries doubts about vulnerable victims. It's such a dick thing to be paid for Especially when that argument can obv be used about both sides like the perps memories aren't 100% reliable either?? Such a shady way to make your dollar.

Defence lawyers are essential for justice to be served. Eye witness testimony is hugely unreliable. Far more so than most people realise. It’s doing her job to point that out. If we didn’t have defence lawyers we basically wouldn’t have any semblance of a fair trial. YAB wildly, wildly unreasonable.

I'm just remembering that at the end of her book (I can't recall which one I read but I gave it a fair hearing and read the whole thing) she revealed that she'd been sexually abused by a babysitter and she had never blocked it out and I think that anecdote was something she also used to try and evidence that people can't forget truly traumatic incidences.

Which IMO demonstrated her complete lack of understanding around developmental trauma - children who are being abused in the family are also reliant on the family system for survival so it's makes sense as a survival mechanism to block out the abuse in order to survive in the family system. It's a very different situation to being abused by someone outside of the family on whom you are not reliant for survival.

I recognise I'm not talking specifically about the Maxell case here and I don't know what argument she is putting forward. But I do know I took the time to read her book and understand her point of view uncritically. Please understand that I was dealing with some very difficult memories that I really, really wanted to believe were not true at the time of reading her book. I wanted to believe her and be on her side.

But her work fell very short, for me. I do think she has too much of her own 'stuff' to be an objective witness. She came across to me as someone who (understandably) felt very, very angry and having been convinced she'd witnessed her mother in death and has made a career out of proving that false memories can be planted.

Of course they can. But that doesn't mean that all memories that make life difficult for other people are wrong. Because the same then should apply to innocuous memories, how then can any of us be sure we went to work yesterday? That we picked our DC up from school? What we ate for dinner?

I agree with you, OP. Elizabeth Loftus also testified at the Harvey Weinstein trial that victims’ memories of sexual abuse are unreliable. But she failed to convince the jury that Annabella Sciorra’s memory of a 1990s rape by him was defective. Loftus appeared for the defence in the Ted Bundy case, trying to throw doubt on the only victim left alive who could identify him; as well as giving evidence in the OJ Simpson and Bill Cosby’s cases. Time’s Up has called Loftus’ ‘false memory’ work a ‘tool that has been used to try to discredit survivors of sexual assault for decades.’ False memory syndrome has not been ratified by the American Psychological Association and is labeled ‘controversial’ and is ‘not [an] accepted diagnostic term.’

@AuntMasha

That's really interesting thank you for sharing that.

@SickAndTiredAgain

You simply cannot compare the research on the complexities of memory to knowing a day is 24 hours long. They are completely different.

Indeed,

The whole field of memory is hugely hugely complex, with very few 'givens'.

Expert witnesses are there to explain complexities to the court .

If she’s a credible scientist who truly believes what she is saying about memory is correct and properly researched then there’s nothing wrong with her repeating it in court under oath. As has been said, there have been plenty of convictions after she’s testified, so it’s not like she’s going around getting guilty people off constantly. Being convicted of any crime should me more than just based on one memory-based accusation anyway.

She's a psychologist so obsessed with her own false memory that she invalidates the memories of others. Her research on eyewitness testimony has been valuable, but research on false memories is so divided, I don't think her opinion holds much weight.

I said I couldn't date a defence lawyer for this reason and got told I was childish!! I don't know how they can defend some crimes, I really don't.