PASSAGE OF THE DAY: "This movement to assume the truth of such allegations is infiltrating the criminal justice system and institutions of higher education."
PUBLISHER'S NOTE: I am grateful to the Wrongful Convictions Blog for bringing to our attention a 'white paper' published by 'The Center for prosecutorial integrity, which seeks an end to "the use of biased 'Believe the Victim' investigative methods in sexual assault and domestic violence cases...This white paper focuses on how automatically believing a complainant often leads to injustice. The Wrongful Convictions Blog post - posted by Mark Godsey on January 19, 2018 - can be read at:
https://wrongfulconvictionsblog.org/2018/01/19/believe-the-victim-the-transformation-of-justice/
Harold Levy: Publisher; The Charles Smith Blog;
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WHITE PAPER: "'Believe the victim': The transformation of justice,'" published by "The Center for prosecutorial integrity." (2018):
GIST: (PUBLISHER'S NOTE): Until I read this White Paper I had no idea how strong and well organized the movement for believing the victim - with its potential impact on the neutrality of police sexual and domestic assault investigations - was throughout America. One important passage: "Ascertainment of truth is the central challenge of any system that advocates claims of wrongdoing. Each of the four codes of ethics cited above emphasize that a law enforcement professional must remain neutral in the search for truth. A leading criminal justice textbook likewise reinforces the vital importance of neutrality: "Investigators do not determine the suspects to be guilty; they remain objective in their investigation The investigator seeks the truth, not simply the suspect's guilt. It is therefore alarming that the neutrality central to these ethical codes has become eroded over the last decade in favor of the insistence that the investigator initiate an investigation by believing anyone who claims to have to have been a victim of sexual assault or harassment. This movement to assume the truth of such allegations is infiltrating the criminal justice system and institutions of higher education."
The entire white paper can be read at:
http://www.prosecutorintegrity.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/01/Believe-the-Victim-FINAL.pdf
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Read Emily Yoffe's insightful article - "The bad science behind campus response to sexual assault, published on September 8, 2017: "As debate has begun over whether the rules governing sexual-assault adjudication have gone too far, one subject has received almost no attention, although it has become central to the way that many schools and many activists view sexual assault. In the past few years, the federal government has required that all institutions of higher education train staff on the effects of “neurobiological change” in victims of sexual assault, so that officials are able to conduct “trauma informed” investigations and adjudications. In meeting this federal demand, some schools have come to rely on the work of a small band of self-styled experts in the neurobiology of trauma who claim that sexual violations provoke a disabling, multifaceted physiological response. Being assaulted is traumatic, and no one should expect those who have been assaulted to have perfect recall or behave perfectly rationally, but this argument goes much further. It generally goes like this: People facing sexual assault become terrified, triggering a potent cascade of neurotransmitters and stress hormones. This chemical flood impairs the prefrontal cortex of the brain, impeding victims’ capacity for rational thought, and interferes with their memory. They may have significant trouble recalling their assault or describing it coherently or chronologically. The fear of imminent death may further elicit an extended catatonic state known as “tonic immobility,” rendering them powerless to speak or move—they feel “frozen.” As a result, those adjudicating sexual-assault allegations are told, the absence of verbal or physical resistance, the inability to recall crucial parts of an alleged assault, a changing story—none of these factors should raise questions or doubt about a claim. Indeed, all of these behaviors can be considered evidence that an assault occurred. “I don’t think I’ve seen a complaint in the past year that didn’t use the word frozen somewhere.” Rebecca Campbell, a professor of psychology at Michigan State University, has taught the science of trauma to law-enforcement officials and Title IX administrators. In 2015, she gave a keynote talk at the Association of Title IX Administrators’ annual conference, about how the neurobiology of trauma could be used in their investigations. A highly influential presentation she gave in 2012 at the National Institute of Justice, “The Neurobiology of Sexual Assault,” has been used as part of some schools’ Title IX–personnel training. In her 2012 talk, Campbell acknowledged that she is not a neuroscientist, but rather is translating others’ work. (Campbell’s own scholarly work has involved community-based research into how contact with the legal and medical systems affects assault victims’ psychological and physical health, and research into the use of rape kits.) She asserted that the damaged memory of a victim can be likened to “tiny Post-it notes” scattered randomly across “the world’s messiest desk.” For a sexual-assault victim to reconstruct what happened requires a sympathetic questioner who will give the victim the time and space to reassemble the Post-its in a coherent order. She assured her audience that the story that emerges will be a true account of the crime: “What we know from the research is that the laying-down of that memory is accurate and the recall of it is accurate.” She briefly recognized that victims who consumed alcohol may have serious memory problems as a result—“their Post-it notes are just blank.” Tonic immobility, she said, is a “mammalian response that is in all of us,” likely affecting close to 50 percent of sexual-assault victims. “Their body freezes on them,” she said, and not just for a moment or two. The victims go into an extended state in which they can’t speak or move, and hence cannot fend off an assailant. As of 2014, Harvard Law’s Title IX training for its disciplinary board included Campbell’s PowerPoint slides. Janet Halley, a professor at Harvard Law School, has written of the intended effect of the training on recipients: “It is 100% aimed to convince them to believe complainants, precisely when they seem unreliable and incoherent.”All of these concepts are presented in information distributed to students on many campuses. The University of Michigan’s Sexual Assault Prevention and Awareness Center has a webpage for students on the “Neurobiology of Trauma” based largely on Campbell’s lecture. It explains that as a result of the “hormone soup” provoked by an assault, “the survivor cannot move and is rendered immobile by the traumatic event,” and “survivors may have trouble accurately remembering the assault.” Bowdoin College’s Title IX webpage on “The Neurobiology of Sexual Assault,” also based on Campbell’s lecture, tells students that “the flood of hormones can even, and often does, result in a complete shutdown of bodily function, a state referred to as ‘tonic immobility,’ but better described as paralysis” and that victims “also may exhibit fragmented memory recall due to the disorganized encoding that occurred during the incident.” This information sends the message to young people that they are biologically programmed to become helpless during unwanted sexual encounters and to suffer mental impairment afterward. And it may inadvertently encourage them to view consensual late-night, alcohol-fueled encounters that might produce disjointed memories and some regret as something more sinister. Justin Dillon, a Washington, D.C., attorney who defends students across the country accused of Title IX violations, told me that a couple of years ago he had barely heard of this condition, but that its terminology has swiftly made its way into campus adjudications: “I don’t think I’ve seen a complaint in the past year that didn’t use the word frozen somewhere.” Trauma, he says, is used to explain away all inconsistencies in some complainants’ accounts that would otherwise seem to contradict their having been assaulted. Schools do not make public the training materials of those who investigate and adjudicate sexual assault. But through lawsuits, Dillon has obtained some examples, and he says the assertions of the “neurobiology of trauma” that infuse these materials make it almost impossible for the accused to mount a defense. When such assumptions are held by those sitting in judgment, he says, “how do you prove your innocence?”"
https://www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2017/09/the-bad-science-behind-campus-response-to-sexual-assault/539211/
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PUBLISHER'S NOTE: I am monitoring this case/issue. Keep your eye on the Charles Smith Blog for reports on developments. The Toronto Star, my previous employer for more than twenty incredible years, has put considerable effort into exposing the harm caused by Dr. Charles Smith and his protectors - and into pushing for reform of Ontario's forensic pediatric pathology system. The Star has a "topic" section which focuses on recent stories related to Dr. Charles Smith. It can be found at: http://www.thestar.com/topic/c
