Date:   Thu Dec 02 1993  12:55:00
From:   Sheppard Gordon
To:     All
Subj:   Recovered memory QUACKERY
UFO                            -------------------------------

Trial By Accusation
12/01/93
WALL STREET JOURNAL

   When the story broke that a 34-year-old man had accused Chicago's
Joseph Cardinal Bernardin of having molested him when he was a
teenager, local television brought word in its inimitable fashion.
"Cardinal Sin?" was the panting question that splashed across the
screen of the local news (New York's, in this case).

   We find the Bernardin case intriguing primarily because it seems to
have jarred many people into wondering if there aren't some very
serious problems with this particular class of news stories and  lawsuits.
In a time when certain crimes have been politically anointed and given
special weight -- as rape and sexual molestation have been -- the
accusation alone is sufficient for a sensational case.

   The accusation against the cardinal is reminiscent of the many
sensational charges of molestation that have appeared with astonishing
frequency in recent years. What stands out in the Bernardin case is the
length of time it took the accuser to recall the terrifying molestation
that allegedly scarred him -- and for which he now wants $10 million
in compensation. Indeed, the crime he alleges is supposed to have taken
place 17 years earlier -- its memory having, only now, been
"recovered."

   This isn't to deny the reality of child sex abuse or the fact that many
valid charges of such abuse were mishandled by the church. However,
it is equally important to recognize how financially rewarding it has
become nowadays to level charges of child sex abuse and what a potent
legal weapon such accusations can be in custody battles between
divorcing parents. The American Bar Association has recently taken
to worrying out loud about the low reputation of lawyers. It should
examine the mills in which individual lawyers handle hundreds of
these abuse lawsuits.

   The Bernardin accusation derives from an increasingly familiar source:
an adult now claiming to have "recovered" (while in therapy) the memory
of sexual abuse decades old. In a recent issue of Time magazine -- which
has an instructive report on the subject -- one social psychologist
observes that "recovered-memory therapy will come to be recognized
as the quackery of the century." Elizabeth Loftus, professor of
psychology at the University of Washington and a noted authority on
cognitive processes, says of this therapy that it violates "all that we
know about human memory."

   The $10 million in claims sought in the Bernardin accusation also
mirrors the practice in many other cases of alleged abuse: As soon as
molestation charges are brought, lawyers and plaintiffs begin working
on parallel civil suits, with the expectation of large sums to be won from
the institution involved.

   Though a defendant wins acquittal in the criminal case, lawyers for the
plaintiffs press on nonetheless with their civil suits for "damages" -- and
they collect. As the attorney for one New Jersey township ruefully
explained, after paying off plaintiffs in just such an instance, "It's just
cheaper than meeting the expenses of a long civil trial." To its credit, the
Catholic Church has begun to fight hard against these disproportionate
damage claims, conservatively estimated to total $60 million so far.

   The profitability in sexual abuse cases was nowhere better evident than
in that mounted against Davenport, Iowa, Bishop Gerald F. O'Keefe. According
to an accusation made public last spring, the bishop had allegedly molested
two women some 30 years earlier. One of the women appears to have
believed, moreover, that she had contact with a UFO and that she had also
been abused by a satanic cult. When the charges were dropped in June, the
bishop acerbically wondered what kind of lawyer could have gone forward
with claims by such clearly unstable accusers. He noted further that the
attorney who did so had by his own account been involved in more than a
hundred clerical abuse cases.

   To their credit, most of the media have exhibited a healthy skepticism
as regards the particular accusations against Cardinal Bernardin. It's also
true, however, that such charges, especially those against church officials,
have caused a lot of normally sensible news editors to lose their sense of
proportion and fairness. It's now clear that these accusations are almost
unique in their destructiveness prior to any final resolution.

   A decline in public respect for the presumption of innocence is no minor
matter. A society that lets a notion like "recovered memory" gain such
force that it overwhelms its most basic judicial principles has waded into
deep and dangerous waters.


