January 18, 2010
'Repressed Memory' In Homosex Priest's Conviction Upheld
BOSTON -- The highest court in Massachusetts has refused to overturn a Catholic priest's sexual assault conviction in a case that turned on recovered memory. The Supreme Judicial Court unanimously upheld the decision by the trial judge to allow evidence of repressed memory to be admitted at the trial of the Rev. Paul Shanley, The Boston Globe reported. "In sum, the judge's finding that the lack of scientific testing did not make unreliable the theory that an individual may experience dissociative amnesia was supported in the record, not only by expert testimony but by a wide collection of clinical observations and a survey of academic literature,'' Justice Robert Cordy wrote in the court's opinion. Shanley was accused in 2002 by a young man who said he had been molested as a child 20 years earlier. The priest was convicted in 2005.Click Here For The Full Story......