The Seattle Times recently featured a special report about a psychological “expert witness” who destroyed countless lives in the court cases in which he was hired to serve as an expert witness. He made up bogus psychological diagnoses for many people, like labeling a conscientious, mentally-healthy mother as a “quasi-psychotic” and “grave danger to her son” who was “‘probably’ sexually abusing him.” He also falsely claimed that a child-molesting priest had reformed, enabling him to molest several additional children.It should not be necessary to catch the guy doing something perverted in order to expose him as a crook. It must have been obvious to everyone connected to the court for 25 years, and no one did anything about him.
For a quarter century Stuart Greenberg testified as an expert in forensic psychology, an inscrutable field with immense power. Purporting to offer insight into the human condition, he evaluated more than 2,000 children, teenagers and adults. His word could determine which parent received custody of a child, or whether a jury believed a claim of sexual assault, or what damages might be awarded for emotional distress.His peers elected him their national president. ...
But his formidable career was built upon a foundation of hypocrisy and lies.
All this wrong-doing made him a star in family courts in King County, Washington, where judges in divorce cases rubber-stamped his recommendations about which parent should receive custody of a child. “At conferences and in classrooms, in Washington and beyond, he taught others to do what he did. He became his profession’s gatekeeper, quizzing aspirants, judging others’ work, writing the national certification exam.” Later, state courts sealed his disciplinary records, permitting him to continue his wrongdoing even after it was well-known to state regulators, who did nothing about it. He was finally apprehended after he was caught videotaping his own employees using the restroom for his own sexual gratification.
I found the story with this unrelated story of a 39-year-old man with alleged PTSD who sought a restraining order against an 86-year-old neighbor woman, without him having to appear in court. The trial court dismissed his complaint, but the appeals court voted 6-1 to reinstate it.
No, I do not always side with the man. Most PTSD is a phony way to claim a disability. The guy's claim is probably completely frivolous, and he certainly should not get anything without appearing in court.
5 comments:
I don't understand how the guy doing something perverted makes him a liar and a crook? At least in the excerpt provided, there is no clear connection between the two. It's like me being an excellent auto mechanic, the best in the state, and re-writing the ASE certification exam, and training other mechanics, etc... and then I get caught pissing in the street, or heck even videotaping other mechanics going to the bathroom, how in the world does this have anything to do with my skill as a mechanic?
It reminds me of the case not long ago where a really well known evaluator in Los Angeles, very respected, was found to have some Facebook pictures where he was exposing himself or doing something non-professional. Not a good move on his part, but to me not basis to discredit him entirely, and especially not to re-open cases he'd worked on.
In these cases, there is always someone who is unhappy with the results. Something like this happens, and it's an instant opening for them to say, "hey, this guy has no idea what he's talking about, see?"
I'm not saying that all of them are good, but they're also not faultless human beings.
Never mind, just read the "special report" in its entirety. What a story. It's not evident from the summary in the article quoted, though.
No, you make a good point. Incompetence and a history of lousy testimony is not enough to do in one of these so-called experts. They only get discredited if they become embarrassing to the court somehow, and that might be something that has little to do with his testimony.
so, read he special report...
the one mother who got her son back..used a secret tape recorder.
what did the dr. in was not what he had done to families and chidren, but what happened because of a video camera...
the court bans video cameras and tape recordings. are the courts protecting children and citizens, or themselves against what they ared doing to children and citizens for money ? how else do you expaln it ?
It's interesting that this is all over the news and blogs today, due to the Seattle Times feature. This all happened 4 years ago...
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