Friday, March 05, 2010

Are There Any Meaningful Constitutional Limitations on Legislatively-Mandated Use of Junk Science in Civil Litigation?

The question in the header is provoked by the enactment of state statutes requiring that state courts extend statutes of limitations in those cases in which an alleged victim of child sexual abuse allegedly "discovers" sexual abuse by "recovering" his or her "repressed" memory of the abuse.

By now it is fairly clear that claims of instantaneous "repression" of memories of sex abuse are hokum. But constitutional guarantees generally offer victims of alleged sexual abuse victims little protection against civil claims based on scientific hokum. And legislators seem to care little about the rights of -- or about the guilt or innocence of -- falsely accused sexual wrongdoers. It's a shameful picture all around.

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The dynamic evidence page

It's here: the law of evidence on Spindle Law. See also this post and this post.

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