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Easy Rider
Location: Moscow on the Ohio
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Quote:
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Originally Posted by ngdawg
Dreams are used in the mental health field to get to the root of issues that can't otherwise be recognized or expressed. That can be tricky-people have thought they'd been abused based on dreams revealed to therapists and, in fact, there have been court cases where abusers were brought to trial years after the committed crime, based on the dreams of the victim, who'd forgotten the events. One was a murder case quite a while back, where the killer's daughter had long forgotten what had happened, but dreamed about it as an adult. The man had killed her friend and was convicted of murder, primarily based on the daughter's newly-discovered recollections.
I can't find the particular case online-it was during the 80's. If I do, I'll post it.
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What follows may be the case you are referring to. I would hope that the basis of a conviction would be a lot more than someone's repressed memories.
Quote:
No retrial planned in repressed-memory murder case
Man accused by daughter expects to be freed
July 2, 1996
REDWOOD CITY, California (CNN) -- After spending the last six years in prison for the murder of an 8-year-old, George Franklin is expected to walk free Wednesday after new revelations overturned his conviction. Franklin's conviction in the 1969 slaying of his daughter's friend -- the first conviction involving so-called recovered memory -- was overturned last year, and prosecutors had planned to retry him.
But the disclosure that his daughter may have lied about not being hypnotized before the 1990 trial has virtually ruled out the use of her testimony, District Attorney James Fox said.
Her credibility was also undermined by recent DNA tests that cleared Franklin of a second murder that Eileen Franklin had accused him of committing. In a second case, prosecutors have too few details to begin an investigation.
"It just creates a case where we don't believe we're going to be able to meet our burden of proof," Fox said of the 1969 slaying.
Franklin's conviction was overturned by a federal judge who ruled the trial judge should not have told jurors that Franklin's silence, in the face of his daughter's rape accusation, could be considered a confession. The court also ruled that the defense should have been allowed to show the jury newspaper articles that Franklin's lawyers claimed were the real source of the daughter's knowledge.
Daughter taps memory
Franklin's daughter, Eileen Franklin-Lipsker, told the court in 1990 -- more than 20 years after the murder -- that she remembered seeing her father rape her best friend, Susan Nason, and beat her in the head with a rock.
"I remembered seeing Susan sitting there and seeing my father with the rock above his head," she said.
The case unraveled when Eileen Franklin's sister told police last month that she and her sister had been hypnotized by a therapist before the 1990 trial. If true, Eileen would have been barred from testifying, because statements provoked by hypnosis are considered too unreliable in court.
Fox said he will reluctantly ask a judge to dismiss the charges Wednesday, allowing Franklin to be set free. Franklin, 57, has been held on $1 million bail while awaiting retrial. Fox said prosecutors will not pursue the case, because it is not "reasonably probable that we would prevail."
Franklin's attorney, Penny Cooper, said the case indicated that prosecutors should never base their arguments solely on recovered testimony. (221K AIFF or WAV sound)
Douglas Horngrad, another defense attorney, was pleased with the news but disappointed in the judicial system. "I'm relieved that George is going to be released from custody for a crime he didn't commit," he said. "But I'm disappointed the system failed."
The victim's family said they are bitterly disappointed with Franklin's anticipated release, but they understand. Franklin's lawyers had argued that Eileen's memory was incorrect -- that the details she said she recalled could have come from newspaper accounts.
Fox, meanwhile, stands by Eileen's repressed-memory testimony; he still believes Franklin committed the murder.
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http://www.cnn.com/US/9607/02/repressed.murder/
Quote:
Eileen Franklin-Lipsker recovers memories of 2 more murders
The woman who persuaded a 1989 jury to convict her father (George Franklin) of murder on the basis of her recovered memories, has recently recalled 2 other murders allegedly conducted by her father, with the assistance of her step-father.
She claims seeing them strangle a young woman in a wood, and also being involved in another killing in the mid-1970s.
Police have eliminated all but one unsolved murder from the period ( a 1976 rape-murder), and semen samples have ruled out her father and stepfather. Franklin’s conviction was overturned last year.
(Rocky Mountain News, 22 Feb 1996, p A36)
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Last edited by flstf; 02-17-2008 at 11:17 PM..
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