SilenceInMotion said:
Only 5% of all the accused have actually been found guilty.
-- How spectaculary wrong you are:
http://www.bishop-accountability.org/AtAGlance/data.htm
"Fewer than 2 percent of sexual abuse
allegations against the Catholic church appear to be false."
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THE MYTH OF FALSE CLAIMS AND ACCUSATIONS
OF CLERGY SEXUAL
ABUSE
Thomas P. Doyle, J.C.D., C.A.D.C.
March 2007 - Revised July
2008
1. The John Jay College Study reported that between 1950
and 2004 there were 10,667 documented accusations and reports made of sexual
abuse by Catholic clerics in the United States. There have been no similar
studied done in other countries presently reporting widespread clergy abuse such
as Ireland, the U.K., Canada, Australia and New Zealand. It is widely believed
that since it is accepted that only about 30-35% of those sexually abused ever
report their abuse that the actual number of clergy abusers is much higher.
2. The Catholic Church authorities have regularly
claimed that there are a significant number of false claims and false
accusations. This assertion is often used by the bishops and by state Catholic
conferences in their strategies to defeat any attempts at legislative reform.
3. No Catholic diocese nor any other source asserting
that there have been significant numbers of false claims has provided any
documentary evidence. In fact no one who has said that there are a great number
of false claims has even produced any anecdotal or unofficial evidence.
4. Some have claimed that the legislative “window” which
was opened in California resulted in a flood of false claims. In fact there
were about 1200 new civil suits alleging sexual abuse as a result of the
window. Of that number about 800-850 were claims against a Roman Catholic
diocese of Religious Order. The attorneys who represented the claimants
reported that there were only 3 claims that were false. These were instances
when the person alleging abuse was actually making a false report.
5. There have been thousands of civil suits in the
United States alone since 1985. The majority of these have been filed since
2002. Most of these end in settlement arrived at either through mediation or
through decisions reached by the parties and their lawyers. A significant
number of cases have been dismissed by the courts. None have been dismissed as
a false claim. All have been dismissed because of the Statute of Limitations.
This means that the plaintiff did not file the claim within the prescribed time
limits as set by the State statute.
6. Most (probably all) attorneys who have represented
persons claiming sexual abuse by a clergy or religious put the prospective
client through a thorough screening interview. There are instances when
attorneys have decided not to represent clients. In the majority of cases that
I am aware of the reason was that the attorney determined that the case was
barred by the Statute or would be difficult or impossible to prove for other
reasons.
7. There is a fundamental difference between an
intentional false claim and a mistaken claim. A false claim is essentially a
lie. A mistaken claim is a belief by a person that he or she had been sexually
abused when in fact that action upon which this claim was based turned out not
to be a sexual gesture in any form. There have been cases when people believed
they had been sexually abused when in fact the belief was based only on fantasy
or totally subjective perception. For example one person I knew of believed a
priest had sexually abused her when it turned out she had imagined the abuse
solely because he had looked at her. There have been other cases when an
accidental touch was exaggerated by a person when in fact it was no more than a
touch with no sexual overtones or intent. In nearly all of the instances of
this nature the claimant has been found to have some degree of mental or
emotional instability.
8. There have been many instances when the accused
cleric has denied the allegation or downgraded the report to a
misunderstanding. In nearly all such cases when a proper investigation is
carried out it has been determined that the report of sexual abuse was
accurate.
9.
Conclusion
There have been thousands of reports of sexual
abuse by clergy in the United States. These reports span a period of more than
fifty years. Although bishops often claim that there have been very few actual
cases in their dioceses, when diocesan files are disclosed through the discovery
process the documentary evidence has revealed that in fact, there have been
reports of sexual abuse for decades.
There is documentary evidence of the 10,667
reports mentioned in the John Jay Study. Since the study was published hundreds
of additional cases have been revealed from the same time period.
There is documentary evidence available of about
20 cases of false and mistaken claims from the same time period. There is
evidence of three false claims out of 800-850 claims from
California.
The information contained in
this memo is the result of my experience as an expert witness/consultant since
1986. I personally spoke with every attorney who represented plaintiffs in
California and have questioned dozens of other attorneys about false or mistaken
claims. I have personally been involved with 8 cases wherein the allegation was
deemed to have been untrue: three were based on dishonest reports by the
claimants and the remainder were based on mistaken
information.
http://www.richardsipe.com/Doyle/2008/2008-07-myth_of_false_claims_revised.htm
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