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Richard Ofshe is a Professor Emeritus of Sociology at the University of California, Berkeley. His personal homepage at that institution lists his areas of interest to be coercive social control, social psychology, influence in police interrogation, and influence leading to pseudo-memory in psychotherapy.

Dr. Ofshe has been characterized as a "world-renowned expert on influence interrogation".

Education

• Queens College of the City University of New York, B.A., psychology
• Queens College of the City University of New York, M.A., sociology
• Stanford University, Ph.D., sociology, sub-specializing in social psychology

Honors

Dr. Ofshe has received several honors and recognition for his research and writings:

• John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation Fellow, 1973-1974.
• Community Service Award -- for editorials and news stories about state government's failure to regulate Synanon.
• Best Editorial Series -- for editorials about state government's failure to regulate Synanon.
• Best News Series -- for news coverage of Synanon and state government.
• Recipient of Roy Dorcus Award for the Best Paper on Clinical Hypnosis of 1994. Awarded by the Society for Clinical and Experimental Hypnosis for "Recovered Memory Therapy and Robust Repression: Influence and Pseudomemories."

The Point Reyes Light Newspaper received the Pulitzer Prize for Public Service in 1979, a newspaper that Ofshe worked for during that time, but his resume and other sources attribute the award to Ofshe and the other writer of the Synanon piece, including the New York Times, Salon.com, Psychology Today, the False Memory Syndrome Foundation, and other publications.

Professional memberships

• American Sociological Association
• American Psychological Association
• American Psychological Society
• Sociological Practice Association
• Pacific Sociological Association

Expert testimony

West Memphis 3

Dr. Ofshe gave testimony in the case of the West Memphis 3, three boys tried and convicted for the murders of three children in the Robin Hood Hills area of West Memphis, Arkansas, United States during 1993. Damien Echols - the alleged ringleader - was sentenced to death. Jessie Misskelley and Jason Baldwin were sentenced to life in prison. The case has received considerable attention. Many critics charge that the arrests and convictions were a miscarriage of justice inspired by a misguided moral panic, and that the defendants were wrongfully convicted during a period of intense media scrutiny and so-called "satanic panic".

During Jessie's trial, Ofshe testified that the brief recording was a "classic example" of police coercion. Professor Ofshe has described Misskelley's statement saying, " the stupidest fucking confession I've ever seen." There is no evidence that Misskelley denied his role in the crime and subsequent to his conviction that he confessed a second and third time, the latter of which with both of his attorneys present and the entire matter on tape.

Paul Ingram

On June 7, 1996, he testified at the pardon hearing for Paul Ingram. In a TV-movie about that case, Forgotten Sins, he was portrayed by William Devane.

Rejections and exclusions of Ofshe's opinions

In the case of People v. Ladell Deangelo Brown, the Court of Appeal, Third District, California affirmed the conviction of the defendant and rejected Ofshe's opinion.

In the case of Staye v. Angel Torres, July 2006, the Court of Appeals of Ohio, rejected Torres' claim "that the trial court erred by excluding the testimony of interrogation expert, Dr. Richard Ofshe." Cite error: A <ref> tag is missing the closing </ref> (see the help page).

In the case The People v. Amy Marie Garvin, the defense offered expert testimony from Dr. Richard Ofshe who testified that "...Poorly trained interrogators use false "evidence ploys" in conjunction with inappropriate psychological "motivators" to coerce false confessions without knowing that the confessions are false. These interrogators focus only on producing a confession without thinking about the guilt or innocence of the person interrogated." The jury rejected this testimony and found the defendant guilty.

In the case of State of Florida vs Nathan Brinkley,the Judge denied the defendant's motion to suppress his confession based on Ofshe' expert witness testimony. In his decision the judge found that Ofshe's testimony lacked credibility. After reading the transcript of Ofshe's interview of the defendant, the court found that "Dr. Ofshe did, in fact, ask the defendant numerous leading questions, and that he did indeed suggest to the defendant that he was bated, coerced and improperly motivated during the interview."

In the case of The People of the State of California vs. Amy Marie Garvin, Ofshe's testimony was rejected by the jury.

DIMPAC controversy

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In the early 1980s, some U.S. mental health professionals became well-known figures due to their involvement as expert witnesses in court cases against what they considered to be "cults". In their testimony they presented theories of brainwashing, mind control, or coercive persuasion to support the legal positions of former group members against their former groups.

The American Psychological Association (APA) in 1983 asked Margaret Singer, who was one of the leading proponents of coercive persuasion theories, to chair a taskforce to investigate whether brainwashing or "coercive persuasion" did indeed play a role in recruitment by such groups. The task force was titled APA Task Force on Deceptive and Indirect Techniques of Persuasion and Control (DIMPAC).

Before the taskforce had submitted its final report the APA submitted an amicus curiæ brief in a case pending before the California Supreme Court which involved issues of brainwashing and coercive persuasion. The brief stated that Singer's hypotheses were uninformed speculations based on skewed data. The APA subsequently withdrew from the brief, stating that its participation was premature in that DIMPAC had not yet submitted its report. Scholars who were co-signatories to the brief did not withdraw.

The final report of the Task Force was completed in November of 1986. The APA Board of Social and Ethical Responsibility for Psychology (BSERP) rejected the DIMPAC report, stating that it lacked the scientific rigor and an evenhanded critical approach for an the imprimatur of the APA, also stating that it did not have sufficient information to take a position on the issue. There are disputes about whether the rejection of the DIMPAC report constituted a rejection of Singer's theories by the APA.

Singer and Ofshe subsequently sued the APA in 1992 for "defamation, frauds, aiding and abetting and conspiracy" and lost in 1994. Singer and Ofshe were subsequently not accepted by judges as an expert witnesses in cases alleging brainwashing and mind control.

Bibliography

Books

• Making Monsters: False Memories, Psychotherapy, And Sexual Hysteria, with co-author Ethan Watters
• Therapy's Delusions: The Myth of the Unconscious and the Exploitation of Today's Walking Worried, with co-author Ethan Watters

Articles

• Report of the APA Task Force on Deceptive and Indirect Techniques of Persuasion and Control, November 1986 (assistant to Dr. Margaret Singer)
• Thought Reform Programs and the Production of Psychiatric Casualties, Psychiatric Annals, 20:4, April 1990, Margaret Thaler Singer, Ph. D., and Richard Ofshe, Ph. D.
• Attacks on Peripheral versus Central Elements of Self and the Impact of Thought Reforming Techniques, The Cultic Studies Journal, Vol 3, N°1, 1986, Richard Ofshe, Ph.D. and Margaret T. Singer, Ph.D.
• Coercive Persuasion and Attitude Change, Encyclopedia of Sociology Volume 1, Macmillan Publishing Company, New York, By Richard J. Ofshe, Ph.D.
• "The Consequences of False Confessions: Deprivations of Liberty and Miscarriages of Justice in the Age of Psychological Interrogation", Journal article by Richard A. Leo, Richard J. Ofshe; Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology, Vol. 88, 1998
• The Process of Status Evolution, M. Hamit Fisek, Richard Ofshe, Sociometry, Vol. 33, No. 3 (Sep., 1970), pp. 327-346
• The Impact of Behavioral Style and Status Characteristics on Social Influence: A Test of Two Competing Theories, Margaret T. Lee, Richard Ofshe, Social Psychology Quarterly, Vol. 44, No. 2 (Jun., 1981), pp. 73-82

References

1. ^ Personal home page at Berkeley University
2. Public Defender Awards, Florida Public Defender Association, Craig Stewart Barnard Award
3. Curriculum Vitae
4. ^ Frank Fuster case, Dr. Ofshe testimony, affidavit, credentials, honors
   I hereby certify that the statements I have made herein are true and accurate to the best of my knowledge, information and belief. I am aware that if I have made any statement, knowing or believing it to be false, I am subject to the penalties of perjury.
5. ^ State of Florida vs. David Onstott, Circuit Court of Thirteenth Judicial District, CV attached as official part of court record.
6. John Simon Guggenheim, Memorial Foundation Of Fellows Page.
   Richard J. Ofshe, Associate Professor of Sociology, University of California, Berkeley: 1973.
7. Berkeley Gazette, Roy Dorcus Award, Richard Ofshe.
8. CBS's Attack on Fear, New York Times, October 10, 1984
   T. S. Cook's script is based on the book The Light in Synanon, in which Dave Mitchell, Cathy Mitchell and Dr. Richard Ofshe recount the details of covering a story that won them a 1979 Pulitzer Prize for public- service reporting.
9. Psychology Today, Jill Neimark, The Harvard professor & the UFOs
   Berkeley social psychologist Richard Ofshe, who shared a Pulitzer Prize...
10. Salon Health, Therapy is all talk
    In 1994, freelance writer Ethan Watters and UC-Berkeley professor of sociology and Pulitzer Prize-winner Richard Ofshe published "Making Monsters," a full-throttle attack on one of the most controversial issues in psychology: recovered memory syndrome.
11. FMSF Advisory Board, Dr. Richard Ofshe, profile
    For his role in the Point Reyes Light newspaper's exposé of Synanon, Dr. Ofshe shared in the 1979 Pulitzer Prize for Public Service that was awarded to the Light.
12. The American Sociologist, Footnotes, , May 1979 (Volume 7, Number 5)
    Richard Ofshe Shares Pulitzer Prize for Public Service
13. Drive-thru Deliverance, Phoenix New Times, Oct. 2000
    In an article titled Coercive Persuasion and Attitude Change, Richard J. Ofshe, professor of social psychology at UC-Berkeley and co-recipient of the 1979 Pulitzer Prize, defines coercive persuasion, or brainwashing, as programs of social influence capable of producing substantial behavior and attitude change through the use of coercive tactics, persuasion, and/or interpersonal and group manipulations.
14. Steel, Fiona. "The West Memphis 3." Court TV. 17 Mar. 2006 Crime Library, Notorious Murders.
15. Notable quotes, Ofshe, Re: Misskelley's 6.3.93 statement
16. Jessie Misskelley's patrol car statement, February 4, 1994.
17. Jessie Misskelley statement, February 17, 1995.
18. [http://www.reid.com/pdfs/20060823-2.pdf Court of Appeal, Third District, Case No. C050121. (Super.Ct.No. 02F03173). June 23, 2006
19. Court of Appeal, Sixth District, California. Case No. H026723] (Santa Clara County Super. Ct. No. FF301260). Feb, 10, 2005.
20. Case NO.: CRC99-18956CFANO, Divison: M, Nathan Brinkle, Defendant. Order denying defendant;s motion to supress, 2002, APRIL 18,2002, AND MAY 10, 2002
21. Case No. FF301260 Superior Court of California, County of Santa Clara, Octiver 6, 2003

External links

• Dr. Richard Ofshe, testimony, "Free the West Memphis Three"
• Audio of Paul Ingram Pardon Hearing
• Forgotten Sins in the Internet Movie Database
• Crtitic's corner ar John E. Reid Associated Contains links to many of Dr. Ofshe's voir dire examinations and expert testimonies.

• Articles lacking sources from January 2007
• Academics
• Researchers of cults and new religious movements