Court rules father can't sue in 'repressed memory' case
Patty
By Claire Cooper --
Sacrmaneto Bee Legal Affairs Writer
Published 2:15 a.m. PST Thursday, November 28, 2002
SAN FRANCISCO -- A federal appeals court Wednesday wrote a new chapter
in the nation's first "repressed memory" case, turning down a lawsuit
by a man whose daughter claimed to have recovered a 20-year-old memory
of him murdering her childhood friend.
The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said George Franklin, a former
San Mateo County firefighter who retired to Carmichael, cannot bring a
civil case for monetary damages against his daughter, Eileen
Franklin-Lipsker, or police and prosecutors in San Mateo County.
Based on his daughter's evidence, Franklin was arrested in 1989 for
the 1969 molestation and murder of 8-year-old Susan Nason south of San
Francisco. He was convicted, but information that came to light later,
including Franklin-Lipsker's use of hypnosis, raised doubts about the
validity of some evidence.
A federal judge overturned the conviction in 1995 because of a
violation of Franklin's right to counsel when Franklin-Lipsker tried
to elicit a confession from him in the San Mateo County jail.
Franklin then filed a federal lawsuit, saying authorities falsely
arrested him and conspired with Franklin-Lipsker to violate his civil
rights.
The 9th Circuit said the authorities were immune because they
reasonably could have believed Franklin-Lipsker at the time. And, said
the judges, her claimed memories had never been completely explained
away. They also said no evidence of a conspiracy was presented.
Dennis Riordan, Franklin's lawyer, said he would study the ruling
before deciding whether to drop the case or seek further review.
Bo Raxo
"Patty" <eartha...@yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:f0e77308.02120...@posting.google.com...
IIRC, he did succesfully sue his daughter's therapist. I followed this case
closely, the poor guy was the victim of a witch-hunt.
Patty
Bo wrote:
IIRC, he did succesfully sue his daughter's therapist. I followed
this case
closely, the poor guy was the victim of a witch-hunt.
=====
Actually he didn't win his lawsuit against the therapist. I can't
remember what the ruling was but I know he didn't win it. His only
recourse at this time is to sue his daughter, and he does have a
pending lawsuit. I doubt she has much money, it was over ten years
ago that she wrote her book about her family and the murder. I think
he was railroaded, too.
Patty
JC
If it's the case I'm remembering, I think he's guilty as hell, and the jury
agreed. The daughter's memory of her friend's assault and murder surfaced
*before* she was ever hypnotised. And the murder of the little girl, while
maybe the worst thing this scumbag ever did (or not?) was not the only
child-assault he ever perpetrated. I recall that when it was all said and
done, folks had a tendency to believe he must have been innocent after all
since he was released; lotta backlash. But I never heard anything to make me
think he was not guilty, regardless of the subsequent smears his daughter
had to endure. I always believed her over him. Maybe I missed something?
Could be. What made you think he was railroaded, Patty?
JC
Patty
If it's the case I'm remembering, I think he's guilty as hell, and the
jury
agreed. The daughter's memory of her friend's assault and murder
surfaced
*before* she was ever hypnotised. And the murder of the little girl,
while
maybe the worst thing this scumbag ever did (or not?) was not the only
child-assault he ever perpetrated. I recall that when it was all said
and
done, folks had a tendency to believe he must have been innocent after
all
since he was released; lotta backlash. But I never heard anything to
make me
think he was not guilty, regardless of the subsequent smears his
daughter
had to endure. I always believed her over him. Maybe I missed
something?
Could be. What made you think he was railroaded, Patty?
JC
He was released because it was admitted into evidence that Franklin
had "confessed" to the crime. How? By remaining silent one time in
the jailhouse when his daughter accused him. Actually it's a little
more complicated than that. Franklin-Lipsker went to jail to visit
her father and asked him to confess, but he remained silent and
pointed to a sign that said conversations might be monitored. The
judge said that could be taken as a possible admission of guilt.
After he was convicted of the Nason murder, about a year later Eileen
told investigators that he had committed at least two more murders.
Said her stepfather or godfather raped a girl and then her father
strangled her. DNA proved neither could have raped the girl. I think
he had an alibi for the other one, was miles and miles away from where
it happened. I think he also took polygraphs and passed.
I think she's emotionally mixed up, maybe liked the attention. I
don't know if you read the book based on it, but IIRC her husband
played a large part of getting her to go to police. He was 15 or 20
years older than Eileen, and I think even in the book had some health
problems. He has since died. At the trial, only one of her three
siblings supported her, the other two believed in their father's
innocence. Since then the other sister also believes the father is
innocent. BTW her mother is an attorney, became one after she
divorced the father when the kids IIRC were in the teens. Somehow I
recall reading that she lives in toney Atherton and was married to a
younger guy. Not sure about that though.
One of my friends dated a guy who grew up in Foster City and was in
the same class as Eileen's younger brother. I was reading the book at
the time and asked if he knew the family. Said they were quiet, odd
kept to themselves. I said "You've GOT to read the book, you'll
understand why."
One thing did bother me about the case. When he was arrested in
Sacramento in '88 or '89, they found a stack of child porno at his
home.
His lawsuit against his daughter is still on the books. He's suing
her for $1.
Patty
JC
Thx Patty. I didn't know anything about the subsequent accusations or any of
that stuff. Did read the book and some articles long ago. I agree the woman
was/is mixed up, regardless of anything else. Still think the dad is a
scuzball tho, and most likely a murderer, regardless of LE/judicial errors.
(Another important issue, IIRC, that got him out was the way the law re
witness hypnosis was written at the time - which made the daughter's
testimony null and void so to speak?) Where would you point me to read more
about this woman (I bow to -and beg - the expert www search and recovery
person :))?
JC
Bo Raxo
"JC" <jonesi...@yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:3df136f7$0$18874$afc3...@news.optusnet.com.au...
>
> >
> > If it's the case I'm remembering, I think he's guilty as hell, and the
> > jury
> > agreed. The daughter's memory of her friend's assault and murder
> > surfaced
> > *before* she was ever hypnotised. And the murder of the little girl,
> > while
> > maybe the worst thing this scumbag ever did (or not?) was not the only
> > child-assault he ever perpetrated. I recall that when it was all said
> > and
> > done, folks had a tendency to believe he must have been innocent after
> > all
> > since he was released; lotta backlash. But I never heard anything to
> > make me
> > think he was not guilty, regardless of the subsequent smears his
> > daughter
> > had to endure. I always believed her over him. Maybe I missed
> > something?
> > Could be. What made you think he was railroaded, Patty?
> >
> > JC
> >
Here's some reasons I think he was railroaded:
Excerpt from
http://amsterdam.nettime.org/Lists-Archives/nettime-l-9809/msg00080.html
There is no doubt that Eileen Franklin truly believed her
father had murdered Susan Nason. David Spiegel, a professor of psychiatry
at Stanford's medical faculty wrote about the case: "Research shows that
children who have been exposed to violent traumatic events correctly
identify the event as the source of their anxiety (our research showed
figures up to 87%). They suffer from an overactive imagination, fear the
resurfacing of trauma, lose interest in everyday activities, try to avoid
anything that can possibly re=F9ind them of the event and are irritated by
the fact that they cannot stop thinking about it. The fact that Eileen
displayed none of these symptoms at any time could point to the fact that
she hadn't really witnessed the murder." Spiegel concludes that "a
combination of phantasms and feelings of guilt about her school friend's
death, linked to memories about her father's cruelty, could have led her
to construe a false memory she ended up believing as truth." Everything
Eileen Franklin told the police can be found in the newspapers of the
time. Several details in Eileen's statement were later revealed to be
inaccurate. The victim Susan Nason had worn two rings: a silver one and a
gold one with a stone. A newspaper article confused the two rings and
turned them into one single silver ring with a stone. Eileen made the same
mistake in her testimony to the police. The mattress that was mentioned in
the paper was actually a couch. It was found on top of Susan's body and
was definitely too big to have fitted in George Franklin's minibus. In the
course of her testimonies Eileen changed the time of the murder to match
it with the facts that were already known. She also changed her statement
about the presence of her sister Janice in the minibus. The fact that her
father would have ordered his daughter to get out of the car and walk to
school had always sounded a bit far-fetched.
Bo Raxo
I was thinking of the Holly Ramona/Gary Ramona case, in which the father did
succesfully sue the hospital and therapists.
To say Eileen was emotionally mixed up is putting it mildly. Her childhood
memories are spotty at best, there is a three year period from the second
grade to the fifth grade from which she remembers absolutely nothing. She
went through a period of drug abuse - alcohol, cocaine, pot - a period of
serious promiscuity, in which she had sex with hundreds of men, and even
worked as a prostitute for a time. Relationships with abusive men, a search
for a father figure, and when she finds one, the rejection of the original
father figure.
It is a natural human tendency to have sympathy for child victims and to
give an accuser the benefit of the doubt in these cases (as we figure, why
would she lie?). And it didn't help that George has a personality that
could best be described as unsympathetic. But Eileen is one very troubled
woman, her tale matches the newspaper accounts of the crime in lots of
details that don't match the actual crime scene (the ring(s), the mattress
that was actually a couch, etc.), this poor guy got screwed by some
detectives who went to court with much less than an actual case.
Take care,
Bo Raxo
JC
"Bo Raxo" <cheneys...@nospam.deathsdoor.com> wrote in message
news:at0p1j$v24$1...@slb9.atl.mindspring.net...
I know much of this, but I'd be more swayed if I knew more of the subsequent
life of the daughter-accuser. As for "repressed" and "false" memories - I
just think it's a lot of useless terminology. Either there's a memory or
there isn't. Sometimes we remember rightly or wrongly or partially or
inaccurately. Sometimes memory surfaces after years and years, whether
trauma was involved or not. At least that's my experience. As imperfect as
it might be, and as she might be, this woman remembered witnessing her
friend's murder and the jury believed her. They saw her and heard her in the
flesh (and found her believable). I also always believed old dad repeatedly
raped her and her sisters and did the other nasty stuff she claimed, so
perhaps that predisposed me to believe him guilty of murder. Do you think
she mis-remembered all of that, including the jar of vasoline he kept by one
sister's bedside (reportedly). I'm sorta flying by the seat of my pants
here, a victim of faded memory, I confess. :)
JC
Bo Raxo
I think the rest of her screwed up life is a very strong indicator that
someone molested her as a child, whether once or repeatedly. Dad? Maybe,
or maybe someone else. Her memories? Read accounts of how little she
remembers from her childhood - there is a three year gap with nothing.
But whether Dad molested her or not, he didn't kill Susan Nason. Certainly
not the way she tells it. Ther newspaper accounts said Nason was wearing a
gold and silver ring, and Eileen described a gold and silver ring. But
Susie was wearing two rings, one silver, one gold. The newspaper accounts
said Susie was found under a matress, and Eileen remembers a matress in the
VW Microbus that Daddy supposedly raped and killed her on. But Nason was
found under a couch, not a matress, and the couch was too big to fit in that
Microbus. And so forth. Her "memory" was clearly based on the newspaper
accounts of the crime, not on actually witnessing it.
I find repressed memory is something that will occur in people who suffered
severe and ongoing abuse, and is always accompanied by paranoid
schizophrenia or, at a minimum, a severely disassociative disorder in which
someone is not processing major parts of reality in the same way as you and
I. People who are otherwise functioning and rational don't completely
forget such a watershed moment, and then have it burst forth in to their
conciousness years later. With the human mind, anything is possible, but
teasing out these kinds of memories is more likely to stir up some other
painful suffering and the suffering manages to coalesce in to a "vision"
that symbolically encapsulates and represents the prior abuse.
So, for example, if Dad raped Eileen, and she feels he took away her
childhood, she might re-package that in to a manufactured memory that
symbolizes this through the killing of her ideal of innocent childhood,
which would be the childhood playmate who was killed and thus never grew up.
Lots of people swear they suddenly remember being abducted by aliens, and
often sexually assaulted or probed or some such nonsense. It's the same
phenomenon, and about as credible. In my opinion.
Take care,
Bo Raxo
JC
--snippety--
> symbolizes this through the killing of her ideal of innocent childhood,
> which would be the childhood playmate who was killed and thus never grew
up.
>
> Lots of people swear they suddenly remember being abducted by aliens, and
> often sexually assaulted or probed or some such nonsense. It's the same
> phenomenon, and about as credible. In my opinion.
>
> Take care,
>
> Bo Raxo
Yes, I agree with some of what you say are your observations and much I
suppose I don't. I'd be interested in reading more about this woman's life
between the trial and the present.
So, you don't believe the alien-abduction folks huh? :)
JC
Patty
San Jose Mercury News
December 3, 1969 - front page
MISSING SUSAN NASON
Murder Hunt
In San Mateo
The body of missing nine-year-old Susan Nason of Foster City, her
head caved in by a severe blow behind the right ear, was found Tuesday
in the Crystal Springs Lake area of San Mateo County.
The girl disappeared from her home Sept. 22. She has been dead for
more than two months, according to the county coroner.
Positive identification was made from her dental charts, a silver
ring on her right middle finger, and material from the dress she was
wearing under a pair of blue jeans.
The girl's body was so badly decomposed that police say it is
impossible to determine is she had been sexually molested.
Foster City Police Chief Gordon Penfold said Tuesday night that
the child's parents, Mr. and Mrs. Donald Nason, were "in shock."
"They've had an emotional collapse," Penfold said.
He exhibited a hemline from Susan's red, green, and blue print
cotton dress and said Mrs. Nason had identified the stitch work as her
own.
A shoe and the girl's underclothing also were definitely
identified.
The blow to her head is listed as the probable cause of death.
The body, discovered by a patrolman for the San Francisco
Watershed Department, was found 35 feet down an embankment of the San
Mateo-Half Moon Bay road, about 1 1/2 miles west of Skyline Boulevard.
County Coroner Paul Jensen said there was a small bit of light
brown hair left on the girl's skull. She also wore a bra, one white
sock, and one brown buckle shoe.
Foster City Police appeared pessimistic about solving the Nason
case. One officer said that leads were scarce in September and "they
are just as scarce now."
"This is going to be a tough case to crack," Penhold said. "But
we've got the Sheriff's Office with us now."
One the day she disappeared Susan had come home from school in
Foster City, a man-made island in the bay. The neighborhood is fairly
isolated, with only one road in and out.
She asked her mother's permission to take a friend's gym shoes to
her. She left the house about 4 p.m. and was never seen again.
Neighbors searched the many canals in Foster City and parent
patrols began watching their children as they went back and forth to
school, fearing the kidnapper might strike again. Divers scoured the
canals but found no body.
Patty
Originally published by Westword May 03, 1995
©2002 New Times, Inc. All rights reserved.
OPPRESSIVE MEMORIES
YEARS AFTER FAMOUS REPRESSED-MEMORY MURDER CASE, A LOCAL AUTHOR'S VIEW
IS UPHELD BY A JUDGE.
Karen Bowers
Harry MacLean's vindication arrived on April 4 from San Francisco--a
federal district judge overturned the 1990 conviction of George
Franklin, who'd been found guilty of a twenty-year-old murder based
solely on his daughter's recovered memory. The judge ruled that
Franklin had not received a fair trial.
That's something MacLean, a Denver author and attorney, has been
saying for years. And he made that argument in his book Once Upon A
Time, in which he scrutinized the Franklin case and questioned the
validity of repressed memories ("You Must Remember This," June 16,
1993).
MacLean's view proved unpopular in certain circles. Once, while
appearing on a Boulder radio talk show, MacLean recalls, an angry
listener accused him of either "covering up for perverts" or of being
one himself.
"That," he says, "is the kind of grief I got."
The Franklin case was born one January afternoon in 1989, when
California housewife Eileen Franklin-Lipsker gazed upon her young
daughter and suddenly flashed back to her best friend, Susan Nason,
who was bludgeoned to death in 1969. Nason's killer had never been
identified. But on that winter day, Franklin-Lipsker later testified,
her mind retrieved a picture of her father crushing Nason's skull with
a rock. George Franklin was ultimately arrested and charged with
first-degree murder.
Over the next eighteen months, Franklin-Lipsker claimed to have
retreived more memories, filling in additional details of the crime as
needed. Her ability to remember was fluid, in that she changed her
version of events several times after being confronted with
discrepancies between the facts and her original story.
More importantly, every verified detail that Franklin-Lipsker
remembered had been printed in the local papers about the time of
Nason's death, a point George Franklin's attorney fought hard to have
admitted at trial. The trial judge, however, ruled that inadmissible.
"What he said," MacLean recalls, "was that [the defense] would have to
prove she read those newspapers. And that's absurd. You don't need to
make that connection. You can allow a jury to make an inference."
The prosecution used the judge's ruling to its advantage. In closing
arguments, prosecutor Elaine Tipton contended that there was not a
single shred of evidence proving that Eileen Franklin-Lipsker had
gotten information about the murder from any source other than her own
memory.
It took the jury less than a day to convict George Franklin. He was
sentenced to life in prison.
But though the jury believed Franklin's daughter, MacLean, who was
looking for a book project, did not.
"From what I knew about Eileen, and what I've learned since, I
wouldn't take her word for anything," MacLean says. "Whether she's
lying or confused or convinced herself it's true, I don't know. But
without some sort of corroboration, I wouldn't take her word for
anything. Her mind is just too porous and too creative. It's got its
own reality."
But at the time, MacLean says, his was a lone voice in the wilderness.
"Nobody knew the ins and outs of repressed memory back then," MacLean
says. "No one knew that in some cases it was being cooked up in
clinical settings by therapists."
Nor were most reporters particularly perceptive, he says. "The media
were holding her up as the great truth-sayer victim," says MacLean.
"They all gave her uncritical acceptance."
The result was that Eileen Franklin-Lipsker became a tragic heroine
for the repressed-memory "movement."
But if there was a tragedy, U.S. District Judge Lowell Jensen decided
last month, it was that George Franklin did not get a fair trial. In a
51-page decision, Jensen ruled that the Franklin trial was
fundamentally flawed. First, he wrote, the defense should have been
allowed to admit as evidence the newspaper articles quoting the facts
that Franklin-Lipsker "remembered."
The second decision grew out of a jailhouse meeting between Franklin
and his daughter that was later brought out at trial. Franklin-Lipsker
urged her father at that meeting "to tell the truth" and confess to
the murder. But he remained silent instead. In court, the prosecution
pointed to that as "evidence" that George Franklin was guilty. But
silence, Jensen wrote, is evidence of nothing. Citing a Supreme Court
ruling, he added, "It is difficult to imagine a more
egregious...error, or one that so infected the entire conduct of a
trial."
The prosecution has since appealed Jensen's decision, but the defense
is confident that the ruling will stand. If it does, the prosecution
will have to decide whether to retry Franklin or to free him from
jail.
If there is a retrial, is there a sequel in it for MacLean? He says
no. MacLean is presently esconced in the San Juan Islands of
Washington state, where he's working on his third book, a novel.
The book, based loosely on the 1993 Tom Hollar carjacking/murder in
Denver, is a legal thriller. And unlike Once Upon A Time, he says,
readers will know from the beginning what is fiction and what is not.
Patty
> Original newspaper article when Nason's body was found.
>
> San Jose Mercury News
> December 3, 1969 - front page
>
> brown hair left on the girl's skull. She also wore a bra, one white
> sock, and one brown buckle shoe.
I find that interesting that she was wearing a bra at age nine. I
know some girls wear them at that age, but she didn't look like she
was big in her shcool picture.
Patty
JC
out-of-print book. I'll be interested to know what this guy has to say.
Again, thx.
JC
"Patty" <eartha...@yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:f0e77308.02121...@posting.google.com...
> From westword.com
> Originally published by Westword May 03, 1995
> ©2002 New Times, Inc. All rights reserved.
> OPPRESSIVE MEMORIES
> YEARS AFTER FAMOUS REPRESSED-MEMORY MURDER CASE, A LOCAL AUTHOR'S VIEW
> IS UPHELD BY A JUDGE.
> Karen Bowers
>
> Harry MacLean's vindication arrived on April 4 from San Francisco--a
> federal district judge overturned the 1990 conviction of George
> Franklin, who'd been found guilty of a twenty-year-old murder based
> solely on his daughter's recovered memory. The judge ruled that
> Franklin had not received a fair trial.
> That's something MacLean, a Denver author and attorney, has been
> saying for years. And he made that argument in his book Once Upon A
> Time, in which he scrutinized the Franklin case and questioned the
> validity of repressed memories ("You Must Remember This," June 16,
> 1993).
--------------------------snip---------=========
Patty
> Thanks for the reference, Patty. I'm trying now to order a used copy of the
> out-of-print book. I'll be interested to know what this guy has to say.
> Again, thx.
> JC
>
>
I think I must have read this book, although I only remember reading
the one co-authored by Eileen. The San Mateo Times used to have a
number of articles on the case, but they don't archive as far back as
they once did. Living in the area near where the trial occurred, you
just come across an article once in a while on the participants. For
what it's worth, Susan Nason's father went to his grave in 1999 or
2000, still believing that George Franklin was responsible for his
daughter's murder.
Patty
musicg...@gmail.com
gdebl...@concordcarlisle.org
> Is he still in the slammer?
--
*Note:*
* All email correspondence to and from this address is subject to public
review under the MA Public Records Law. As a result all messages may be
monitored by and disclosed to third parties.*
diane....@gmail.com
Greg Carr
> you are an idiot and i suspect you may possibly even be a pedophile. How many kids did Joseph Duncan rape & murder, being released again & again & again before he finally had to walk into a restaurant with his last victim & basically say “HERE I AM BOYS!!! Repressed memory is a. coping device the brain uses to protect itself. I know this because I’ve used it myself!! YOU GOT IT WRONG! and how can anyone say definitively that something is not true that they have never experienced?? YOU SIR HAVE NO IDEA WHAT YOUR EVEN TALKING ABOUT! Franklin is free because of ppl like YOU! pervert