New Jersey Finally Limits Testimony by Hypnosis.

"The [New Jersey] Supreme Court [finally] ... banned witness testimony stemming from hypnosis in all criminal trials, except when the so-called 'refreshed' testimony comes from the defendant." 

Astonishingly, there was one dissenter. 

Presumably, "refreshed" testimony can only be obtained in the presence of counsel for the defendant -- counsel chosen by an unimpaired defendant, who is fully aware of such questioning, especially when this questioning is custodial. 

This says nothing about use of such testimony in civil proceedings -- like legal ethics litigation -- or the "secret" procuring of such testimony to confirm or obtain other evidence, so that the state does not have to reveal use of hypnosis as an investigative tool. 

Ideally, according to New Jersey's OAE, hypnosis should be part of secret proceedings, so that a victim's rights may be violated with little chance of discovery by that victim.

Opportunities for great evil exist as long as hypnosis forms ANY part of legal investigative methods in a free society. 

The boundary between physicians and therapists (who should be concerned with the welfare of patients) and state agents or torturers (interested in information-gathering) must be preserved, since these are contradictory and irreconcilable roles, except in New Jersey. I wonder if Terry Tuchin (a.k.a. "David" or "Arthur Goldberg") is getting this in lovely downtown Ridgewood, New Jersey?

No one can be both a state investigator and therapist at the same or even at different times with a single subject. You cannot claim to be a person's physician, then become his or her interrogator, only to become a physician again five minutes later. You cannot impose your therapeutic "services," secretly, on unwilling or unconsulted persons. 

Any such attempt at "double billing" is a criminal "conflict of interest" with potentially lethal emotional consequences for the patient-victim-witness. 

You taking notes, Terry? What's Diana up to? Is she still out there? ("Trenton's Nasty Lesbian Love-Fest.")

There is no such thing as "therapy by adhesion." To be called "therapy," a course of treatment must be chosen by a person in an unimpaired and fully-informed manner. ("Psychological Torture in the American Legal System.")

There should not be "anonymous," state-assigned "therapists" for patients, "therapists" who are rewarded for, unconstitutionally, procuring information from victims that can be used against them or others. 

Questioning that takes place, secretly, at irregular intervals over seventeen years is a little more than "questioning." 

Such questioning in an impaired state is a heinous form of torture and exploitation. It is a criminal violation of fundamental rights that is not compatible with the human dignity guaranteed to all under the U.S. Constitution. ("John Rawls and Justice.")

Hypnosis in police investigations has been found in most democratic societies to be violative of human autonomy and privacy rights. Use of hypnosis by state agents alone is a kind of torture. Hypnosis in a forensic setting is a denigration of human beings to the moral status of objects or non-human animals. It is a form of enslavement. New Jersey's own therapist-torturer "Diana" likes it that way because she enjoys wielding power over others "for their own good." She probably also gets her sexual thrills that way. ("Jennifer Velez is a Dyke Magnet" and "New Jersey Lesbian Professor Rapes a Disabled Man.")

New Jersey's long overdue (but still inadequate) ruling allows officials to continue torturing confessions "out" of people -- through the use of hypnosis and/or other psychological torture -- in civil or quasi-civil matters. ("Marilyn Straus Was Right" and "Diana's Friend Goes to Prison.")

This case seems to be silent on the "uses" of hypnosis, in other words, either as an investigative tool or as part of civil litigation. I have not read the decision, though I would like to, having studied only journalistic accounts of it. (See "Terry Tuchin, Diana Lisa Riccioli, and New Jersey's Agency of Torture.") 

What really happens in the Garden State has very little to do with laws on the books or Supreme Court opinions. ("New Jersey Lesbian Sends Nude Photos to Minor.")

Therapist-torturers have been known to abuse people in horrible and life-altering ways, traumatizing them for life, even raping persons, in order to get information that can be used against them -- sometimes these state crimes are committed when victims are not charged with any crimes. Victims may even be framed for some fault or subjected to false charges to conceal the responsibility of their torturers. ("New Jersey's 'Ethical' Legal System" and "Chomsky Publisher Charged in Turkey.")

"... the 6 to 1 ruling from the state's highest court allows New Jersey [at last] to join 26 other states that limit the admissability of ... testimony that is extracted under hypnosis. The Court, reversing a position it took 25 years ago, said it now agrees 'that hypnotically refreshed testimony is not generally accepted science.' The ruling stemmed from a 1986 rape case in which a woman testified against a defendant after undergoing hypnosis. Prosecutors said this would force them to drop the case."

"Testimony From Hypnosis is Curbed," The New York Times, August 11, 2006, at p. B6.

There are so-called "therapists" in the Garden State who specialize in hypnosis-based torture which is designed to get information from people (against their will) and not to refresh their recollections. 

Persons placed under hypnosis are highly suggestible. "Information" obtained under such circumstances is typically unreliable and frequently sheer fabrication.

The police's purpose in using hypnosis is to violate human rights while shielding violators from accountability to their victims for their actions. 

This purpose is often fulfilled, usually with tragic consequences for victims and the U.S. Constitution. 

I am confident that most victims will be members of minority groups. Protracted hypnosis alone is deeply harmful to the psychic system of the victim. 

Many of these techniques are still used "secretly" then covered-up with the help of tainted tribunals or other sold-out public officials. The harm done to innocent people, not just immediate victims, is incalculable. 

It appears that the defendant in that 1986 rape case was and is innocent of all charges. 

Families are destroyed and friendships are lost, life-saving relationships are destroyed for innocent people, by these so-called "therapists," whose services and opinions are "for sale" -- even in civil cases.

Torturers do not identify themselves to prospective victims, hiding from persons that they question, also hiding reports of their sessions -- even altering reports, allegedly, to meet the needs of paying customers -- so as to allow their subjects to appear guilty or not guilty, depending on who is paying their "consulting fees." 

"I'll go to bat for you," a torturer once said to me. "Most people want to be told what to believe."

These persons -- who have the nerve to call themselves "therapists" -- hope to avoid liability for their often tragic blunders. I like to call this horrible New Jersey practice the "Tuchin/Riccioli Torture." (See "New Jersey -- What's that smell?" and "What happened to the Constitution?") 

Hey, how are things in Ridgewood, Terry? How's the family? Everything hunky-dory? ("New Jersey Rabbi Charged With Child Molesting.")

Heightened suggestibility of persons under hypnosis makes it easy for prosecutors or others to get testimony that they desire from victims, regardless of the truth, often without a person even knowing that he or she has been interrogated. Abuse of persons rendered helpless by hypnosis is foreseeable and common. 

How many of you raped Marilyn Straus? Estela De La Cruz, shame on you.

So long as victims are poor or members of despised minority groups, their sufferings cause little concern to the state's highest court or other politicians, especially when minorities are willing to serve as frontpersons for the commission of these crimes. ("John McGill, Esq., the OAE, and New Jersey Corruption.")

"We can learn from you," torturers say. I bet you can -- and I hope that you will.

This ruling comes far too late for many citizens. 

Victims of therapist-torturers -- many of whom commit no crimes -- are scarred for life. They are crippled in their ability to function normally in society, denied their own medical records as well as the truth about their own lives. Psychologically, they never leave their torture chambers and will live with indescribable suffering for the rest of their lives. 

But what the hell? Therapists "can learn from this." This is all that matters. 

Is this New Jersey's legal ethics, Mr. Rabner? How much longer must the cover-up continue? ("Have you no shame Mr. Rabner?")

Their own memories are taken from victims by state torturers, who then deny the truth about what they have done, along with destroying victims' only chance to understand the meaning of their lives, even as they are exploited even more by being filmed (against their will) in their agony, or assaulted and sexually humiliated, as part of that training exercise. 

The laughter of torturers stays with victims forever. And the experience of rape is certainly not one that is easily forgotten or transcended.

"... American forensic psychiatrists and clinical psychologists have proven to be politically arrogant and abusive with the careless use of ... diagnostic entities by fixing five minute health care cases before their hand chosen judges with no sworn-in testimony in order to legally fix their victims with these diagnoses. In this manner forensic psychiatrists and psychologists ... are protected from accusations of criminal wrongdoing. The states that [allow] such cases even in the absence of criminal wrongdoing claim they have the legal right to act as [secret?] guardians for the subjects of such proceedings. What thus occurs is that the states turn into criminally abusive parent figures along with the presiding judges and doctors in such cases as this infectious spread of sadism in dealing with mental health care continues."

Dr. Harold Mandel, "Psychiatry and Psychology Have Become Abusive Disciplines," January 21, 2006, http://www.topix.net/content/cj/1402928183753272823

No justice, no peace. (See "Is New Jersey Chief Justice Deborah T. Poritz unethical or only incompetent?" at these blogs and also at http://www.Critique@groups.msn.com .)

I think Ms. Poritz is a little of both -- incompetent and unethical. 

I hope that Ms. Poritz is receiving her pension, what with the financial crisis and all, and that we will meet someday.