Richard Ofshe

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.

Ofshe has been characterized as a "world-renowned expert on influence interrogation". He believes that coerced confessional testimony is extremely unreliable, and asserted in a Time Magazine article that "Recovered-memory therapy will come to be recognized as the quackery of the 20th century." In a more recent Time Magazine article in 2005, Ofshe is quoted as saying that false testimony does not just occur through coercion, but may also occur in instances of "exhaustion or mental impairment." However, he also stated that it is only recently that juries have been allowed to hear expert testimony about these kinds of theories.

Ofshe appeared on CNN in 2006, discussing the Warren Jeffs case. He was asked to answer the question: "..what makes people give up control over their own lives and let a religious -- extreme religious leader like Warren Jeffs dictate essentially everything they do?.."  Ofshe stated that Jeffs simply had to "maintain a belief that was already there", because he had inherited the fundamentalist Mormon group from his father. He stated that: "That gives him an enormous edge over someone who starts a cult group and has to get people to adopt a new ideology. He's already got a big chunk of it in place. And then what he does is build a community, build an organization that maximizes his power and he's done that as well."

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
Ofshe has received several honors and recognition for his research and writings :
 * John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation Fellow, 1973-1974
 * 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
In 2002, Ofshe appeared on the Larry King Live show, discussing the reliability of confessions: "Joining us now to talk about that is Richard Ofshe, professor of sociology at the University of California, Berkeley, who was written extensively about confessions that turn out to be false.". In 2005, the Associated Press characterized Ofshe as a "cult expert", when commenting on the murder trial of Marcus Wesson, "a domineering patriarch who allegedly controlled his family with religious teachings, incest and threats of mass suicide."

Prosecutors in the case of Tyrone Noling, a man on waiting on death row for the murder of an elderly couple in Atwater Township, Ohio relied heavily on confession testimony. In 2006, Ofshe asserted that this kind of testimony is not always reliable, and may not be true: "All the confessions should be classified as "untrustworthy" and "unreliable," said social psychologist Richard Ofshe, an expert in false confessions hired by Noling's appellate lawyers to review the men's statements."  Ofshe stated that this was because "coercive interrogation tactics" were utilized by law enforcement to elicit these confessions.
 * Tyrone Noling (2006)

In 1997, a young Navy-wife, Michelle Moore-Bosko, was found murdered. Police were convinced that she was murdered and raped by eight men. Five men later confessed, but forensic DNA evidence was only found tying one to the crimes. The four other men who confessed all recanted their testimony but were convicted anyway. Three of the four are currently serving life sentences. Lawyers from the Innocence Project agreed to take the case - the Innocence Project "champions the cases of inmates it believes were wrongly convicted." The lawyers hired Ofshe as an expert witness in false testimony, and he stated: "Four innocent servicemen are languishing in prison for no reason, other than expediency". As of 2005, the men were still serving life sentences in jail.
 * "The Norfolk Four" (2005)

In 2005, Ofshe appeared on CBS's 48 Hours, commenting on the Marty Tankleff case. He was helping to work on Tankleff's appeals process. The detectives had obtained a confession statement from Tankleff, but neglected to videotape it. Ofshe asserted that it was a false confession, and that if there had been a videotape, the court would have been able to witness the actual police interrogation methods used. "Ofshe believes that after being badgered for hours, Marty began to question his own memory -- and the police gave him a way out."
 * Marty Tankleff (2005)

In 2001, Judge Lynch "severely limited the testimony of defense expert witness Dr. Richard Ofshe", in the case of alleged murderer Robert Burns Springsteen IV. Springsteen had allegedly been involved in "notorious" murders in 1991. Ofshe asserted that there was the possibility of police coercion utlilized in the testimony confession. Judge Lynch stated that this was a judgement for the jury to make.
 * Robert Burns Springsteen IV (2001)

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.
 * Paul Ingram (1996)

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".
 * West Memphis 3 (1993)

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, "[It is] 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.

In an affidavit signed on December 28, 1990, Ofshe asserted that "Based on my professional knowledge, on my previous study of the Sikh movement, on documents I have reviewed, and on interviews I have conducted with former members of the movement [I have reached the conclusion that ], the Sikh movement in the United States exhibits characteristics common to cult organizations, including the use of intimidation and other forms of coercion to impose control and enforce norms within the group."
 * Ofshe's affidavit asserting that Sikhism is a cult (1990)

John E. Reid and Associates' critique
John E. Reid and Associates is a Chicago based firm which trains police detectives in interrogative techniques.

The John E. Reid and Associates company Web site maintains several pages of documents in a section labeled "Critics Corner." Here they provide examples of cases in which Ofshe and/or Dr. Richard Leo's expert witness testimony was either rejected, or had less-than positive outcomes at trial, including:.


 * People v. Ladell Deangelo Brown, the Court of Appeal, Third District, California affirmed the conviction of the defendant.


 * 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."


 * Harold Wayne Nichols v. Ricky Bell Warden, the United States District Court, E.D. Tennessee rejected Bell's claim that "the coercive nature of the interrogation process was demonstrated through the testimony Dr. Richard Ofshe."


 * The People v. Amy Marie Garvin, the defense offered expert testimony from 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 found the defendant guilty.


 * State of Florida vs Nathan Brinkley, the Judge denied the defendant's motion to suppress his confession based on Ofshe' expert witness testimony. 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."


 * The People of the State of California vs. Amy Marie Garvin.

The site also hosts excerpted portions of a presentation made by President Joseph Buckley at a "Reid Conference for Investigative Training" in November 2000. Buckley critiques Ofshe and Leo's reliance on certain studies for their assertions. In other instances, he asserts that other studies done by Ofshe and Leo, including The Consequences of False Confessions, rely on "anecdotal information." Buckley then goes on to discuss "The Reid Technique" in depth, and give situations where false confessions might actually be expected, and even possibly conform to the Ofshe/Leo theories.

On yet another page of their site, John E. Reid and Associates respond to Ofshe's assertion that "Reid Technique teaches investigators how to elicit false confessions through the use of what he terms the accident scenario". In his analysis, Ofshe cited Criminal Interrogation and Confessions, a text written by John Reid and Joseph Buckely. John E. Reid and Associates respond to Ofshe's assertions, stating that "Richard Ofshe's testimony that this technique is designed to elicit a false confession is certainly not accurate. The technique is not designed to, nor is it apt to cause an innocent person to falsely accept responsibility for a crime he or she did not commit. At most, it allows a guilty suspect to accept physical responsibility for committing his crime coupled with a false intention behind his act.".

In an academic paper, Steven Drizin, a law professor at Northwestern University, and Dr. Richard Leo (psychologist) of UC Irvine and an academic associate of Dr. Richard Ofshe - criticize the "Reid Technique". Their paper is entitled: "False Confessions in the Post-DNA World". They assert that John E. Reid and Associates training methods give: "no thought to how the methods they advocate communicate psychologically coercive messages and sometimes lead the innocent to confess." Richard Leo's mentor was Ofshe. Leo is a social psychologist.

Joseph Buckley, president of John E. Reid and Associates, denies any coercive nature in their training approach. He states that false confessions in interrogation-related testimony is "exceedingly rare". .

DIMPAC task force
After the American Psychological Association's board of Social and Ethical Responsibility for Psychology (BSERP) rejected a report presented by the APA taskforce on Deceptive and Indirect Techniques of Persuasion and Control, stating that it lacked the scientific rigor and an evenhanded critical approach for an the imprimatur of the APA, Margaret Singer and Ofshe sued the APA in 1992 for "defamation, frauds, aiding and abetting and conspiracy". The case was dismissed by the court in 1994 on the basis that the claims of defamation, frauds, aiding and abetting and conspiracy constituted a dispute over the application of the First Amendment to a public debate over academic and professional matters; that the parties may be be described as the opposing camps in a longstanding debate over certain theories in the field of psychology, and that the plaintiffs could not establish deceit with reference to representations made to other parties in the  lawsuit.

In a further ruling, James R. Lamden ordered Ofshe and Singer to pay $80,000 in attorneys' fees under California's SLAPP suit law, which penalizes those who harass others for exercising their First Amendment rights. At that time, Singer and Ofshe declared their intention to sue Michael Flomenhaft, the lawyer that represented them in the case, for malpractice.

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