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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.

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

• John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation Fellow, 1973-74.
• Pulitzer Prize -- For Public Service, 1979.
• Member of the three-person reporting and research group whose work won the award in the name of the Point Reyes Light newspaper.
• California Newspaper Association Awards, 1980. Awarded to the Point Reyes Light based in part on my work.
• 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."

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.

DIMPAC controversy

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 scientific rigor and an evenhanded critical approach, also stating that it did not have sufficient information to take a position on the issues that DIMPAC was charged with investigating. There is dispute 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. Curriculum Vitae
3. Steel, Fiona. "The West Memphis 3." Court TV. 17 Mar. 2006 Crime Library, Notorious Murders.
4. Notable quotes, Ofshe, Re: Misskelley's 6.3.93 statement
5. Jessie Misskelley's patrol car statement, February 4, 1994.
6. Jessie Misskelley statement, February 17, 1995.

External links

• Dr. Richard Ofshe, testimony, "Free the West Memphis Three"
• Audio of Paul Ingram Pardon Hearing
• Forgotten Sins in the Internet Movie Database

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