![[Picture]](img/pg13_1.jpg)
$5,000 a Day
As described by District Attorney Marquis, who prosecuted the Stangel case, “Richard Ofshe became the sole witness besides the defendant in the case.”
Marquis told Freedom, “Ofshe’s contention is that he is an expert in the subject of coerced false confession. Even though he is not a psychologist, and has no psychological training, he passed himself off as some sort of ’expert’ in mind control.”
After Ofshe entered the scene, Stangel recanted, claiming the police had forced her to lie. Said Marquis, “The defense’s case was literally structured on Ofshe’s theory that the police routinely coerce people to give confessions.”
“The state is always obligated to prove that a confession is voluntary,” Marquis pointed out. “But Ofshe went one step further. He said, ‘No, no—the police are so tricky that they coerce false voluntary confessions.’”
As Marquis made clear during a pre-trial examination, Ofshe’s entire theory and practice is based on his claim that he can tell by reading a transcript that the police not only got someone to confess, but got them to confess falsely under coercion.
In the Stangel case, Marquis said, “Their defense was that you couldn’t trust the confessions. Confessions were inherently invalid.”
The jury didn’t buy it. On January 16, 1997, the panel convicted Linda Stangel of second-degree manslaughter, and Circuit Judge Paula Brownhill sentenced her to six years in prison.
Ofshe nevertheless collected $5,000 a day for appearing in the Stangel case. Ofshe admitted that his “clock” started running the minute he walked out of his house in Berkeley, California. The trial itself lasted from January 14 17, 1997.
While a real expert is somebody who works in the field and may occasionally be called upon to offer an opinion, Ofshe admitted that being an “expert” constitutes the bulk of his paycheck.
“I got him to admit, however reluctantly, that no less than 50 percent of his income is derived from testifying in cases like ours,” Marquis said. This is usually paid for by the taxpayer.
“The categorical rejection of Ofshe’s theories by the jury is obviously going to be known in this case far beyond this jurisdiction because of an enormous amount of national publicity that this case has had and will continue to receive,” Marquis said.
| Your view on this Scientology Website | Scientology Related Sites | Bookstore | Church of Scientology Freedom Magazine |
