"You have prominent scientists, psychologists and psychiatrists saying this is not generally accepted. So why allow it in a court of law in a criminal proceeding?" Mr. Shanley's lawyer, Robert F. Shaw Jr., asked the state's highest court Thursday.

"It's a very difficult issue for people to understand because you have a group of people who say this exists, you also have a large group of people to say that it has not been established," said Robert F Shaw Jr., Shanley's attorney.  ....
 
Shaw said, "We are not talking about not thinking about something and later remembering it and we're not talking about somebody who has some memory distortion and then can't remember part of a experience later. We are talking about somebody who was in a concentration camp and then forgot it ever happened." 
 

"We have an individual who says that he was repeatedly abused week after week after week for a period of years, after every abuse he forgot it again, walked into it again, and then for 20 years thereafter, he was completely oblivious."  The judgments should be reversed because, "You have a citizem who was prosecuted, convicted and imprisoned based upon inadmissible evidence."

"Repressed memory is a theorized phenomenon. It is not accepted by the scientific community."

"It is improper, and highly prejudicial, and very unfair to admit this kind of evidence, in a criminal proceeding to prosecute and imprison an individual."

Shanley's lawyer, Robert Shaw Jr., argues that Shanley deserves a new trial because the jury relied on misleading, "junk science" testimony about repressed memories by prosecution witnesses.

"Overwhelming evidence proves that the theory of 'repressed memory' is not generally accepted by the relevant scientific community on multiple grounds and that the commonwealth's experts provided misleading junk science testimony that should not have been admitted in a judicial proceeding,'' the lawyer, Robert F. Shaw Jr. of Cambridge, argues in his brief.

"When the Supreme Judicial Court hears arguments in May, it will consider the issues that, without the impedimenta of panic and prejudice, always made this a case about due process and equal treatment under the law. Shanley's new lawyer, Robert Shaw Jr., is not asking the court to divine Busa's veracity or even to determine that the hypothesis of repressed memory is, finally, true or false. That, he asserts, is the function of scientific research. To date, the research shows that the hypothesis is unproven. And so long as it is unproven, it is inadmissible in court. Shaw argues that Shanley had ineffective counsel on this and other matters, and he is seeking a new trial."

"Arana’s appellate attorney, Robert F. Shaw, Jr., applauded the court’s decision because the trial “that occurred was very unfair … Jose Arana is entitled to a fair trial; he’s entitled to basic, fundamental fairness. The multiple and excessive errors in this case deprived him of a constitutional right to a fair proceeding.’’

Arana's lawyer, Robert F. Shaw Jr., said he was gratified by the court's ruling.

"In this case, we had a trial that involved people coming in and testifying not only about what accuser said, but the way she said it and her demeanor and their subjective impressions of it," Shaw said.

"He will now have the opportunity for a fair proceeding."

[Need Real Audio] Shanley's new lawyer, Robert Shaw, Jr., says the hysteria of the time played into his conviction. "The issue here, now, is really a legal issue, and one has to be able to look at this situation and analyze it without Paul Shanley's name in there because of all of the hysteria, and bias, and misinformation that was so widely spread in the public arena. [T]his is really about fairness. .... Repressed memory is a hypothesized phenomenon, it is not accepted by the scientific community, it is not reliable, it is highly controversial, and it should not be admitted in a court of law."

Shaw said, "What we're looking for in this case is a very thorough and honest analysis of the issues."

Shanley's lawyer, Robert F. Shaw Jr., said Wednesday he would appeal the ruling to the state Supreme Judicial Court.

"The entire theory of the case ... was that (the victim) completely repressed his memory for 20 years, and that despite memory triggers throughout that period of time, he was not capable of remembering supposed abuse that occurred week after week after week for a period of years," Shaw said. "The evidence not only does not corroborate his claims, it contradicts them," he said.

"Throughout most of yesterday's hearing, Shaw hammered away at Brown and Chu's methodology for gathering information and making their findings."

"The Commonwealth's entire case, the bridge between accusations on the one hand, and credible accusation on the other, was something called 'repressed memory.'" ... "To rely upon surveys including social workers, hypnotherapists and individuals who are just clinicians, who make observations and then try to extract scientific principles from that - that is junk."

“That is junk. That is called junk science. It is not scientific. It doesn’t involve scientific methodology. It should not be admitted in a court of law.”

"The central issue concerns the fact that there is no scientific support, no empirical support for repressed memory, and it never should have been entered into evidence," said Robert F. Shaw Jr. "It doesn't really matter who it is that comes to the bar to be tried for alleged criminal conduct. Whether it's Paul Shanley or anybody else, people deserve due process and people deserve fairness," Shaw said.

In his motion for a new trial, Shanley's new attorney, Robert F. Shaw Jr., says the man's memories of the abuse are unreliable. The man testified that he began remembering abuse by the then-priest in 2002, after learning that his childhood friend had recovered memories of abuse by Shanley. ... Shaw argues that Shanley's trial attorney should have presented evidence that the theory of repressed memory is challenged within the scientific community. "There is no solid empirical support for repressed memory," Shaw said Wednesday.

"Accused, convicted, and sentenced amid unrelentingly lurid media
vilification of Roman Catholic clergy, Paul Shanley now appeals for justice"

“Having looked at every aspect of this case very closely over a considerable period of time,” says Shaw, “I am extraordinarily concerned by what I have seen. I’m left with the firm and unshakable belief that justice was not done.”

''There were a lot of troubling inconsistencies in the facts and the troubling identity issue, which was not pursued by trial counsel,'' Shaw said. ''We're just delighted with the result.''