Appeal
In 2007, Shanley's new attorney, Robert F. Shaw, Jr., filed motion for a new trial on his behalf challenging his convictions as unjust. During a hearing in May 2008, Shaw forcefully argued that "repressed memories" were without general acceptance in the scientific community, were "junk science," and that the court had not been presented with accurate information about the scientific status of repressed memories before trial. Shaw argued that Shanley is entitled to a new trial.
On November 26, 2008, Superior Court Judge Stephen Neel denied Paul Shanley's motion for a new trial. Shaw responded by filing a petition for review of the case in the Supreme Court of Massachusetts (known as the Supreme Judicial Court), arguing that the judge had erred, and that "repressed memory" is an unproven, hypothesized phenomenon that has not been accepted in the scientific community and should not be admitted as evidence in Massachusetts courts. In January 2009, the Supreme Judicial Court granted the petition and ordered the case transferred from the intermediate appellate court for review by the state’s highest court.
On September 10, 2009 the Supreme Judicial Court heard arguments in the case. Prior to the hearing, nearly 100 very prominent scientists, psychiatrists and psychologists from throughout the United States and eight countries signed a friend of the court brief telling the Court that "repressed memory" has never been demonstrated to exist and should not have been admitted as evidence. Robert F. Shaw, Jr. argued that Paul Shanley was prosecuted, convicted and imprisoned based upon inadmissible evidence. The case is being closely watched throughout the United States and abroad.
On January 10, 2010, the Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts unanimously affirmed Shanley's conviction. The Court concluded: "In sum, the judge's finding that the lack of scientific testing did not make unreliable the theory that an individual may experience dissociative amnesia was supported in the record, not only by expert testimony but by a wide collection of clinical observations and a survey of academic literature. ... There was no abuse of discretion in the admission of expert testimony on the subject of dissociative amnesia."
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