Category Archives: Uncategorized

October 25, 2010

In a recent court opinion, published on August 26, 2010, People v. Rose, the Michigan Court of Appeals allowed a child victim in a sexual abuse trial to testify behind a protective screen, finding that such testimony does not violate the Constitution’s Confrontation Clause.

The defendant, who was convicted by a jury of four counts of criminal sexual conduct in the first degree, and two counts of disseminating sexually explicit matter to a minor, argued on appeal that the use of a witness screen is inherently prejudicial and that the United States Supreme Court has specifically disallowed the use of one-way screens to prevent a witness from being able to see a defendant.

The Michigan Court of Appeals rejected this argument agreeing with the trial court’s finding based on the child’s psychologist’s opinion that the screen was the only way to protect the child from psychological harm if she testified. Because the defendant could still see the child behind the screen, as well as cross-examine her, the presence of the screen (which merely prevented the child from seeing the defendant) would not violate the Confrontation Clause.

In making its finding, the court relied in part on a Michigan statute which permits special arrangements to protect the welfare of a witness.

With regard to the Confrontation Clause, the court applied the test set forth in the case of Maryland v. Craig, 497 US 836 (1990), in which the U.S. Supreme Court held that trial courts may limit a defendant’s right to face his accuser in person and in the same courtroom under certain circumstances. The State must make an adequate showing of necessity, which is case-specific. A showing that a child witness would suffer serious emotional distress if testifying in front of the defendant can constitute such necessity. In this case, the Rose court upheld the trial court’s finding of necessity.

The defendant also argued that permitting the child to testify behind the screen was inherently prejudicial and violated his right to due process, which includes the right to a fair trial and the right to be presumed innocent. While it is true that certain court procedures, such as forcing the defendant to sit in the courtroom shackled, can be inherently prejudicial, in this case, the court found that the use of the screen was not inherently prejudicial because it does not brand the defendant with a mark of guilt and could signify many meanings to jurors other than the defendant’s guilt. There was also no showing that the screen in the trial in fact prejudiced the defendant’s trial in Rose. 

The court also found that even if the use of the screen were inherently prejudicial, the trial court could nevertheless utilize the screen because it found its use was necessary to further an essential state interest.

After rejecting two other issues brought up in the defendant’s appeal, the Michigan Court of Appeals upheld the conviction.

You can read the full text of the opinion at this link: http://coa.courts.mi.gov/documents/OPINIONS/FINAL/COA/20100701_C290936_34_290936.OPN.PDF.

September 7, 2010

Frequently child abusers hide their cruelty from the world, pretend to be wholly decent upstanding citizens, and make their children live with the secret pain of abuse. Such is the case in this story, in which a father sexually abused his own daughters for years, insisting to them that this was part of his privilege as a father and that they had to keep the abuse secret. Even in court, the father painted his daughters, who finally bravely came forward after suffering for over 10 years from the time they were small children, as deluded malicious liars. See article at this link:

Daughters Expose Dad’s Evil, September 6, 2010, by Daniel Fogarty.

September 25, 2014

Leptin signals in healthy person

http://ilonadesign.blogspot.com/2014/01/leptin-hunger-hormone.html

A number of studies have now linked early life trauma to obesity. A new study out of King’s College London has made findings about one of the underlying mechanisms in the body by which this happens.

Scientists identified the hormone leptin as a potentially relevant part of the process. Leptin is a hormone the healthy human body releases in response to increasing levels of fat. It reduces appetite and increases energy expenditure.

Hypothesizing that the effects of the hormone leptin may be involved in the process by which child maltreatment leads to obesity, researchers looked at a 172 twelve-year-old children, some of whom had come from homes involving documented physical maltreatment and some who came from homes without such maltreatment. They looked at leptin levels, BMI, and an inflammation marker called C-reactive protein.

The researchers found that the maltreated children had lower leptin levels in relation to higher levels of obesity and inflammation.

Stated another way, this means that children who had suffered childhood physical abuse were found to have altered hormone levels which negatively affect the body’s mechanism for regulating obesity.

This study was published on September 23, 2014 in the Journal Translational Psychology. You can read the article at this link: Leptin Deficiency in Maltreated Children.

August 31, 2010

I came across this article in the San Francisco Chronicle written by Joel Brinkley, professor of journalism at Stanford University and former Pulitzer Prize-winning foreign correspondent for the New York Times. In it, he delineates the development of pedophilia and its prevalence in Afghanistan. To gain a deeper understanding of how culture shapes the way people treat children, please read this article at the following link:

Afghanistan’s dirty little secret, by Joel Brinkley, August 29, 2010.

August 21, 2010

U. S. Senator Jim DeMint

Three particularly important studies have been released out of the University of North Carolina’s Injury Prevention Research Center.

The first, authored by Desmond Runyan, MD, DrPH, professor of social medicine at UNC, was published in the journal Pediatrics. Dr. Runyan’s study conducted surveys in Egypt, India, Chile, the Philippines, Brazil and the U.S. to track international variations in corporal punishment. 

One of the study’s findings was that rates of child abuse reported in surveys were dramatically higher than official rates of abuse in all communities studied. The study also found, among other things, that mothers with less education had higher rates of corporal punishment and that rates of corporal punishment vary widely among different communities in the same country.

Two studies were led by Adam J. Zolotor, MD, MPH, assistant professor of family medicine in the UNC School of Medicine.

The first of those two tracked corporal punishment and physical abuse trends in American children aged 3 to 11 as reported in four separate surveys conducted from 1975 till 2002.

The study found that while 18 percent fewer children were hit in 2002 than 1975, the rates of physical punishment were still extremely high. Even in 2002 (after the decline), 79 percent of preschool children were spanked, and half of all preschool children were spanked with a paddle or other implement.

The second of Zolotor’s studies reviewed bans on corporal punishment by various nations and their impact. The study found that although 24 nations have banned corporal punishment of children, that is only 12 percent of the world’s countries. It also found that while all nations other than the United States and Somalia have signed onto the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child (which ironically the United States helped draft), only a small number of those 193 member countries have outright banned corporal punishment.  (See text of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child.)

In the United States, amazingly, a group of 30 senators (!) have signed onto a bill, sponsored by Sen. Jim DeMint of South Carolina and currently pending in the Senate, opposing the signing of the UN Convention. Senator DeMint has labeled this a “Parents’ Rights” bill. In my experience, that term is regularly used in the United States to battle any implications that the hitting of one’s children might be limited.

In light of all the recent evidence of detriment caused by corporal punishment of children, including mental and physical health disorders, decreased IQ, aggression issues, problems with stress regulation, increase in disease risk for life, among numerous other, I ask – why would Americans fight so hard for this right?

Consider UNC’s Webcare Blog Entry, To Spank or Not to Spank . . ., Aug. 9, 2010. See also informative article in Science Daily, Corporal Punishment of Children Remains Common Worldwide, Studies Find, Aug. 9, 2010.

August 9, 2010

A new study out of the University of Toronto published in the journal Child Abuse and Neglect has found a strong connection between childhood physical abuse and higher incidence of heart disease.

The study found this connection despite controlling for multiple other risk factors for heart disease including smoking, obesity, physical activity level, and other adverse childhood experiences.

Those who reported being physically abused as children had a 45 percent higher incidence of heart disease than those who reported a lack of such abuse!

The study was based in a 2005 community survey of 13,000 respondents in two Canadian provinces.

The coauthors of this study, including John Frank, director of Scottish Collaboration for Public Health Research and Policy, confirm the significance of this link and indicate that its implications include that whose who have been abused need to be particularly aggressive in managing their cardiovascular risk factors. They also acknowledge that this study does not explain exactly how this link operates.

I believe it further supports the fact that we need to direct more resources and efforts to child abuse prevention.

See the following article in Science Daily:

Science Daily, Science News, Link Between Childhood Physical Abuse and Heart Disease, July 23, 2010.

July 26, 2010

According to a recently published study conducted by Renée Boynton-Jarrett, MD, ScD, of Boston University, and colleagues, children whose mothers are subject to chronic violence are 1.8 times more likely to become obese.

In this study, researchers analyzed 1595 children born between 1998 and 2000, with degrees of violence reported by mothers. The likelihood of obesity at age 5 was greater for those children whose mothers reported chronic violence in the home.

This research adds important insight both on the subject of obesity prevention and on the discourse on violence prevention. Researchers have already found links between adverse childhood experiences and health problems in adulthood. Previous studies have also linked domestic violence in childhood home with altered neuroendocrine system profiles, impaired socioemotional development, cognitive functioning, attachment to caregivers, emotional regulation, and poorer physical and mental health. This study adds further support on these subjects.

A violent unsettled home leads to changes in brain functioning, the disruption of metabolic systems and hormonal changes. These in turn can lead to obesity.

Many in our culture see obesity as an isolated issue, yet others wonder why despite attempts at dieting and calorie-counting, they are unable to maintain the healthy lean body type some seem able to attain so much more easily.

In fact, emotional issues grounded in childhood seem to be at the heart of many physical ailments, not simply making a person emotionally less able to maintain a healthy diet, but also negatively impacting body chemistry and brain composition. In fact, a groundbreaking adverse childhood experiences study by Dr. Vincent Felitti in the 1980’s, which connected adverse childhood experiences with multiple problems in adulthood, accidentally originated out of a weight loss study at Kaiser Permanente.

July 18, 2010

Kudos to Brazil’s President, an inspiring individual and one of Time Magazine’s Most Influential People for 2010, for referring a bill to the Brazilian Congress banning corporal punishment of children by parents.

The bill prohibits “cruel or degrading treatment that humiliates or seriously threatens children, including spanking”. (See BBCNews, Brazil president seeks legal ban on smacking, July 15, 2010.)

President Da Silva, popularly known as Lula, explained to critics that spanking is not necessary to discipline children and that it is more effective to talk to children and discipline them verbally. He refers to himself as someone with personal understanding of these issues, having been brought up my a poor mother with eight children who never struck any of her children. He feels fortunate and followed his mother’s example with his own children.

“If punishment and whipping solved things, we wouldn’t have so much corruption or banditry in this country,” he said.

If this bill is passed in Congress, Brazil would follow twenty other countries which have explicitly banned corporal punishment by parents.

See article at BBC News, Brazil president seeks legal ban on smacking, July 15, 2010.

July, 13, 2010

A 21-year old Oakland man shook his 18 month old daughter and threw her into traffic, according to an undercover police officer who saw it happen. 

The incident occurred on Fifth Avenue near East 15th Street in Oakland around 5:39 p.m. Saturday. A Volkswagen Jetta almost hit the toddler, police say, and the car’s undercarriage burned and scraped the girl.

Later identified as John Taylor, the man then ran off, pounding on and kicking cars along the way. The police and motorists in the neighborhood chased him down and he was arrested for willful cruelty to a child, vandalism, resisting arrest and battery on a police officer.

The little girl, Jayla, lives with her mother and was visiting with her father that day.

The strangest thing about this story is the mother’s reaction. Apparently, she believes the father was trying to protect the child. In an interview with NBC Bay Area, she said:

“I’m hurting now because I know my baby’s father is in jail facing charges and I don’t feel that it is reasonable. Anybody who feels that they think that John had thrown the baby out, please get that out your mind — there is no reason to believe that. He is a great father to her.”

See interview at NBC Bay Area: Dad Tosses Tot Into Traffic: Cops, Jessica Greene, Mon. July 12, 2010.

May 12, 2010

A new study out of U.C. Irvine by neurologist Dr. Tallie Z. Baram has found that caressing and other sensory input triggers activity in a baby’s developing brain that improves cognitive function and builds resilience to stress.

In a study published earlier this year in The Journal of Neuroscience, Baram and colleagues identified how sensory stimuli from maternal care can modify genes that control a key messenger of stress called corticotropin-releasing hormone.

Dr. Baram’s earlier work has shown that excessive amounts of CRH in the brain’s primary learning and memory center led to the disintegration of dendritic spines, branchlike structures on neurons. Dendritic spines facilitate the sending and receiving of messages among brain cells and the collection and storage of memories.

“Communication among brain cells is the foundation of cognitive processes such as learning and memory,” says Baram, the Danette Shepard Chair in Neurological Sciences. “In several brain disorders where learning and similar thought processes are abnormal, dendritic spines have been found to be reduced in density or poorly developed.

“Because an infant’s brain is still building connections in these communication zones, large blasts or long-term amounts of stress can permanently limit full development, increasing the risk of anxiety, depression and dementia later in life.”

Essentially, Dr. Baram and her colleagues’ work stands for the proposition that a human brain is fundamentally influenced by the environment early in life, especially by maternal care.

See story at Psychorg.com:

http://www.physorg.com/news192209628.html