ANALYSIS: Inside courtroom 318, a jury heard a controversial theory about Ghislaine Maxwell's alleged victims
I've spent the last three weeks inside courtroom 318 of the Thurgood Marshall federal courthouse in lower Manhattan, observing the Ghislaine Maxwell trial gavel to gavel.
And of course, this is an historical child sex abuse trial, so we are talking about events that occurred 20 to 30 years ago. That means the court is examining, for the first time, the nature of incredibly complex and confusing traumatic memories. Loftus has used this science to testify in 150 criminal trials, the court heard, and in 149 of those trials she testified for the defence. She has developed a second career as an expert witness explaining to juries that victims of crime can be wrong about the things they remember.But Loftus' career has experienced a huge uptick in the era of #MeToo.
I thought we might have moved past this trope by now — the idea that accusers lie for attention, money, or some other personal gain — but that's a different piece. What's interesting from the perspective of memory is that this trial is the first time Loftus has used her science to support the notion that the desire for cash could cause a human brain to create a false traumatic memory.
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