In this continuation from PsychLaw.net’s earlier blog regarding the spread of misinformation, PsychLaw.net describes the damaging effect of testimony such as Silberg’s and why that testimony was not admissible in court.
K.M. v. S.M.M., New Jersey, 2011
In the New Jersey high-conflict case of K.M. v. S.M.M.,[1] a conscientious trial judge spent approximately 70 days over four years during 2006–2009 in hearings and issued numerous oral rulings and three separate comprehensive written opinions to detail an alienating mother’s manipulation and false allegations. [2]
Beginning in 2005 while the parties were separated, Mother obtained a temporary restraining order prohibiting Father from contacting her or the parties’ children, aged 3½ and 6. As a result, the oldest was evaluated by a crisis mental health evaluator, and the evaluator recommended Father’s parenting time be restored. Later, in 2006, when she answered Father’s complaint for divorce, Mother responded with allegations that Father had sexually abused the two children. These latest allegations were discredited, as the oldest child showed no signs of sexual abuse when she was evaluated just months before. In response to the investigation by the Department of Youth and Family Services (DYFS), however, the court directed that Mother’s parenting time with her children be supervised and also ordered the children see a therapist.
Undeterred, Mother’s allegations continued. Numerous law enforcement, DYFS, and mental health professionals became involved over the four years of this tragic story, with the professional child abuse specialists unanimously finding no signs of sexual abuse. One expert, while interviewing Mother and asking if she could “accept the possibility that any of the information” of sexual abuse was false, noted that “[Mother] proceeded to ‘faint’ in the therapist’s office. She lay down on the floor and did not get up or respond until the therapist announced to her that he was going to call 911.”[3] With another evaluator, Mother insisted Father had been diagnosed with an Axis II disorder, and when confronted with the fact that he had not, Mother was upset and refused to accept the fact.
Other expert evaluators interviewed Oldest Child and found her statements to be unreliable “because of her lack of sadness or anxiety when reporting the incidents.”[4] An experienced evaluator also noted that “neither child avoided physical contact with [Father] and were comfortable being close to him physically.”[5] Still other well-trained and experienced evaluators found the oldest to be “very prepped,” and were struck by the incongruity of Oldest Child’s “ease, comfortable demeanor in discussing very disturbing topics.”[6]
With evidence of Mother’s manipulation and false allegations mounting, Mother retained Dr. Silberg.[7] Father moved for an order in limine to exclude Dr. Silberg and her testimony. A 7-day N.J.R.E. 104 hearing was conducted with the testimony and evidence recorded in what the appellate court described as “painstaking detail.”
Father presented the testimony of an expert who opined that Dr. Silberg’s interview of the child and the report she issued “violated the mandated procedures adopted by their profession.”[8] The expert went on to testify that Dr. Silberg failed to consider the full gamut of source materials, and that “the sources Dr. Silberg utilized, the short interview with mother, the fifty-minute interview with [Child] and the behavioral checklist mother prepared were insufficient sources for a forensic interview leading to a scientifically reliable conclusion.”[9] As the attorney’s examination of Father’s expert revealed and the Court found, Dr. Silberg in her testimony may have violated APA ethical code and guidelines that require knowledge of the area and use of established science, as well as those that prohibit bias.[10]
After extensive voir dire, the trial court noted inter alia:
(1) Before interviewing the child, Dr. Silberg spoke with Mother’s attorney, “who informed her of the ‘urgency’ in . . . issuing a report because father was seeking parenting time and [the] report was being used in support of mother’s opposition.”
(2) Prior to the interview with the child, Dr. Silberg spoke with Mother “for about twenty minutes about [Mother’s] sexual problems with father and that mother had told her it was consistent with what he did to the children.”
(3) Dr. Silberg had a “symptom checklist” that corroborated abuse, but it was the Mother, not the child, that responded to it.
(4) And, the only recording, audio, shut off many times during Dr. Silberg’s evaluation of the child.[11]
In entering his order excluding Dr. Silberg and her opinions, the trial judge noted:
The court finds Dr. Silberg’s conduct in doing an “urgency” interview was a deliberate attempt in haste to present [an] “opinion” to the court which had no scientific basis and clearly was not founded on the “totality of the circumstances” known to or should have been known to Dr. Silberg as mandated by the professional guidelines and requisite findings made by the New Jersey Courts …. Dr. Silberg by her interview tested no plausible “rival” hypothesis under the “totality of the circumstances” in this case.[12]
The court ultimately awarded sole custody to Father as well as attorney and expert fees of nearly two million dollars.
In the case M. v. S., Maryland, 2018, PsychLaw.net shows how Silberg’s reports concerning PA affected this case.
In M. v. S.,[13] Mother and Father had one child “J.” born in January 2010 and their divorce was finalized in December 2011. Under the terms of the 2011 decree, Mother was awarded sole physical custody of J., both parties shared legal custody, and Father was to be allowed visitation. Following their separation, Mother began to make allegations that Father had assaulted her and abused J. None of these allegations was substantiated by law enforcement or social services.[14] However, as protective orders had issued with many of these new allegations, Father was denied visitation with J. repeatedly and for extended periods of time.[15] During the time that Father did not see him, J. had become uncontrollable, was aggressive to others, and had been expelled from his preschool for behavioral reasons[16]. By January 2015, the circuit court had had enough and issued an order finding Mother in “willful contempt” for her “failure to permit” Father access to his child.[17]
Then, Mother sought out Dr. Silberg for therapy for J. and in July 2015, Dr. Silberg first requested Father not visit the child “for a couple of weeks,”[18] which turned into five months.[19] Then in contrast to a report from a court-ordered psychological evaluator, Dr. Silberg issued a report concluding that J. suffered from posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD).[20] The court ordered another evaluation from an experienced psychologist who concluded that J. suffered from disruptive behavior disorder but saw no evidence of abuse or anything that would have suggested abuse.[21]
The judge appointed a best interest attorney (BIA) for J. and in October of 2015 a custody evaluation was ordered. As part of the evaluation, a meeting that included the BIA, Father, Mother, the evaluator, and the child was scheduled in December 2015.[22] Mother defied the Court’s specific order to drop J. off at the front of the courthouse, parked “some distance away,” and when the evaluator and the child’s BIA found them, 5-year-old J. ran away.[23] Instead of going after the child, Mother telephoned Dr. Silberg “while recording the incident on her cell phone.”[24] A deputy sheriff finally caught the child who “started screaming” and punching the deputy, and told his mother upon his return that he “wouldn’t let them trick me.”[25]
As a result of Mother’s remarkable conduct, Father and the BIA filed a joint motion for emergency hearing alleging: “J.’s best interest had been ignored, that Dr. Silberg had breached applicable standards of care and should be replaced as J.’s therapist.”[26] The next day the judge entered an order regarding Christmas visitation.[27] Mother ignored parts of it, but finally delivered the child to Father in the evening, and over the next two days, Father was never alone with J. as there were always other family members present or they were in public.[28]
A subsequent second court-ordered visit, for New Year’s Day 2016, was missed because Mother reported that 6-year-old J. had been yelling and screaming so violently that he was taken to the hospital. During that hospitalization, Dr. Silberg filed a report with Child Protective Services (CPS), alleging that Father had abused J. during the Christmas visit when Father was never alone with J. Like all of Mother’s previous allegations, CPS thoroughly investigated this latest complaint, and as the judge wrote, the allegations were simply “ruled out.”[29] Days after the child’s hospitalization, the Court placed J. in the temporary legal and physical custody of his paternal uncle and aunt, and in their care J. displayed a marked improvement in behavior.[30]
The court then conducted a nine-day trial ending in May 2016. She went through reams of documents and heard from numerous witnesses.[31] Several witnesses described Mother’s emotional outbursts, melt-downs, and psychiatric illness.[32] According to the record, a psychiatrist who was ordered to evaluate the parties hypothesized that Mother’s emotional behavior and distortion of other people’s motives could trigger some of J.’s anger and emotional turmoil.[33]
During her testimony, Dr. Silberg opined that the child suffered from PTSD as a result of father’s physical and sexual abuse.[34] The court was concerned with Dr. Silberg’s refusal to accept alternative explanations for J.’s issues and expressed concern that Dr. Silberg seemed “unpersuaded” by the fact that J.’s “behavioral difficulties, acting out, disclosures of abuse, meltdowns, needs for psychiatric intervention, et cetera, had all but disappeared since J. was placed with his aunt and uncle.”[35] The judge noted that this seemed to have no impact on Dr. Silberg, who was completely credulous even for the most ridiculous statements the child made, “such as the dog unlocking the closet door.”[36]
The court also described Dr. Silberg as clearly biased, not credible, and with compromised professional boundaries.[37] Perhaps most striking, the judge characterized as a “most glaring example” of untruthful statements Dr. Silberg’s description of the scene when the child ran away at the courthouse, where Dr. Silberg described, contrary to other evidence, that Mother was “very appropriate in her talking to J. in encouraging him to please go to the appointment.”[38] The court countered: “This is clearly not what happened. I saw the video.”[39]
A skilled attorney preparing a voir dire could use the judge’s description of Dr. Silberg’s conduct to inquire into violations of the APA guidelines and its ethical code by letting bias affect her work, being untruthful and not using established science in presenting her professional opinion.[40] Indeed, after observing Dr. Silberg’s conduct, Judge Kramer wrote:
“The court finds Dr. Silberg’s testimony was not credible. She appears to have compromised her professional boundaries …. She gave advice to Mother that was personal and had no relevance to J.’s treatment …. There were statements in her report that were untrue and clearly biased toward Mother.”[41]
On the day the trial ended, Judge Kramer issued an order that Father would have sole legal and physical custody of J. and that Mother would be entitled to supervised visitation, which could only occur during therapy sessions with J.’s treating therapist, no more than once every two weeks.[42]
_______________________________________________________________________________________________________________
[1] K.M. v. S.M.M., No. A-0135-09Tf, 2011 WL 3176534, supra note 76 (N.J. Super. Ct. App. Jul. 28, 2011).
[2] Id.
[3] Id. at * 8.
[4] Id. at *9.
[5] Id.
[6] Id. at * 10.
[7] Id.
[8] Id. at *24-25.
[9] Id.
[10] Ethical Principles & Standards, supra note 47, at C, D, 2.03, 2.04, 9.01. Specialty Guidelines, supra note 48, at 2.02.
[11] K.M., 2011 WL 3176534, at * 22.
[12] Id. at * 23. For specific ethical rules an examining attorney could argue that Dr. Silberg may have violated see Ethical Principles & Standards, supra note 47, at D, 2.03, 2.04, 5.01, 9.01. Specialty Guidelines, supra note 48, at 2.02, 9.03, 11.01.
[13] Marks v. Schenk, No. 13-C-10-85215, 2018 WL 775420, at *1 (Md. Ct. App. Feb. 5, 2018).
[14] Id. (“Ever since [entry of the custody decree] Ms. [] had made numerous allegations that Mr. [] had abused J. and had assaulted her. None of those allegations had ever been substantiated. As a result of those repeated allegations, protective orders were granted, and Mr. [] was denied visitation with their son repeatedly and over extended time periods.”)
[15] Id.
[16] Id.
[17] Id. at *2.
[18] Id.
[19] Id.
[20] Id.
[21] Id. Note that after this experienced psychologist earned her doctorate with an emphasis on young children, she completed an internship and a two-and-a-half-year postdoctoral fellowship at the John Hopkins University School of Medicine – Department of Pediatrics and the prestigious Kennedy Krieger Institute – Department of Behavioral Psychology. She went on to become a staff psychologist, then Director of Clinical Services for the Behavior Management Clinic at Kennedy Krieger. During her tenure at the Institute, she provided direct clinical supervision and ongoing training of graduate level externs, doctoral level interns and postdoctoral fellows.
[22] Id.
[23] Id.
[24] Id.
[25] Id.
[26] Id.
[27] Id. at *3.
[28] Id.
[29] Id. at *7 n. 11.
[30] Id. at *3.
[31] Id. at *7 n. 11.
[32] Id. at *8-9 (“Mother … herself had been diagnosed with PTSD, has apparently suffered from that since she was a teenager …. A number of witnesses … testified about witnessing Mother having emotional outbursts or meltdowns in the past.”)
[33] Id. at *9.
[34] Id. at *7-8.
[35] Id. at *8.
[36] Id. at *8-9.
[37] Id. at * 9.
[38] Id.
[39] Id.
[40] Ethical Principles & Standards, supra note 47, at D, 2.04, 5.01.
[41] Marks, 2018 WL 775420, at *9.
[42] Id. at *6-7. The record is clear that the court heard from and trusted the opinions of many professionals in the case: Ms. Elizabeth Benitz, the visitation supervisor; Reagan Kinnear, Ph.D., the clinical psychologist from the Kennedy Krieger Institute; Doris Meredith, a social worker from the Howard County Department of Social Services and Douglas W. Heinrichs, M.D., the psychiatrist who evaluated the parties.