The Morphological Case

Inga-Lisa, injured party, b. 1973, stepdaughter
The district court, 1991-05-29, convicted unanimous
The court of appeal, 1992-06-18 convicted unanimous
The Supreme Court, 1993-02-16, rejection of appeal

The morphological method has two aspects. First, a set of all possible alternatives must be defined. Second, each alternative must be rather well explicated. - It is not a necessary condition that the alternatives must be defined in terms of dichotomies, although this was done in the present case. Three dichotomies will give rise to 16 logical alternatives. Eight of these involve that no crime had been committed, and three further ones are contradictory. What remains are the 5 alternatives listed below.

16-year-old Inga-Lisa went on vacation on 1989-06-19. Her mother and stepfather thought that she would go to her biological father, as had been agreed. Instead she went to her cousin. Her parents think that this cousin had a bad influence on her. When they learned where she had gone, they ordered her to come home immediately. On 1989-06-25 Inga-Lisa reported her stepfather to the police because of sexual abuse. She claimed that the sexual abuse had been going on since she was 7 years old. She also told the police that the abuse had ended on March 1st 1989. On 1989-07-23 she permanently moved to her biological father. The first police interrogation took place on 1989-08-29.

During this interrogation she thinks at first that March 1st must be a mistaken date. But later she recalls that something else happened on March 1st. Her stepfather had called her friend "Damned moron!" The girls had considered whether to report this to the police, because Inga-Lisa wanted to "hit back". But she could hit back much more efficiently by another kind of a police report. During the proceedings in the court of appeal she revealed the outrageous hate she felt towards her stepfather. She is definitely not the kind of a girl who will easily submit to anything she does not like to do. In other words, a calendar date that was unambiguously connected with a non-sexual event, was completely transformed into an accusation of sexual abuse and a police report.

The most serious assault was that the stepfather had allegedly licked her genitals on three occasions. – The verb "lick" occurs in 14 statements during the police interrogation. But it should be noted that 13 out of these 14 statements were made by the police officer. In the beginning Inga-Lisa merely complains of her stepfather's "wet kisses". The interrogator is the one who transforms this into licking. Not until eleven pages later does she say that he licked her between the legs on a few occasions. This is the only time she herself introduces the word "lick" into this interrogation. "Licking" is also absent in the original police report. This is so despite the fact that Inga-Lisa recurrently talks about sexual abuse, viz. about fondling on the outside of her cloths and wet kisses.

She does not know if her stepfather masturbated while he licked, because then it would have been necessary to raise her head and look at what he did. [!] She is asked to describe their position. But she cannot tell anything about the latter, except that she was lying in the bed while her stepfather was semi-reclining on the bed. The interrogator suggests that she should draw the positions. And then she asks for photos as an aid for drawing. [!] In the end she is given dolls. After some trial-and-error she finds - in contradiction to her verbal account - that the stepfather was kneeling on the floor.

She said that at the first licking assault she did not realise what was about to happen when her stepfather pulled off her pants. At the second assault she was equally ignorant, because she had meanwhile forgotten what happened the previous time. But Inga-Lisa also presents quite a different version. On one occasion, and possibly on all three occasions, she wanted something in return for accepting the assault. (Probably she wanted to come home somewhat later.)

A morphological analysis of both versions is informative. Inga-Lisa could have told the truth or not about (a) the licking, (b) her ignorance, and (c) wanting something in return. Besides, the discussion or negotiation about what she was to be offered in return for the assault could have occurred (d) before or after her pants were pulled down. These four dichotomies will yield an exhaustive list of 16 alternatives. Eight of these involve that no crime was committed, and 3 are contradictory. As a result there are 5 and only 5 patterns that are compatible with a correct conviction:

		(I)Inga-Lisa told the truth about all four constituents: the licking, her ignorance, the return favour, and the pulling down of her pants. First the return favour was negotiated. Then Inga-Lisa experienced black-out and amnesia, so that she did not understand was why her stepfather pulled down her pants. (II)Inga-Lisa told the truth about all four constituents. But the first thing that happened was that the stepfather pulled down her pants. However, when he would just about to use his tongue, she stopped him, and then they discussed the return favour. (III)Inga-Lisa told the truth about the licking, the return favour, and the pulling down of her pants. But she lied about her ignorance. (IV)Inga-Lisa told the truth about the licking, the ignorance, and the pulling down of her pants. But she lied about the return favour. (V)Inga-Lisa told the truth about the licking and the pulling down of her pants. But she lied about her ignorance and about the return favour. [Q-30:1]

Inga-Lisa's temporal information about the end and the frequency of the abuse is markedly contradictory. (a) Perhaps they primarily stopped in autumn 1988, but a few ones happened during spring 1989. (b) They stopped on March 1st, 1989. (c) They stopped 3-4 weeks before the trip in the summer (which, as stated above, started on June 19th, 1989. (d) They stopped a few days before the trip in the summer. (e) Inga-Lisa is convinced that they would continue if she went home after the trip. (f) Her stepfather performs an assault each and every night when he is sleeping at home; he is studying at a university in another town and lives there five days a week.

The last assertion entails a frequency of more than ten assaults a month. If (c), (d) or (f) are true, Inga-Lisa must have suffered from amnesia when she told (a) and (b).

One of her recounts deserves a literal quotation:

		"No, but he had said, let me see, yes, actually he said in April, May, that he would like to see me naked. / And then I understood, because I have been thinking that maybe I have dreamt these things because I hate him so much. / This is what I have been thinking: perhaps I have just imagined all this. But then the whole thing became certain, that I knew, that I assumed, well, that it's true." [Q-30:2]

The district court appointed the leader of the group of pseudo-witness-psychologists, Egil Ruuth (not a pseudonym), for evaluating the girl's trustworthiness. In his written investigation the same theme of dreaming and subsequently becoming sure, is also found:

		"Inga-Lisa has sometimes thought that she had dreamt that she was exposed to assaults by her stepfather. What made her completely convinced that she had not dreamt, however, was an event that occurred in the spring [1989]. She was in her room reading a book. She recalls the title, ("Thursday Children, part 1"). Then her stepfather said that he would like to see her naked. At precisely that moment one of her schoolmates rang the door bell." [Q-30:3]

According to the pseudo-witness-psychologist this "concrete detail" about "an approaching assault interrupted by an external chance event" constitutes strong evidence for the truth of the sexual accusation.

But if 8½ years of recurrent assaults could not convince Inga-Lisa that she had not dreamt the abuse, it is enigmatic that a single statement and a door-bell could produce such a conviction.

It is frightening that the fate of human beings is dependant on judges who are incapable of perceiving that the assessment of this expert is bogus science.





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Uppdaterad: 2009-11-19

Yakida