Karin Huffer

The book, Legal Abuse Syndrome written by Karin Huffer is the result of her experiences for over twenty years as a marriage and family counselor in private practice. What is unique about this book is that it addresses the victims of legal abuse from a psychologi-cal therapeutic perspective. The objective is to move the victim beyond their predicament into positive action and thinking. Ms. Huffer illustrates the abuses with the cases of seven victims of Legal Abuse Syndrome, detailing their pain and suffering and the various stages of the therapy they have undergone for recovery of their emotional health.

Ms. Huffer found that many victims of the legal system suffer from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. She identified this as Legal Abuse Syndrome, brought on by the abusive and protracted litigation, prevalent in our courts. According to Ms. Huffer you may be suffering from Legal Abuse Syndrome if you feel deeply disillusioned and oppressed as a result of your experience with the legal system; if you feel you were frustrated in obtaining justice; if you feel your dreams and plans for your life were torn from you by a system that is supposedly there to protect your rights and property; if you fear that the system will defeat you at every turn and there is nothing you can do about it, and if you feel that you have been victimized several times over, by the perpetrators, by lawyers, judges, bailiffs and other court personnel. As a consequence you may suffer from tension and anxiety, recurring nightmares you may feel emotionally an physically exhausted, numb, disconnected and vulnerable.

A central point of Ms. Huffers book is that the victims in America are not only assaulted by crime, but also by the abuses of power and authority administered by tax dollars intended to provide due process of law for the protection of civil rights. Ms. Huffer observes that not only does the justice system move slowly, but delays are used as strategy by attorneys to weaken their opposition economically and emotionally and to provide hefty fees for attorneys. Ms. Huffer notes that when courts fail as a consequence of officially sanctioned wrongdoing it leaves victims and vigilantes in its trail. The rage of these victims accumulates when they are not provided a satisfying place to turn to. She concludes that the enormous betrayals and inefficiencies that make up bureaucratic post-crime experiences are literally attacking the emotional health of the nation. She recommends that the community of American citizens adopt the following:

1.
Oppression and abuse of power are injurious to the health of the victims. Domination by abusers of bureaucratic power threatens the very functionality of the public and private sections in our country.

2.
Victims are not self interested, narcissistic folks who sit around and wallow in their losses. They are courageous individuals who face their pain and care to right the wrongs. They participate in the collision of evil and good as it is classically intended in order to achieve balance. Denial is popular, but far less responsible.

3.
Trust is a social staple that must be protected just as earth and water must be protected to provide for survival. When trust is damaged the community suffers and society as a whole will eventually falter and collapse (Bok). Veterans of crime must exude zero tolerance for lying in courtrooms, lying in political campaigns, lying to cover-up, and deceptions through omission and nonperformance by public officials and public servants.

LEGAL ABUSE SYNDROME, Kerin Huffer M.S., her website is www.legalabusesyndrome.com or www.legalabusesyndrome.org

A new cause of action that is a new bases for lawsuits is being accepted by the courts allowing cases to proceed on claims of "organic brain injury" caused by traumatic stress. An article appeared on this on November 11, 2002 in the National Law Journal. Click here to see full article. (and see below-Ed)

Harassment related emotional distress is being recognized in the work field upon which lawyers are now suing. To read the article by by Joni Johnston, Psy.D. Click here There is no reason why the same facts and reasoning should not apply to the harassment inflicted on victims in a lawsuit.

Personal Injury - New Ways to Win
An Emerging Cause of Action

Claims That Post-traumatic Stress
Has Created an Organic Brain Injury
Margaret Cronin Fisk
The National Law Journal
November 8, 2002

In lawsuits involving plane crashes, plaintiffs are prevented by the Warsaw Convention from recovering for purely emotional injuries. In many states, as well, recovery for emotional distress is severely limited. This can diminish the prospects for collecting damages for post-traumatic stress disorder.

But courts have now begun accepting claims of organic brain disease as an end-result of post-traumatic stress. In August 2001, for example, Delta Air Lines was hit with a $1.25 million verdict in a lawsuit brought by a woman who contended that the fright she experienced during a harrowing Delta flight caused a harmful chemical reaction in her brain. Following the flight, plaintiff Kathy Weaver began experiencing "psychotic flashbacks," in which she would continually relive the incident, reports plaintiffs' attorney Randy Bishop of Billings, Mont. She contended that the terror had a physical impact on her brain through the release of "excitotoxins" -- chemicals that kill brain cells.

In the pretrial order rejecting Delta's motion for summary judgment, U.S. District Judge Jack Shanstrom in Montana found that the plaintiff had provided sufficient proof, in the form of articles in scientific journals and expert reports, that "extreme stress causes actual physical brain damage," in particular, "physical destruction or atrophy of portions of the brain." The verdict was reduced to $75,000 and settled. Weaver v. Delta Air Lines Inc., No. CV 98 151BLGRFC (D. Mont.).

In January 2002, the Washington Court of Appeals ruled similarly in a separate case. Plaintiff Lein Trinh had been involved in an automobile accident in Seattle in which she was not hit, though one friend was killed and another injured. She contended that the emotional distress she experienced watching her friend die created physical manifestations, says plaintiff's attorney Betsylew Miale-Gix of Seattle's Adler Giersch.

Trinh had sought benefits from Allstate Insurance, but Allstate rejected the claim, contending that the uninsured motorist policy involved provided no coverage for emotional distress that was not a result of physical injury. The trial court agreed with Allstate and dismissed Trinh's claim.

The Washington appellate court, however, reversed, finding that "'bodily injury' includes emotional injuries that are accompanied by physical manifestations" and remanded the lawsuit to trial. In September, the Washington Supreme Court denied Allstate's petition for cert. No trial date has been set.

Decision: Trinh v. Allstate Insurance, No. 002105827 (King Co., Wash., Super. Ct.).

Proving a brain injury brought on by psychological stress can be difficult, Bishop notes. "Brain scans are not likely to demonstrate physiological change because any change occurs at the cellular level." Instead, he says, the plaintiff's attorney has to provide medical literature on the effect of such stress on the brain and accompany this with testimony and affidavits from physicians and experts.

In Trinh, adds Miale-Gix, the plaintiff also used the testimony of lay witnesses to establish the concrete physical manifestations she exhibited following the accident, including hair loss, weight loss and muscle spasms.

Articles
Redress, Inc. Organizational Philosophy
Emerging Defenses to Crime

Wells of Justice

A normal life?

By KELLY SMITH

06/05/2003

It has been seven months since Jeffrey Scott Hornoff walked out of prison a free man. With the clothes on his back, a small plastic bag of personal belongings and $500, he was ready to rebuild his life. Or was he?

The former Warwick Police officer, who was wrongfully convicted of the 1989 murder of Victoria Cushman, spent six and a half years of his life behind bars. His youngest son was born three months after he arrived, and every day that followed he wished and hoped and prayed for a miracle.

Fast forward to today. Since he was officially cleared of all charges in January after Todd Barry of Cranston stepped forward and confessed to the murder in November 2002, Hornoff has been reconnecting with his three sons, taking care of his mother, and spending time with his fiancée, Tina Dauphinais. He marvels at the things that have changed since he was in prison and continues to work on the hobby he picked up while incarcerated, drawing.

Hornoff now lives in Cranston with Dauphinais, whom he plans on marrying in September. He has no money, no job and recently discovered the City of Warwick has denied him his back pay, benefits and pension. Each day he endures the physical, emotional and financial heartache his wrongful imprisonment has brought on. Many of his days are consumed with networking and letter writing, doing whatever he can to help others like him and work on changing the system. He hasnt seen any of the movie or book offers so many expected he would receive.

Two of the groups that he and Dauphinais are involved with are The Innocence Project, an organization headed by renowned attorney Barry Scheck designed to free the innocent based on DNA evidence, and the Life After Exoneration Project. LAEP is an organization created after Scheck and Innocence Project partner Peter Neufeld began to notice a trend in exonerees being released from prison with nowhere to go and no idea what to do. It aims to make society aware that there is no rehabilitative system in place for exonerees and move forward with setting one up.

In fact, according to their website, as of today, The Innocence Project has successfully worked to free 128 innocent men and women and not a single one has received any transitional services upon release. However, parolees who were (maybe) guilty and served their time have any number of resources available to them, including healthcare, job placement and help with living arrangements.

According to Aliza Kaplan, deputy director of The Innocence Project, LAEP is still in the beginning stages, and, once the initial seed money has been raised and the project has established itself, it will branch out onto its own and begin to raise funds and set up social services for exonerees.

Life After Exoneration is still being created, and currently we are in the process of doing all the background work, she said. The goal will be to have a caseworker that personally advocates for each exoneree.

When asked why exonerees are not offered the same services as parolees, Kaplan said, Thats a very good question. They barely get an apology. The whole way the state deals with it is close to unbearable.

In an effort to jumpstart this cause, The Innocence Project held a conference in New York City May 8-11. It invited all of its exonerees to attend. Although Hornoff was released because Barry stepped forward, he had hoped that DNA would be his key to freedom. He continues to work closely with the organizations that help exonerees, and he and Dauphinais were invited to attend the convention.

Sponsored entirely by Jason and Wendy Flom, a New York couple who also wants to see justice served for the innocent wrongly accused, the weekend set up workshops where exonerees and supporters talked about many of the different things on their mind, including what type of services they think exonerees should be entitled to upon their release, invited them to attend a fundraiser for LAEP, and provided everyone with tickets to The Exonerated, a play written solely from letters to home and trial transcripts from exonerees.

By the end, everyone was crying, at least all the exonerees and their supporters, said Dauphinais.

Although while in New York City the couple met a number of celebrities, including Gwyneth Paltrow, Ed Norton, Selma Hayek, Tim Daly (he starred in the play) and NYPD Blue producer Bill Clark, the best part was meeting the other exonerees.

A lot of them I had seen in newspaper articles and magazines, he said. Tina would download them from the Internet or send the clippings. They gave us hope. They gave us inspiration.

The couple talked about exoneree Eddie Joe Lloyd. Released after DNA evidence from a cigarette butt cleared him from the rape and murder of a 17-year-old girl, after testing from the rape kit test was considered inconclusive, Lloyd appeared on The Today Show. Both watched it at the same time and spoke on the phone shortly after. If it could happen for him, it could happen for Hornoff.

I remember sitting on my bunk watching him on The Today Show, he said. I was really happy for him and for his family. But, I kept wondering, Whens it going to be my turn?

When they met Lloyd, they hugged.

It was an honor, said Dauphinais.

While the weekend was somewhat therapeutic for Hornoff, he knows there is still a lot of work to be done. His already bad back worsened after six and a half years of sleeping on a metal cot and flimsy mattress, and he has yet to see a doctor. No healthcare services are available to him, and whatever free mental health counseling that might be available to him could never meet his needs for treatment related to post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) or legal abuse syndrome.

According to marriage and family therapist and author of the book Overcoming the Devastation of Legal Abuse Syndrome, Karin Huffer, legal abuse syndrome, a phrase she coined, is the mistreatment of individuals by the legal system due to the power it has over them.

I could see that it was similar to PTSD, she said in a telephone interview from her office in Las Vegas. When you walk into a situation where you have much less power compared to the system, there is always a chance for abuse.

Huffer said overcoming the devastation of legal abuse syndrome has been recognized by many professionals and most agree that the individuals that are abused to the extent that they are wrongfully imprisoned suffer greatly from PTSD.

PTSD was first used to describe war veterans upon their return. Many had reoccurring nightmares about the war, difficulty sleeping and could not readjust easily to normal life. Nowadays, PTSD is used to describe the mental condition suffered after a person has lived through any traumatic experience.

Huffer said an exonerees experience in prison is more like that of a prisoner of war. Much like a POW, or any other soldier that has been away from home, when an exoneree returns to society they find that nothing was how they left it and life has gone on without them. They are haunted by what they have seen and what they have been through. Putting an innocent person in prison, said Huffer, is like putting someone in a battlefield. In relationship to Hornoff, Huffer said he most likely has gone through a series of changes, and getting past his wrongful imprisonment will take time.

To begin with, she said, all of his bodys chemistry has changed as a result of this. He is mentally, physically and emotionally exhausted because he has been unable to treat it. He still has no way to process this. As part of getting over this trauma, society has to do the right thing.

Huffer went on to say that it is societys job to restore him and part of that process is to say were sorry. That is tough for us to do because we lost the ability to say were sorry and instead we try to just descend the wrong.

Hearing Im sorry facilitates his healing, she said. By not getting it, it adds more abuse and prevents his recovery.

While in prison, Hornoff lost the ability to make choices. Not just on the surface, as he never chose what clothes to wear, what meals to eat, when to go outside or where to go when he did, but mentally he forgot how. Now, a trip to the grocery store can be overwhelming. While it can be exciting to think about the many different cheeses, the vast array of cereal and the numerous kinds of cookies, Hornoff often finds he cant decide which brand to buy. Which chips would he prefer, salt and vinegar or B-B-Q? Ooh, how about sour cream and onion? Lays, Wise, Pringles? Rippled or plain?

Another thing that has been hard for Hornoff is the tremendous loss of a career.

I didnt just lose a job, he said. I lost a career. I chose to be a police officer. I went to school and chose that path for myself.

Hornoff said that although he is always a police officer in his heart, he doubts he could ever go back.

Speaking of having a chosen career, one of the struggles Hornoff has faced is the burning question everyone keeps asking: Why hasnt he found a job yet? The answer is more complicated than it might seem. For starters, Hornoff said he has been keeping busy doing the things he feels he must do. He has written letters to Judge Mark Pfeiffer of the Rhode Island Supreme Court requesting that officials turn over the grand jury transcripts his friend, Paul Rossier, was granted access to more than six years ago. Rossier is serving time for sexual assault. While in prison together, Rossier told Hornoff the act was consensual and he feels the transcripts will prove lies and inconsistencies made by East Providence Police. As a result of Hornoffs efforts, Rossier has been granted a hearing. The first two were postponed, but a third is set for tomorrow. Hornoff said he also sent letters to Attorney General Patrick Lynch requesting that he appoint an independent investigator just as happened in 1995 with the Warwick Police Department.

Patrick Lynch instead forwarded my request to Governor Carcieri, who forwarded it to the state police internal affairs, and they contacted me, he said. I told them I dont think they are able to investigate their own any better than Warwick was able to and that I still intended to pursue seeking an independent investigation into the state police detectives conduct and misconduct [during his investigation and trial].

Hornoff feels there was an effort to convict him, regardless of whether he was innocent or guilty, even if it meant using manipulation and deceit.

Aside from spending his time reaching out to different groups and fighting to help others he believes are wrongfully imprisoned, he has been speaking at different colleges and universities. So far, he has talked with students at Salve Regina, Roger Williams, Boston University and the University of Massachusetts at Amherst. It is, he said, what he needs to do.

Ive been putting myself out there to the colleges and universities to let them know I am interested in speaking at their school to guest lecture and/or teach, said Hornoff. I really feel its part of my new path to educate people who are or are going to be making the same decisions such as the ones that led to my wrongful imprisonment. At the same time, Im still trying to de-program myself. My family and I have gone through a terrible ordeal. But I am a good dad. My boys and I have a really good time.

Ive been putting myself out there, he continued. Ive looked into a couple of different positions and Ive been extremely disappointed. But remember, it was only recently the City of Warwick denied me my back pay and benefits, and Ive been dealing with that.

Hornoff said prior to his release many people told him not to be surprised if the mayor and the chief of police were outside the courthouse with a check for him waiting to shake his hand.

That didnt happen, he said.

Instead, he said, people approach him all the time letting him know they are upset with the city for not giving him his back pay and benefits.

They want to express their frustration with the city and the mayor for not giving me my back pay, benefits and pension, he said.

Hornoff and Dauphinais said it is most difficult for them to get people to understand that it isnt just as easy as filling out a job application. Readjustment takes time.

Were trying to get across what it is about exonerees that is different, said Dauphinais. They suffer from legal abuse syndrome. They have been locked up, all control has been taken away from them and then they are supposed to just be thankful for getting out? We are very thankful, but freedom isnt free. We saw this same kind of thing with POWs. Thats what happens when you are wrongfully imprisoned. Youre a POW battling the legal system and society because now youve been portrayed to look like a murderer, a rapist or a child molester. People cannot conceive that. They have no concept of how horrible that really was.

However, Dauphinais also was adamant about making sure the public doesnt look at Hornoff like he cannot function or that there is something wrong with him. In fact, Huffer said it would be abnormal if he werent experiencing this.

Scott has PTSD, but it doesnt mean he cant be a good guy, she said. He doesnt want people to think hes nuts. Hes normal. He can function, but in a limited kind of way. His boundaries have changed and hes trying to figure out what that line is. It takes time. Hes doing incredibly well, but still has issues hes working on. He needs to figure out where he needs to go, and that takes time.

Dauphinais said that anyone who has difficulty truly understanding Hornoffs experience ought to lock themselves in their bathroom and imagine what it would be like to be in there for 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

How would you feel? People expect him to go to just any counselor, said Dauphinais. But no, you cant. You need counselors who know about this [PTSD] and the experts all cost beaucoup bucks. Theyre not taking people for free. People think there is so much [help] out there, but with no children in the house he gets nothing. Its been the same way across the country.

As a result of all these factors, Hornoff has struggled financially. The National Police Defense Foundation has set up a fund in his name that will help him with his living expenses. The NPDF is a non-profit organization that, according to its website, sets out to provide important medical and legal support services to the national law enforcement community, as well as administer several NPDF law enforcement programs involving public safety and child safety programs. The NPDF Executive & Advisory Board is composed of all volunteers and represents distinguished elected officials as well as the directors of several law enforcement, civil rights and community organizations. While in New York, the couple had the opportunity to stop by NPDFs annual awards ceremony, where Hornoff was honored with a Profile in Courage award. Coincidentally, the ceremony was in NYC at the same time and the couple managed to find time to stop by Thursday night.

I accepted that award on behalf of my mom, Tina and my boys, he said. They were the real courageous ones.

All donations are 100 percent tax deductible and go directly to Hornoff.

I submit receipts for living expenses, said Hornoff, and theyll reimburse me out of that fund. Everyone thought that when I got out Id be a walking goldmine. [They thought Id be offered] book and movie deals. Thats not the case. Because my record still hasnt been cleared, I cant even open a checking account.

Hornoff and Dauphinais are hopeful that in time, once LAEP spreads it message and establishes programs for others that fall in Hornoffs shoes, these types of funds wont need to be set up.

Hes like a POW coming back and life has gone on without him, said Dauphinais. He has done really well, but it is a lot harder than people think. When Scott was released, he had $500 in a bank account. He had no clothes and needed to spend $200 just on a new wardrobe. There is nothing out there for these men and women. The VA is set up for soldiers, but there is nothing for exonerees.

Donations can be sent to The Scott Hornoff Fund, NPDF, 21 Kilmer Drive, Bldg. 2, Suite F, Morganville, NJ 07751. Credit card donations can be made by dialing 1-888-SAFECOP. For information on or to order Huffers book, Overcoming the Devastation of Legal Abuse Syndrome, call 1-800-829-8969. Information on The Innocence Project can be found at www.theinnocenceproject.org

Truth in Justice