#WEHATETOLOSE

In June 1984, Frances Lucindy Ballard was arrested and later indicted on 38 charges—19 counts of aggravated rape and 19 counts of aggravated sexual battery—allegedly involving children at the Georgian Hills Day Care Center in Memphis, where she worked part-time in 1983–84.

She ultimately went to trial on 16 counts involving 11 children. After a six-week jury trial, she was convicted on just one count of aggravated sexual battery involving a single child.

On appeal, Ms. Kaufman challenged the trial court's decision to allow expert testimony from Dr. Richard Luscomb. He testified that several of the children showed symptoms consistent with post-traumatic stress syndrome and that, in his opinion, the “stressor” causing those symptoms was sexual abuse.

Ms. Kaufman argued there was no reliable scientific basis for using this syndrome to diagnose child sexual abuse, and that it wasn't generally accepted in the medical community for that purpose. More importantly, Ms. Kaufman warned that expert testimony like this carries a powerful “aura” of credibility. When a jury hears a medical expert say a child's behaviors match a trauma pattern linked to sexual abuse, it may give that opinion too much weight—even though the symptoms described (bed-wetting, nightmares, clinginess, fear, irritability, school discipline problems) are not unique to abuse and cannot identify a perpetrator.

Dr. Luscomb himself acknowledged the symptoms were not like a fingerprint—they could not pinpoint who committed a crime.

The Tennessee Supreme Court ultimately agreed with Ms. Kaufman that relying so heavily on this kind of opinion evidence was deeply concerning. The Court overturned Ballard's conviction and sent the case back to Shelby County for further proceedings.

Ms. Kaufman HATES to lose.