Talk:Martin Blinder

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I removed the following from the page:

" and his psychiatric evaluation of the Varian Medical Systems SLAPP plaintiffs Susan B. Felch and George A. Zdasiuk in the landmark California Supreme Court case Varian v. Delfino"

Several google searches really don't show any evidence that anyone care sbout his involvement with this case other than, perhaps, Delfino himself.

kmccoy (talk) 10:50, 12 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Dr. Blinder also became notorious for glib and shocking statements he made to the media in connection with his court appointed competency evaluation of a six year old accused of attempted murder of a baby in Oakland back in 1996. In these inappropriate comments, some of which are contained in a Frontline interview with him available online [[1]], he suggested that this kid was genetically inferior and should be locked up foreover. In his defense, however, Dr. Blinder, assumed, like just about everyone else involved in this case except his attorney John Burris, that this kid actually committed this offense and was not set up, as those mentally disabled or subject to undue influence often are, by others. Thus he posits that if a six year weighing 60 pounds was capable of causing this damage, something reasonable jurors would have a hard time finding generally, then what is he going to do as an adult? Leaving aside that Dr. Blinder's role as a competency evaluator was not to expound, particularly to the media, on the defendant's guilt or innocence or ruminate on possible sentencing, maybe a more reasonable hypothesis is that the kid didn't do it, but that his 11 year old accusers, who did have more of the physical assets and potential psychology to commit this act, had something to do with it (was that kid even capable of riding the stolen bike?). After all, how many times have we seen mentally retarded people goaded into confessing to things they didn't do? Shouldn't the same skepticism be accorded to admissions by six year old kids? Thus it was disappointing that all those who commented on this sad episode, from whatever perspective and opinion, did not even broach this basic issue, while completely disregarding the presumption of innocence in the process.Tom Cod 16:19, 21 August 2007 (UTC)