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Extracted Text (OCR)
Case 1:20-cr-00330-PAE Document 424 Filed 11/08/21 Page6of41
As to Dr. Rocchio’s opinions, Dr. Dietz offers the following responsive opinions:
99 66s
e The word “grooming” “imputes motive and intent without adequate evidence of
either,” including to the defendant. (Ex. A at 3).
e “[G]rooming has no consistent definition, and concerns have been raised that there is
no valid method to assess whether grooming has occurred or is occurring.” (/d. at 4
(citation and internal quotation marks omitted)).
e “In any particular population of alleged victims, patients, or plaintiffs—including those
whom Dr. Rocchio has treated or evaluated—the determination of whether grooming
has occurred is a subjective judgment hinging largely on the credibility of individuals.
Such judgments have no known error rate and cannot be tested, verified, or
reproduced.”
e “There is no generally accepted theory of grooming by third parties,” and it is not
accepted in the relevant community. “[I]t has not and cannot be tested; and there is no
known or potential rate of error.”
e The notion that “individuals with particular vulnerabilities are often targeted by
perpetrators of sexual abuse” is ‘“‘a commonly accepted bit of clinical lore” that is “not
based on empirical data.”
As explained below, the Government agrees that Dr. Dietz may offer an opinion on the difficulty
of accurately determining whether an act constitutes grooming, in response to Dr. Rocchio.
Although his remaining opinions purport to respond to Dr. Rocchio, however, they are themselves
unreliable or invade the province of the jury, and should be precluded.
Beyond his response to Dr. Rocchio’s opinions, Dr. Dietz offers several additional
opinions, to which the Government objects as discussed herein. As to “hindsight bias,” Dr. Dietz
opines:
e Hindsight bias, or “the tendency to overestimate how predictable or foreseeable an
event is after being informed about the outcome of an event,” exists and has been found
in various experiments. (Ex. A at 4-5).
e Hindsight bias “affects legal judgments.” (dd. at 5).
DOJ-OGR-00006217
Extracted Information
Dates
Document Details
| Filename | DOJ-OGR-00006217.jpg |
| File Size | 711.6 KB |
| OCR Confidence | 94.1% |
| Has Readable Text | Yes |
| Text Length | 2,103 characters |
| Indexed | 2026-02-03 17:08:29.854140 |