Editing Satanic panic (section)

==Court cases==
{{Main |List of satanic ritual abuse allegations}}
Allegations of SRA have appeared throughout the world. In 1984, a large scale investigation and prosecution of ritual abuse in [[Jordan, Minnesota]] drew national attention for poor investigative and prosecutorial practices. A group of parents named Victims of Child Abuse Laws grew and gained political power.{{sfn|Brown|Scheflin|Hammond|1998|p=15}} The testimony of children in these cases may have led to their collapse, as juries came to believe that the sources of the allegations were the use of suggestive and manipulative interviewing techniques, rather than actual events. Research since that time has supported these concerns and without the use of these techniques it is unlikely the cases would ever have reached trial.<ref name=Donner/>

In one analysis of 36 court cases involving sexual abuse of children within rituals, only one quarter resulted in convictions, all of which had little to do with ritual sex abuse.<ref name=CA>{{cite news |last=Charlier |first=T |author2=Downing S  |year=1988 |title=Allegations Rife, Evidence Slight |newspaper=[[The Commercial Appeal]] |location=Memphis, TN}}; cited in Victor, 1993, p. 17.</ref> In a survey of more than 11,000 psychiatric and police workers throughout the US, conducted for the [[National Center on Child Abuse and Neglect]], researchers investigated approximately 12,000 accusations of ritual or religious abuse between 1980 and 1990. The survey found no substantiated reports of well-organized satanic rings of people who sexually abuse children, but did find incidents in which the ritualistic aspects were secondary to the abuse and were used to intimidate victims.<ref name="Goleman1994"/> Victor reviewed 21 court cases alleging SRA between 1983 and 1987 in which no prosecutions were obtained for ritual abuse.{{sfn |Victor |1993 |pp=355–61}}

During the early 1980s, some courts attempted ''[[ad hoc]]'' accommodations to address the anxieties of child witnesses in relation to testifying before defendants. Screens or [[closed-circuit television|CCTV]] technology are a common feature of child sexual assault trials today; children in the early 1980s were typically forced into direct visual contact with the accused abuser while in court. SRA allegations in the courts catalyzed a broad agenda of research into the nature of children's testimony and the reliability of their oral evidence in court. Ultimately in SRA cases, the coercive techniques used by believing district attorneys, therapists and police officers were critical in establishing, and often resolving, SRA cases. In courts, when juries were able to see recordings or transcripts of interviews with children, the alleged abusers were acquitted. The reaction by successful prosecutors, spread throughout conventions and conferences on SRA, was to destroy, or fail to take notes of the interviews in the first place.{{sfn |Nathan |Snedeker |1995 |pp=224–27}} One group of researchers concluded that children usually lack the sufficient amount of "explicit knowledge" of satanic ritual abuse to fabricate all of the details of an SRA claim on their own.<ref name=Goodman1997>{{cite journal |last1=Goodman |first1=Gail S. |author1-link=Gail Goodman |last2=Quas |first2=Jodi A. |last3=Bottoms |first3=Bette L. |last4=Qin |first4=Jianjian |last5=Shaver |first5=Phillip R. |last6=Orcutt |first6=Holly |last7=Shapiro |first7=Cheryl |year=1997 |title=Children's Religious Knowledge: Implications for Understanding Satanic Ritual Abuse Allegations |journal=Child Abuse & Neglect |volume=21 |issue=11 |pages=1111–1130 |doi=10.1016/S0145-2134(97)00070-7 |issn=0145-2134 |pmid=9422831}}</ref> However, the same researchers also concluded that children usually have the sufficient amount of general knowledge of "violence and the occult" to "serve as a starting point from which ritual claims could develop."<ref name=Goodman1997/>

In 2006, psychologist and attorney [[Christopher Barden]] drafted an ''amicus curiae'' brief to the [[Supreme Court of California]] signed by nearly 100 international experts in the field of human memory emphasizing the lack of credible scientific support for repressed and recovered memories.<ref>{{citation|last=Barden|first=R.&nbsp;C.|title=Amicus Brief in Taus v. Loftus|publisher=Supreme Court of California|date=21 February 2006}}</ref>