The unanimous ruling by the Court of Appeals is a blow to the controversial practice of using repressed memories as evidence in criminal and civil cases, legal experts said. The seven judges ruled that there was not enough evidence to support the theory of repression....Although state law requires people to file suit within three years of an offense, the women's lawyers maintained that the courts should allow the women to bypass the statute of limitations because they did not remember the alleged abuse until 1992. But the court rejected the argument after examining scientific studies of repression theory. "We are unconvinced that repression exists as a phenomenon separate and apart from the normal process of forgetting," wrote Judge Robert L. Karwacki. The judges noted that the psychological community is divided on the issue and that there is no definitive evidence that repression exists. They also raised questions about people's ability to recover intact memories "from the cold storage of repression." Critics have alleged that some therapists who try to help people recover memories actually manipulate the process of recollection, leading patients to remember things that never happened.