Sept. 4, 2014

“The evidence you heard today in my opinion negates the evidence presented at trial…. Based upon this new evidence, the state does not have a case to prosecute….”

– Johnson Britt, Robeson County (N.C.) district attorney, acceding to release of two defendants cleared by DNA testing after serving almost 31 years each for the rape and murder of a 11-year-old girl

“You find a cigarette, you say it has (a different suspect’s) DNA on it, but so what? It’s just a cigarette, and absent some direct connection to the actual killing, what have you got? Do you have exoneration? I don’t think so….

“It’s a tragic day for justice in Robeson County…. Apparently the district attorney just threw up his hands and capitulated.” More here.

– Now-retired DA Joe Freeman Britt (no relation to Johnson Britt), acknowledging not an iota of doubt – “None. None.” – that the two men he prosecuted in 1984 were guilty as charged

Hats off to Johnson Britt for breaking the prosecutorial code of arrogance (although that’s always easier when the mistake happened on a predecessor’s watch).

And what is there to say about Joe Freeman Britt, the coldblooded “deadliest prosecutor in America”?

What I wish I could say is that his willfully blind resistance to exoneration is rare. But of course it isn’t.

Sept. 1, 2015

 “(As witnesses) children are even less likely to be believed when their stories involve extremes of sadism, collusion among families and communities (sometimes extending over several generations) and so-called ritual or cult abuse – including the torture and killing of animals to frighten children into silence – that are so terrible that authorities decide these things just can’t be true.

“Yet many instances of such ‘incredible’ crimes are documented, sometimes by adults after years of suppressed memory, sometimes by authorities who are now beginning to believe children enough to investigate their stories…..”…

– From “Revolution From Within: A Book of Self-Esteem” by Gloria Steinem (1993)

Steinem’s semi-autobiography was a best-seller, both profiting from and contributing to the nation’s heightened concern with self-esteem.

In addition to using Ms. magazine to tout the existence of “ritual abuse,” she also helped finance the search for the imaginary McMartin tunnels.

Jan. 22, 2018

“Sex offenders have a relatively low rate of committing the same sex crime after being released from prison. Yet policymakers often base policies on rearrest rates or the fear that sex offenders are more likely than other convicted criminals to commit the same crime after release….”

– From “Justice Alito’s misleading claim about sex offender rearrests” by Michelle Ye Hee Lee in the Washington Post (June 21, 2017)

As far as I’ve been able to tell, not a single one of the defendants in the Little Rascals, McMartin, Fells Acres, Wee Care, etc., cases has been accused of later sexual offenses – or had been accused of earlier offenses. How could the serial perpetrators of such outrageous crimes possibly have avoided recidivism for a quarter-century?

Dec. 14, 2011

Among the leaders of the Committee for Support of the Edenton Seven was Doug Wiik, whose own Breezy Point Day School in Bucks County, Pennsylvania, had just been cleared of similar abuse accusations. I asked him to compare the two cases.

“I remember that Barbara Fleischman, a dear friend who had moved to North Carolina from Bucks County, called to let me know that the child abuse contagion had reared its head in Edenton.

“Having been deeply affected by my personal experience, I felt the need to reach out. I read about Raymond Lawrence’s formation of the Edenton Seven committee, and after several discussions with him and Dee Swain (a fuel dealer in Washington, N.C.) I was truly inspired to do what I could. I was gratified to find individuals who would fight the injustice being perpetrated upon the Kellys.

“The eventual outcome in Little Rascals was the correct one, but the damage done to many individuals was enormous. We all have a list of heroes in our lives, and Bob Kelly and Dawn Wilson certainly were added to mine. Both stood firm in speaking truth to a community that lacked leadership in politics and law enforcement….

“The Edenton case and my own were just two of many produced by the 1980s culture. It happened in Salem 300 years ago, and it will happen again some day.

“So why did my child care business survive, when so many others didn’t?

“We had the exact same claims of horrors perpetrated against children. We had the same media coverage that initially proclaimed ʻChildren don’t lie.ʼ We had the same overzealous child abuse investigators from the county Department of Children and Youth Services. We had the identical mass hysteria.

“But we also had leadership! District Attorney Alan Rubenstein was a seeker of justice, not political gain. He conducted a long, expensive criminal investigation, one that branded the parents’ and children’s claims as false and reckless.

“I’d also be remiss if I didn’t mention my employees and our parent community, who all knew nothing had happened at Breezy Point. They went on camera, wrote letters to editors and participated in several large meetings answering all questions about our school.

“My experience lasted five or six years, caused lots of heartache and did much financial damage. However, Breezy Point Day School still opens at 7 a.m. and closes at 6 p.m. every day and is still filled with several hundred happy children, parents and staff.

“It’s a shame Bob and Betsy Kelly chose Edenton, North Carolina, to open a child care business and not Bucks County, Pennsylvania.”

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Later this week I’ll post excerpts from the DA’s 1990 investigative report, along with a few of his recollections (he’s now a judge).