June 3, 2014

“I want all of you to ask yourselves: If you were to find yourself in the unfortunate circumstance of being the victim of a crime, who would you want representing your interest in the criminal justice system?

“Would you want someone like me, with 30 years experience as a veteran prosecutor, a person who has prosecuted every kind of criminal case there is?

“Or would you want someone like my opponent, whose entire criminal experience comes as in the role of being a criminal defense attorney, defending criminals who commit crimes against the people of the 1st District?”

– Little Rascals prosecutor Nancy Lamb, now a candidate for district attorney, comparing herself – most favorably! – with incumbent Andrew Womble

Lamb won the Democratic nomination for DA in last month’s primary and will face Republican Womble in the general election. Although her campaign website boasts that she has been  “nationally recognized for her work with child abuse,” it somehow neglects to mention her star turn in one of the country’s most publicized “satanic ritual abuse” prosecutions. Fortunately, the five months between now and Nov. 4 should provide ample opportunity for her to address that issue.

Feb. 8, 2019

Second of two parts

At the core of the recent McMartin expose “They Must Be Monsters: A Modern-Day Witch Hunt” is the authors’ meticulous tracing of how the fantasies of one paranoid schizophrenic mother, Judy Johnson, fostered the longest and most expensive criminal trial in American history.

But Johnson did not act alone. Toward the end of the book Matthew LeRoy and Deric Haddad recall interviewing psychiatrist Roland Summit in his office and confronting him with evidence that – contrary to his earlier denials — he had been deeply involved not only with supporting Johnson’s bizarre accusations but also with fostering them.

I asked Haddad what lay behind Summit’s deceit.

“I suspect he was trying to cover up that he had given false testimony under oath,” he said. “He’d testified that they ‘first met’ in February 1984 – but Judy’s own calendars revealed a relationship that went back a year earlier. He may have had an influence on her before she ever even dropped her son off at McMartin.

“So when he looked over her notes, that only we had possession of, he saw that we could prove he’d lied. He got really shaky….”

If he had concerns about his professional reputation, Summit surely had much to be shaky about, including his role in whipping up panic among parents and his insistence that McMartin Preschool sat above a network of abuse-enabling secret tunnels.

firstthings.com

Feb. 3, 2017

“Recall that after the 1970s there ensued a decade of moral panic over child sex abuse – including so-called satanic ritual abuse. Off-camera in The Exorcist [1973], the possessed Regan performed a Black Mass. In a film shot in the 1980s, her role in such satanic proceedings would have been quite opposite. In the mythology of that decade, the child is never a demon; the child is a victim of demons (i.e., pedophiles, satan-worshiping or not).

“Importantly, the tales of satanic ritual abuse that roiled the 1980s were nonsense, since discredited – as fantastical as any account of demonic possession. Yet they were believed, often beyond a reasonable doubt….”

– From “Fear of Children: What ‘The Exorcist’ Makes Us Confront” by Julia Yost at First Matters (Oct. 31, 2014)

Aug. 8, 2012

Five reasons the Little Rascals Day Care case has never attracted the attention it deserves:

■ Overshadowed by McMartin case.

■ No racial angle.

■ Remote location.

■ No death penalty.

■ No DNA.

One reason the case has attracted as much attention as it has:

■ “Innocence Lost” on “Frontline.” Thanks again, Ofra Bikel.