Oct. 12, 2011

In the digital age more than ever before, no bad idea ever dies. Consider (neo)Nazism, creationism and vaccine-caused autism.

Despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary, ritual sex abuse is still being promoted as a significant national peril.

The possibility of another episode of day-care hysteria – e.g., Little Rascals, McMartin, Fells Acres, Wee Care – has lessened but certainly not vanished. A repeat of history requires only an angry parent or two, an agenda-guided therapist and a fervid prosecutor.

April 10, 2016

“(Daniel Green’s) Durham-based defense team says it has new evidence that challenges major parts of the prosecution’s case, while bolstering their request for a new trial. They claim that misleading testimony and misconduct by the prosecutor and jury helped send Green to prison for (the 1993 murder of James Jordan) he did not commit.

“The evidence outlined in court documents includes… a sworn statement from the jury forewoman who admits she did her own investigation of Jordan’s murder, which violated a judge’s order. Paula Locklear says that during the trial, she visited the South Carolina creekside where the body was found and developed her own theory on how the killing occurred. A Charlotte legal expert says her action amounts to a ‘tremendous problem’ for the original case and could get Green’s conviction overturned….”

– From “New questions raised in slaying case of Michael Jordan’s father” by Michael Gordon and Mark Washburn in the Charlotte Observer (April 9) (cached)

Sound familiar? It should! As a juror in Bob Kelly’s trial, Dennis T. Ray not only conducted his own “crime” scene surveys, but also shared a Cosmopolitan article about how to identify child molesters, relayed incriminating claims from a jailhouse snitch and even displayed a supposed “magic key” described by child witnesses.

Unfortunately, Judge Marsh McLelland didn’t consider Ray’s rogue behavior – or that of a second juror, who dramatically revealed during deliberations that he himself had been abused as a child – to be a “tremendous problem.”

In fact, McLelland found precious few reasons to take issue with the prosecution’s case.

Read more here (cached here).

Nov. 5, 2014

Andrew Womble: 24,357 votes (53 percent)

Nancy Lamb: 21,411 votes (47 percent)

 I’d like to attribute Nancy Lamb’s defeat to her misbegotten role in the prosecution of the Edenton Seven. But  voters in the First Judicial District probably gave more weight to her being a Democrat and to her having allowed a backlog of cases during her time in the DA’s office.

Meanwhile in Massachusetts, another unrepentant promoter of the “satanic ritual abuse” day-care narrative, Martha Coakley, was defeated in her race for governor.

July 20, 2016

“Orr, a former state Supreme Court justice… angered party officials when he told a WRAL TV reporter that the nominee was ‘singularly unqualified to lead this country.’

State GOP Executive Director Dallas Woodhouse said Orr ‘hasn’t been a good Republican for a long time.’

“Orr said, ‘If I’d know there was some oath of loyalty, some code of omerta, where I couldn’t say anything against Trump, I probably wouldn’t have come.’”

– From “One NC delegate leaves GOP convention after criticizing Donald Trump” by Jim Morrill in the Charlotte Observer (July 19)

Orr’s willingness to break from the herd will be tested mightily in his efforts to undertake an external evaluation of the N.C. State Bar, which so eagerly finds ethics violations among innocence project lawyers but almost never among prosecutors….

Footnote: To the surprise of few, the N.C. Conference of District Attorneys supports restrictions on release of police body cameras and dashboard recordings.