Oct. 9, 2013

“We are a society that, every 50 years or so, is afflicted by some paroxysm of virtue – an orgy of self-cleansing through which evil of one kind or another is cast out.   From the witch-hunts of  Salem to the communist hunts of the McCarthy era to the current shrill fixation on child abuse, there runs a common thread of moral hysteria.

“After the McCarthy era, people would ask: But how could it have happened?  How could the presumption of innocence have been abandoned wholesale? How did large and powerful institutions acquiesce as congressional investigators ran roughshod over civil liberties – all in the name of a war on communists?  How was it possible to believe that subversives lurked behind every library door, in every radio station, that every two-bit actor who had belonged to the wrong political organization posed a threat to the nation’s security?

“Years from now people doubtless will ask the same questions about our present era – a time when the most improbable charges of abuse find believers; when it is enough only to be accused by anonymous sources to be hauled off by investigators; a time when the hunt for child abusers has become a national pathology.”

– From “From the Mouths of Babes to a Jail Cell” by Dorothy Rabinowitz (Harper’s Magazine, May 1990)

Jan. 25, 2012

I’ve heard again from the anonymous caller who responded to my ad in the Elizabeth City Advance addressing children involved in the Little Rascals case.

The caller reiterated her certainty that she had been sexually abused by Bob Kelly, but – to my shock – she expressed doubts about the degree of involvement of other defendants, especially the young women who worked at the day care.

“I don’t hold any grudges against them,” she said. “I think he made them do whatever they did – it wasn’t on their own.”

Why then would these women choose to stay imprisoned, when testifying against Bob Kelly would’ve won them instant freedom?

“They were scared of him,” she said.

Does that seem probable? Or even conceivable?

Robin Byrum, 19 when she was arrested, spent almost a year in jail before her bond was reduced from $500,000 to $200,000. Meanwhile, her husband took care of their 7-month-old son.

In “Innocence Lost: The Plea” (1997), Byrum explained why she had been tempted by but repeatedly refused the prosecutors’ deal: “…. I would not ever have to be separated from my child again. But then I’d have to live with the rest of my life that I (said I) did something when I didn’t do it.”

April 22, 2013

“Lecturing recently, I mentioned the American witch-hunts of the 1980s and 1990s. When the audience looked puzzled, I explained that I was referring to the Satanic Panic of those years, the wave of false charges concerning ritual child abuse and devil cults that made regular headlines in the decade after 1984. The explanation helped little.

“Even people who had lived through those years, who had been following the media closely, had precisely no recollection. Lost in memory it may be, but the Satanic Panic needs to be remembered, if only to prevent a renewed outbreak of this horrible farrago. And when better than in the 30th anniversary of the affair’s beginning?

“It all started in southern California, in Manhattan Beach, in the Fall of 1983….”

– From “Remember the Satanic Panic” (Jan. 9, 2013) by Philip Jenkins, Distinguished Professor of History at Baylor University, on Real Clear Religion

I share Dr. Jenkins’ concern about public memory, of course.

Which are more worrisome – those who have no recollection at all of cases such as McMartin and Little Rascals, or those who have forgotten they all were hoaxes?

Dec. 3, 2012

Exoneration is in the air!

From Texas to New York – and of course here in North Carolina – more and more prosecutorial abuses are being dug up, dusted off and exposed to long-delayed doses of daylight.

If you’re keeping score, the National Registry of Exoneration has just hit quadruple digits – that’s Bob Kelly, Dawn Wilson and 998 other wrongfully convicted defendants.

So what are the prospects that the State of North Carolina will at last release a Duke-lacrosse-style statement of innocence for the Edenton Seven?

Since last summer, when my petition was kissed off by Mark Davis, general counsel to Gov. Bev Perdue, and I was advised to try Attorney General Roy Cooper, not a peep has been heard in response. It would take a greater optimist than me to believe this silence suggests ongoing thoughtful contemplation.

As the governor prepares to leave office, a valued ally of littlerascalsdaycarecase.org used his access to lobby on behalf of the defendants. But pardon applications have been torrential, he was told, and the Edenton Seven case isn’t among those Perdue is considering.

That still leaves the attorney general – or does it, Mr. Cooper?