Feb. 1, 2012

The HBO documentary “Paradise Lost 3: Purgatory”  surely deserves its Oscar nomination, although the only edge it holds over Ofra Bikel’s “Innocence Lost” trilogy of the ’90s is its happy-tears finale: the three defendants walking out of prison.

After much lawyering, the West Memphis Three in August accepted an Alford plea that allowed them to go free,  while protecting the state of Arkansas from a wrongful-imprisonment  suit and the national embarrassment of a retrial.

I had to laugh at this exchange from the ensuing press conference:

Reporter: “Will the state continue to investigate this case if additional information is brought forth, or is the case closed?”

Prosecutor Scott Ellington: “I have no reason to believe there was anyone else involved in the homicides of these three children but the three defendants who pled guilty today.”

Defense attorney Dennis Riordon: “Does anyone believe that if the state had even the slightest continuing conviction they were guilty that it would have let these men go free today?”

If H.P. Williams Jr., Nancy Lamb and Bill Hart were watching – unlikely, given the spotlight shone on unjust prosecution – no doubt they would have admired Ellington’s resolve in the face of reality.

May 25, 2012

“Maggie Bruck, co-author of ‘Jeopardy in the Courtroom: A Scientific Analysis of Children’s Testimony’ and a professor of psychiatry at Johns Hopkins University, says no long-term psychological studies exist that track groups of children involved in alleged sex-abuse rings, in part because of confidentiality issues.

“But Bruck has studied follow-up interviews of children involved in cases similar to the notorious McMartin preschool trial. Some kids continue to believe they were abused. Bruck suspects it’s because their families or therapists have reinforced the stories of abuse. ‘The children say they don’t remember the salient, allegedly terrifying details,’ she told me. ‘But they are sure it happened.’ ”

– From “Who Was Abused?” by Maggie Jones in the New York Times (Sept. 19, 2004)

Might the Little Rascals children be among the subjects of that follow-up research? Sorry, Dr. Bruck says predictably – “Confidential information.”

Nov. 8, 2015

“The latest obstacle to Gerald Amirault’s freedom came without fanfare. A three-member panel of the Massachusetts Department of Corrections has now decided that, since the prisoner has refused participation in treatment programs for sex offenders, he was considered to be ‘in denial.’ Permission for him to appear before the Board that could grant early parole would therefore be denied.”

– From “How to Extort a Confession” in the Wall Street Journal (April 22, 2002)

Steadfast in his supposed “denial,” Amirault wouldn’t be paroled until 2004 – 18 years into his 40-year sentence.

Compared with Junior Chandler, however, he was lucky. Chandler’s two consecutive life sentences have made him ineligible for parole. For a brief moment during his long and maddening appeals process, in 2008, it seemed those life sentences would be made concurrent – thus qualifying him for parole consideration. But a switch in judges, orchestrated by the attorney general’s office, vaporized that prospect.

A footnote: The North Carolina Department of Correction has its own Sexual Offender Accountability and Responsibility program. “Through psycho-educational modules, behavior techniques and empathy training,” its website says, “S.O.A.R. participants learn that sexually abusive behavior is both controllable and manageable.”

Junior Chandler recalls having been invited to participate, but …. “They said I had to admit I was guilty. I told them I couldn’t do that, because I hadn’t done anything….  What would you do?”

June 11, 2012

After discovering the National Registry of Exonerations, I was happy to see that it lists Little Rascals defendants Bob Kelly and Dawn Wilson, whose convictions were overturned on appeal.

But what about Betsy Kelly and Scott Privott, who both finally accepted plea deals while maintaining their innocence, and Robin Byrum, Darlene Harris and Shelley Stone, all of whom waited years for prosecutors to drop charges?

The registry, a joint project of the University of Michigan Law School and the Center on Wrongful Convictions at Northwestern University, speaks unequivocally about “a wave of child sex abuse hysteria that swept the country….

“Starting in the early 1980s, some prosecutors, therapists and child welfare workers became
convinced that child sex abuse on a massive scale was rampant in their communities. They
believed that most of the victims were too afraid or embarrassed to discuss the abuse, so they
worked to overcome this fear and reluctance by using highly suggestive, persistent and
unrelenting questioning techniques when interviewing the young children.

“It worked. Some of the children complied and accused parents, day-care workers and adult acquaintances of numerous horrifying and bizarre acts. This led to a series of extraordinary prosecutions, many involving allegations of satanic rituals.”

Unfortunately, this acknowledgment of the moral panic doesn’t earn the remaining “Edenton 5” a listing in the registry. Here’s why, according to research assistant Ted Koehler:

“For a case to count as an exoneration for our purposes, a person convicted of a crime must be declared factually innocent by a government official or organization with authority to make such a declaration.

“If this has not happened, a person can still be exonerated if the person was relieved of all consequences of the criminal conviction by a government official with proper authority, through pardon, acquittal of the charges for which the person was originally convicted, or dismissal of those same charges. In such a case, the pardon, acquittal, dismissal or posthumous exoneration must have been the result, at least in part, of evidence of innocence that either (i) was not presented at the trial at which the person was convicted; or (ii) if the person pled guilty, was not known to the defendant or to the defense attorney and the court at the time the plea was entered.

“The Edenton case was a terrible witch hunt. Regretfully, though, because they do not meet the criteria above, Kelly’s and Privott’s guilty pleas and the dropped charges against Byrum, Stone, and Harris do not fit our definition of an exoneration, and are not listed on the registry for that reason.”

I understand the registry’s need to set the bar so high. But what a curious twist that the defendants’ only hope for exoneration lies with the same state that so unjustly prosecuted them.