July 21, 2015

“When Massachusetts exonerated the Salem victims in 1710 it overlooked six women. They remained missing through the 1940s and 1950s as the commonwealth considered pardons but could not seem to make up its legislative mind.

“One lawyer appearing before a Senate committee objected to ‘fooling with history.’ Some legislators feared expensive suits for damages. Others hinted that a pardon might knock Salem’s witches from their tourist-bewitching brooms. As the Commonwealth of Massachusetts had not existed in 1692, it surely had no jurisdiction over a verdict of Massachusetts Bay.

“On Halloween 2001 – weeks after we began to wonder anew about unseen evils – Massachusetts pardoned the last of the Salem witches….”

– From “The Witches: Salem, 1692” by Stacy Schiff (due Oct. 27) 

Feb. 3, 2012

Glenn Lancaster, a Raleigh pay-phone executive, played a key part in facilitating life-after-incarceration for both Bob Kelly and Scott Privott.

I asked Glenn to recall how he became involved in the Little Rascals case:

“I had lived in Windsor, about 20 miles west of Edenton. I knew some of the Little Rascals parents but none of the Edenton Seven.

“I hadn’t paid that much attention to the case, but the truth seemed pretty clear, especially when the prosecution couldn’t persuade even one of the seven to turn state’s evidence.

“After I moved to Cary, I saw a story about Scott in the News & Observer (in 1993). He had been in (the Chowan County) jail for more than three years with no trial in sight and a $1 million bond.

“I wrote Scott offering to send him magazines and to cover some gas money for his wife to visit, as she had moved to the Outer Banks. He put me in touch with a lady in Edenton, who told me about other supporters.

“I called Scott’s attorney and asked why he hadn’t tried to lower the bail. I told him we could cover $50,000 and I would give Scott a job and a place to live.

“When the attorney asked the judge to reduce the bond to $50,000, he agreed on the spot! Over the next few days, several people came to the Clerk of Courts office in Edenton and posted land and cash. One man from Washington, N.C., brought a $25,000 check. When it was all counted, they were still a few hundred dollars short. I was told the Clerk of Court reached into his own pocket and posted the difference.

“Everyone in the jail knew Scott was innocent, and as he left jail the staff shook his hand. Scott’s wife showed up to tell him she was now living with a UPS driver and he could not come to her home. A supporter loaded up a cardboard box of Scott’s jail property – 6 or 8 paperback books, a radio and the stack of clothes his wife had brought him – and delivered him to a hotel in Cary around 5 p.m. There I met and spoke to Scott for the first time.

“When we returned to the hotel two hours later to take him to dinner, he told me he had spent most of that time standing in the shower. It was the first time in over three  years he could set his own temperature and shower as long as he chose.”

Dec. 28, 2016

“The problem of juror pressure on a dissenting juror has long been known by defense attorneys and prosecutors.

“In a National Center for State Courts project on hung juries, researchers surveyed 367 unanimous decisions…. In nearly 40 percent of the cases at least one juror [disagreed] but went along with the majority and made the verdict unanimous….

“Research shows that dissenting jurors often go along not because they are convinced about points of evidence but because they bow to ‘normative pressure’: A lone holdout is under relentless and harsh pressure from other jurors to knuckle under. The pressure from the push for speed, the verbal battering and the threat of ostracism is virtually impossible to resist.

“The problem is made worse [in cases] when it’s impossible for a dissenting juror to say with absolute certainty whether the position of the majority is the right one and when the verdict could do horrible legal damage….”

– From “Why Zimmerman Juror B29 Believed in His Guilt But Still Voted to Acquit” by Earl Ofari Hutchinson on the Huffington Post (July 28, 2013)

Bob Kelly’s jury serves as a sad example of the contaminated chemistry of verdict making.

Sept. 9, 2013

“According to court records, one of the state-recommended therapists, Judith Abbott, showed a five-year-old girl drawings of satanic symbols (a horned mask, inverted crosses and a peace symbol described on the drawing as the ‘Cross of Nero’) in an effort to uncover instances of devil worship. ‘Mr. Bob’ was wearing one of those, the child said, according to a note Abbott wrote on the drawing of the mask.

“The same child had begun her therapy complaining that Mr. Bob gave hard spankings; after biweekly sessions for six months she was ‘remembering,’ according to Abbott’s typed therapy notes, ‘oral penetration by a penis, vaginal penetration by a brown felt-tipped pen and witnessing the murder of human babies.’

“Abbott explains the delay in eliciting this material by saying that the children had been terrified into silence. ‘When you break down the child, you own their spirit.’ she says. ‘It’s like Helter Skelter, Charles Manson.’ ”

– From “The Demons of Edenton” by Lisa Scheer and Edward Cone in Elle magazine (November 1993) Download article here

A proven effective way to “break down the child”: Subject her to six months of Abbott’s biweekly “therapy” sessions.