July 29, 2013

“Scientists at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology have developed the ability to implant mice with false memories. The memories can be easily induced and are just as strong as real memories, physiological proof of something psychologists and lawyers have known for years.

“The findings are a serious matter. According to the Innocence Project, eyewitness testimony played a role in 75 percent of guilty verdicts eventually overturned by DNA testing after people spent years in prison. Some prisoners may even have been executed due to false eyewitness testimony. It was not because the witnesses were lying. They were just wrong, said Susumu Tonegawa, a molecular biologist and the lead author in the MIT study.

“In the longest criminal trial in American history, the McMartin family, who operated a preschool in California, was charged with multiple incidents of child abuse. After seven years and $15 million in prosecution expenses, some charges were dropped and the defendants were acquitted of others when it became clear some of the accusations were based on false memories, some possibly planted by childrens’ therapists.”

– From “Scientists Produce False Memories In Mice” by Joel N. Shurkin, Inside Science News Service (July 25, 2013)

The same day’s Guardian of London adds this response from Chris French, head of the Anomalistic Psychology Research Unit at Goldsmiths, University of London:

“Memory… is a reconstructive process which involves building a specific memory from fragments of real memory traces of the original event but also possibly including information from other sources.”

“Information from other sources” – that is, from prosecution therapists – was what contaminated the memories of child witnesses in cases such as McMartin and Little Rascals.

May 16, 2016

The aftereffects of Little Rascals on Edenton have long interested me. With few exceptions the town’s residents, now fewer than 5,000 for the first time since 1970,  seem dedicated to forgetting their prominent role in the “satanic ritual abuse” day-care panic. When the chief prosecutor ran for district attorney, the local paper published 17 stories and an endorsement editorial without mentioning Little Rascals.

One Edenton innkeeper even deleted mention of the case from the town’s Wikipedia page.

So I’m always glad to see another perspective. This is from a note sent by a former resident:

“I was excited to see your Facebook page on Little Rascals. I had been looking for copies of the PBS programs for years and had only uncovered some poor quality copies.

“I have many friends in Edenton, which made viewing ‘Innocence Lost’ all the more interesting. I began to know Edenton right at the tail end of the saga. For me its attractiveness was the sense that I was in a very different place, a different culture from home. Quiet, peaceful, slow-paced. But we concluded this was no place to live. Yes, some nice people to be found, but overall, pretty stifling.

“The town leaders still have some things to answer for about Little Rascals, and I suspect that until there is a process of reconciliation, the town will remain a troubled place, though it does a good job putting on a facade.

“Little Rascals is unfinished business. The problem is that the power structure sees no reason for change. There is such a direct link to the plantation mentality here in eastern North Carolina (which also saw no reason to change), it’s not even funny.”

July 5, 2013

“RALEIGH – During a hearing at the state Court of Appeals, Chief Judge Gerald Arnold repeatedly asked a state prosecutor about the fairness of testimony by (Bob) Kelly’s former attorney in Edenton. Arnold said the attorney had, in effect, testified that he believed in Kelly’s innocence until he learned his child had been abused.

“ ‘How can you argue that it was not extremely prejudicial?’ the judge asked.

“Associate Attorney General Ellen Scouten argued that Chris Bean did not divulge confidential information and did not violate an attorney-client relationship with Kelly. She said Bean testified as a parent and a crime victim.

“Arnold said Bean, now a district court judge, had gone beyond describing what he had seen and witnessed as a parent.

“ ‘This boils down to the most fundamental questions of fairness,’ Arnold said. ‘When you have an attorney testifying that “I was Mr. Kelly’s attorney and I believed in him very strongly until I learned the truth, that is to say that he’s guilty, and then I was shattered.” How can there be more prejudicial, stronger evidence put before a jury than to have a former attorney, the defendant’s attorney say that?’

“Scouten said that because the defense had contended that accusers in Edenton were hysterical people on a witch hunt it was fair to allow the state to show the type of people involved.

“ ‘Mr. Bean and his wife were reputable, respected thoughtful, educated people – not the type of people that would be swept up by community hysteria,’ she said.”

– From “Appeal of 2 defendants in Little Rascals case draws a crowd” in the News & Observer (Jan. 10, 1995)

Given this line of questioning, it came as no great surprise when four months later the Court of Appeals overturned the convictions of both Kelly and Dawn Wilson.

Bean’s unfettered opinionating was only one of three major defects cited by the court, the others being the withholding of exculpatory evidence by prosecutors and the testimony of parents as expert witnesses.

The prosecution got off light – the brief filed by appellate defender Mark Montgomery claimed no fewer than 222 potentially reversible errors.

March 9, 2019

Pete Manning, 89, died Feb. 21 at his home in Edenton. Before retiring, Manning worked more than 50 years at the Chowan Herald, most prominently as publisher.

As prosecution of Edenton Seven lurched forward, members of the local “Believe the Children” cohort grew wary of the news media. Early on, however – before seeing themselves on “Frontline” — they had actually sought the spotlight.

Jack D. Grove, managing editor of the Herald, recalled that short-lived era to journalist David Loomis:

“I was approached by several influential businessmen who clouded up and rained all over me for putting a [Little Rascals] story on the back page. I said, ‘Go tell Pete Manning, don’t tell me.’ These businessmen, almost all parents of Little Rascals children, went into a closed-door meeting with Pete. We never again had a story anywhere but on the front page after that.”

Unfortunately, the Herald’s front-page coverage was painfully passive at best.