March 7, 2013

Anthony Oberschall’s “Why False Beliefs Prevail: the Little Rascals Child Sex Abuse Prosecutions” appeared in “Essays in Honor of Raymond Boudon” (2000).

Most saliently, the UNC sociologist argues that “hysteria” and “moral panic” are inadequate to describe what happened in Edenton. Rather, he sees the town – and the Little Rascals defendants – as victims of the purveyors of “pseudoscience”:

“When child sexual abuse became a national issue, the medical profession, academic psychology and social science were just starting to study it scientifically…. The legal profession lacked experience with trial testimony of pre-schoolers and admission of hearsay testimony by parents and therapists….Meanwhile thousands of child sex abuse allegations had to be dealt with.

“In the absence of proven knowledge, a child sex abuse industry of self-appointed ‘experts’ based on pseudo-science filled the demand for training and informing child protection service workers, social workers, police investigators, prosecutors, therapists and others…. They were convinced they were saving America’s children, even though their methods and knowledge were contrary to science and to common sense. In Edenton, the prosecution and the investigators relentlessly labored to supplant common sense with false beliefs based on pseudo-science, (and) they succeeded….”

Working with UNC journalism student David Loomis on his master’s thesis detailing news coverage of the case, Oberschall “tried to survey Edenton households by mail (picked names at random from a phone book), but got less than a 10 percent return rate. It was obvious people there didn’t want anything to do with an outsider, a scholar.”

Rebuffed, Oberschall drove to Edenton himself and conducted perhaps a dozen interviews, which he made use of both in “Why False Beliefs Prevail” and in this more detailed draft working paper from 2010.

April 18, 2017

“C’est un reportage accablant sur le système judiciaire américain…. Ce pourrait être simplement l’histoire d’une erreur judiciaire dont aucun système pénal au monde n’est exempt, hélas. C’est bien pire, et correctement annoncé par le titre français : ‘ Un acharnement judiciaire.’ “

– From “Persécution judiciaire” by Guy Baret in Le Figaro (March 25, 1999)

That is:

“[Innocence Lost] is a damning report about the U.S. judicial system…. This could just be the story of a miscarriage of justice of which no criminal justice system in the world is free, unfortunately. It’s much worse, and properly announced by the French title: ‘A judicial harassment’….”

Apparently critic Baret wasn’t the only one in France to look skeptically at “satanic ritual abuse” claims. I haven’t found a single example of a French day-care prosecution during the moral panic.

July 23, 2012

“ ‘Don’t focus on the question, focus on the answer,’ (District Attorney H. P. Williams Jr.) said, referring to the defense argument that children were asked leading questions.”

– The Associated Press, March 28, 1992

Did prosecutors know all along that the interview process was corrupt at the core and that their case was in essence (if not in the strict legal sense) fruit of a poisonous tree?

Or had they, too, simply lost their bearings in the hysteria?

Aug. 28, 2013

“It’s not by chance that day care centers are the sites of magical molestation, and not public schools with their powerful lobbies and unions…. Those primary and secondary school teachers’ organizations provide protection and security for their members, much as the AMA protects doctors and the ABA protects lawyers.

“It’s only you – a day care teacher – who has no protection at all. If hysterical parents gang up and attack you, you are as helpless as a clay pigeon in a shooting gallery.”

– From “Magical Child Molestation Trials: Edenton’s Children Accuse” by Margaret Leong (1993)