Aug. 10, 2012

Carol Tavris:

“After the McMartin trial in 1986, I wrote an article for the Los Angeles Times about research that had been done on how to interview children in sex abuse cases. Evidence at the time suggested that sometimes you have to ask children leading questions or they will not tell you they have been molested.

“For example, if you interviewed a child after a genital examination and you asked her just to tell what the doctor did, almost no child would volunteer that the doctor touched her genitals. But if you asked a leading question, such as, ‘The doctor touched your private parts, didn’t he?’ the children would say ‘yes.’ The L.A. Times headlined this article, ‘Do Children Lie? Not About This.’

“Of course that was preposterous. Of course children lie ‘about this’ and lots of other things. But my essay, although based on research at the time, helped support the child advocates who were on a rampage against child molesters, and who were running around saying ‘children never lie’ and selling bumper stickers that said ‘Believe the Children.’’ I didn’t foresee that prosecutors and therapists would use these same studies to coerce the hell out of kids.

“When I think of my own embarrassment about that little article, and how hard it was to say, ‘Boy, was I wrong about that research,’ I realize how difficult it must be for all those ‘believe the children’ people to acknowledge they were wrong, too. In fact, most of them haven’t. They are more entrenched than ever in their pernicious beliefs.”

– From “The Measure of a Woman: An Interview with Social Scientist Carol Tavris”
in Skeptic magazine (Feb. 9, 2011)

Sept. 1, 2015

 “(As witnesses) children are even less likely to be believed when their stories involve extremes of sadism, collusion among families and communities (sometimes extending over several generations) and so-called ritual or cult abuse – including the torture and killing of animals to frighten children into silence – that are so terrible that authorities decide these things just can’t be true.

“Yet many instances of such ‘incredible’ crimes are documented, sometimes by adults after years of suppressed memory, sometimes by authorities who are now beginning to believe children enough to investigate their stories…..”…

– From “Revolution From Within: A Book of Self-Esteem” by Gloria Steinem (1993)

Steinem’s semi-autobiography was a best-seller, both profiting from and contributing to the nation’s heightened concern with self-esteem.

In addition to using Ms. magazine to tout the existence of “ritual abuse,” she also helped finance the search for the imaginary McMartin tunnels.

May 16, 2014

Exhibit A:

“Last year at a state solicitors’ convention in Myrtle Beach, (South Carolina State Supreme Court Justice Donald Beatty) cautioned that prosecutors in the state have been ‘getting away with too much for too long.’ He added, ‘The court will no longer overlook unethical conduct, such as witness tampering, selective and retaliatory prosecutions, perjury and suppression of evidence. You better follow the rules or we are coming after you and will make an example. The pendulum has been swinging in the wrong direction for too long and now it’s going in the other direction. Your bar licenses will be in jeopardy. We will take your license’….

“If most prosecutors are following the rules, you’d think they’d have little to fear, and in fact would want their rogue colleagues identified and sanctioned….The state’s prosecutors didn’t see it that way….

“At least 13 of the head prosecutors in the state’s 16 judicial districts, along with South Carolina Attorney General Alan Wilson, are asking for Beatty to be recused from criminal cases. This would presumably end his career as a state supreme court justice….”

– From “Judge says prosecutors should follow the law. Prosecutors revolt.” by Radley Balko in the Washington Post (March 7)

Exhibit B:

“….Decades of studies show eyewitness testimony is only right about half the time – a reality that has prompted a small vanguard of police chiefs, courts and lawmakers to toughen laws governing the handling of eyewitnesses and their accounts of crimes….

“Prosecutors, however, have opposed the efforts, arguing that the changes erode their powers, even as studies have shown that eyewitnesses are about half as likely to choose the correct suspect out of a lineup as they are to choose some combination of the innocent fillers or no suspect at all when the correct one is present. The reexamination of eyewitness testimony comes at a time when technology and other forensic analysis are being given greater weight….”

– From “Eyewitness Testimony No Longer A Gold Standard” by Nigel Duara of the Associated Press (April 19, 2014)

TV prosecutor Jack McCoy suffered his own ethical dark nights of the soul, but I can’t imagine him finding much in common with such miscreants as these.

May 9, 2013

CBS Correspondent Mike Wallace narrated this 1999 production that covers a number of the ritual abuse court cases, including Little Rascals.

(A more modern version of this video posted in 2013 may be available soon. In the meantime, click here.)