Dec. 16, 2011

Alan Rubenstein, who as district attorney refused to prosecute the Breezy Point case, is now a Bucks County Court judge.

Unlike H.P. Williams Jr., who was D.A. during the Little Rascals case, Rubenstein speaks freely about how he addressed claims of ritual abuse in a local day care.

“There was no more ambitious D.A. than me,” he recalls. “I reveled in the limelight….

“When we first got the allegations, I said to myself, ‘Satanic ritual abuse – I’ll be on the cover of Time magazine! I’ll prosecute it personally. I’ll get these bastards and put them away for life.”

But it didn’t take long for him to reverse course.

“Breezy Point was around the corner from me.  My own son had gone there. I just couldn’t see Doug Wiik in (prison) stripes… The more I thought about it, the more obvious it became that nothing had happened there…

“I put our two best county detectives on the case, and I rode them like the Pony Express.”

The resulting 60-plus-page “Investigation into Breezy Point Day School” is a model of lucid, understated logic that blows to smithereens any notion of wrongdoing:

“We have determined that the allegations are unfounded and without merit…. No credible evidence exists to support them. In stark contrast, the evidence produced during the past 11 months indicates facts in direct, clear conflict with the charges leveled by the parents on behalf of their minor children.”

Here are three excerpts that convey the reach of the investigation:

• “In the opinion of this caseworker, ‘The child clearly exhibited the inability to distinguish what was true and what was not true.’ ”

Such insights seem to have been beyond the skills or preconceptions of caseworkers in Edenton.

• “The parents, when confronted with the clear discrepancy between the child’s description of the room and its actual physical layout, have contended that the owners of Breezy Point remodeled the room, removed the fireplace, put up plasterboard and added additional windows so as to change the character of this area to avoid detection. No evidence of remodeling was uncovered during this investigation.”

Passages such as this would be hilariously deadpan, were the subject not so weighty.

• “Bucks County detectives, acting upon (claims that the children were secretly transported to the Royce Hotel), traced all records from the teacher’s family credit cards, including American Express, MasterCard and Visa, to determine if any of these individuals charged rooms or lodging at the hotel. Ledger and registration books were also examined…. A check of these records proved entirely negative.”

In Bucks County no allegation was too bizarre to investigate. In Edenton no allegation was too bizarre to presume true.

March 5, 2012

“DURHAM — Tracey Cline could not admit she was wrong….”

Thus begins J. Andrew Curliss’s latest behavioral analysis of Durham County’s latest disgraced district attorney.

Coincidentally, Curliss cites a book I’ve been reading to better understand the rigidly wrongheaded behavior of the Little Rascals prosecutors.

“Carol Tavris, a Los Angeles social psychologist who has researched and written about the behavior and decision-making of prosecutors, said studies show the human brain, when sorting out conflicting beliefs and actions, will engage in a powerful act known as ‘self-justification.’

“It can keep people from admitting they are wrong and can be more powerful and more dangerous than an explicit lie, she said in an interview and in a 2007 book she co-authored, ‘Mistakes Were Made (But Not By Me)’…

“Self-justification is especially concerning in the justice system, Tavris said, because authorities often view themselves as ‘good guys’ doing the ‘right thing’….

“ ‘It’s really, really, really hard to face the reality that you screwed up,’ she said. ‘When we have a view of ourselves as good, competent, ethical, honest people and we are now confronted with evidence that we did something that was incompetent, unethical, immoral or harmful, we have two choices. We can ’fess up – say, “Oh, my God, look at this evidence, what did I do? How can I make amends?” – or, we deny.’ ”

Here’s a recent public ’fessing up that could be a model for errant prosecutors: “I want to express my sincere regret and apology…. It was a terrible mistake, and we knew it was wrong while we were doing it. Instead of getting caught up in it, I should have stopped it.”

Alas, it comes not from Cline – or from H. P. Williams Jr., Bill Hart or Nancy Lamb – but from the NFL coach who oversaw the “bounty” system for disabling opposing players.

March 8, 2015

“As public debate rages about issues like immunization, Obamacare, and same-sex marriage, many people try to use science to bolster their arguments. And since it’s becoming easier to test and establish facts – whether in physics, psychology, or policy – many have wondered why bias and polarization have not been defeated. When people are confronted with facts, such as the well-established safety of immunization, why do these facts seem to have so little effect?

“Our new research, recently published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, examined a slippery way by which people get away from facts that contradict their beliefs…. (They) reframe an issue in untestable ways. This makes potential important facts and science ultimately irrelevant to the issue….

“These experiments show that when people’s beliefs are threatened, they often take flight to a land where facts do not matter. In scientific terms, their beliefs become less ‘falsifiable’ because they can no longer be tested scientifically for verification or refutation….”

– From “Why People ‘Fly from Facts’ ” by Troy Campbell and Justin Friesen in Scientific American (March 3)

 And what allegations could be more “untestable” than pure fantasy? As Junior Chandler knows too well, “….It’s extremely hard to get help to prove my innocence when there isn’t a crime committed to begin with.”

March 23, 2012

“A given professional must undertake either a forensic examination or therapy, not both, with any given child.

“The roles of forensic evaluator and ongoing therapist are different. The forensic evaluator must not become an advocate for the child, a role often difficult to avoid when one is an ongoing therapist.

“For this reason the American Psychological Association’s Guidelines for Psychological Evaluations in Child Protection Matters (1999) holds, ‘Psychologists generally do not conduct psychological evaluations in child protection matters in which they serve in a therapeutic role for the child or the immediate family or have had other involvement that may compromise
their objectivity.’ ”

– From “A Behavior Analytic Look at Contemporary Issues in the Assessment of Child
Sexual Abuse” by W. Joseph Wyatt in The Behavior Analyst Today (March 22, 2007)

By serving enthusiastically as agents of the prosecution, Betty Robertson, Judy Abbott, Susan Childers and Michele Zimmerman not only ignored that crucial ethical distinction, but also fostered psychological havoc where there had been none.