March 15, 2014

“In an interview with Entertainment Weekly (True Detective creator Nic) Pizzolato responded to a question about the inspiration for the show: ‘You can Google “Satanism” “preschool” and “Louisiana” and you’ll be surprised at what you get.’

“This is clearly a reference to a 2005 child abuse prosecution in Ponchataoula, Louisiana, that generated lurid international headlines about ritualistic Satan worship inside a church, complete with black robes, animal blood, orgies, and pentagrams.

“This has since led various media sources to report breathlessly on the ‘true story’ behind True Detective. The problem is that this ‘true story’ turns out to be completely false, at least in regard to all the details regarding Satanic ritual abuse.

“These were apparently part of a classic atrocity story, invented by the defendants to garner sympathy from jurors – the idea being that the defendants were victims of an unspeakably evil church-based mind control cult, rather than merely being banally evil and not very interesting child molesters.

“What sort of moral responsibility do artists have not to exploit, and thereby perhaps propagate, moral panics? The aesthetic power of The Birth of a Nation and Triumph of the Will has not absolved their creators for choosing to exploit racist and anti-Semitic beliefs.

“Our shameful history of panics and persecutions over the imaginary satanic ritual abuse of children should have been treated by artists as talented as the makers of True Detectiveas a cautionary tale, rather than as an opportunity for further invidious myth-making.”

– From “True Detective’s dangerous lies about satanic ritual abuse” by Paul Campos at The Week (March 12)

I’m surprised to find myself cutting the just-concluded HBO series a bit more slack than Campos, a law professor at the University of Colorado. But True Detective’s potential for doing harm in 2014 seems minimal compared with the hysterically alarmist Do You Know the Muffin Man? which aired on Lifetime while arrests were still being made in the Little Rascals case.

Sept. 1, 2014

The recent deaths of Little Rascals figures Patricia Kephart Hart (obituary cached here) and C. Harvey Williams remind me that the clock is ticking on the defendants as well. (Patricia Kephart, mother of one of the potential child-witnesses, dated and later married Assistant Attorney General Bill Hart; Williams was Edenton police chief.)

Others who have since died include Kirk Osborn, appellate lawyer for Dawn Wilson, and Bradford Tillery, the judge originally assigned to the case.

Let’s hope that none of the Edenton Seven, still awaiting exoneration from the state, shares the fate of Connie Tindall of the Wilmington 10.

March 15, 2013

“To the extent that we may have contributed in any way to the public perception that you might have been involved in this crime, I am deeply sorry.

“No innocent person should have to endure such an extensive trial in the court of public opinion, especially when public officials have not had sufficient evidence to initiate a trial in a court of law.

“We intend in the future to treat you as the victims of this crime, with the sympathy due you because of the horrific loss you suffered.”

– From a letter hand-delivered to John Ramsey, father of JonBenet Ramsey, by Boulder, Colo., District Attorney Mary Lacy in 2008

Just a reminder that, however difficult it is for prosecutors to admit their mistakes, it is not impossible. Other than pride and self-righteousness, what stands in the way of an apology from H. P. Williams, Bill Hart and Nancy Lamb to the Edenton Seven?

March 20, 2013

“Unlike their counterparts in every other state, North Carolina prosecutors have control over criminal court calendars.

“In the Little Rascals case, prosecutors used their trial-scheduling authority to let defendants wait for years before proceeding with their cases. They have held the power of the calendar over (Bob) Kelly for a decade without having to account to any other government authority.”

– From “Little Rascals Day Care case still not over” in the Raleigh News & Observer (Jan. 4, 1999)

Almost nine more months would pass before prosecutors dropped the last charges against Bob Kelly.

Despite efforts at reform, district attorneys in North Carolina still maintain near total control over court calendars.