April 4, 2016

Junior Chandler may be the last still-imprisoned victim of the “satanic ritual abuse” day-care panic.

Chandler was a driver for a Madison County, N.C., day care. The prosecutor alleged that Chandler, in the words of appellate attorney Mark Montgomery, “would drive off his route to a park by a river, strip the children of their clothes, troop them down to the river, put them in a rowboat, commit various sexual acts, put them back on the bus and take them home.”

Based almost exclusively on hearsay and no-longer-permissible expert “vouching,” Chandler was convicted in 1987 and sentenced to two life sentences. This month he will begin his 30th year behind bars for a crime that never happened.

Feb. 28, 2014

As noted by Gary Greenberg, Richard Noll’s disappeared history of psychiatry and satanic ritual abuse “singles out two psychiatrists – Bennett Braun and Richard Kluft – who were instrumental in giving legitimacy to the SRA accounts. They helped change the DSM to make Multiple Personality Disorder (thought to be caused by the abuse) seem more common, they started the International Society for the Study of Multiple Personality and Dissociation, and they founded a journal called Dissociation….”

If the SRA era was psychiatry’s Wild West, then Braun and Kluft were… who? Butch and Sundance? Or Frank and Jesse?

In “Rewriting the Soul: Multiple Personality and the Sciences of Memory” (1995) philosopher Ian Hacking pointed out an editorial in Dissociation in which Kluft “pleaded for moderation, but…  acknowledged that powerful emotions were at work. He also raised the stakes by printing a comparison that I find rather odious. He noted that one party refers to Nazis and the Holocaust, asking, ‘Should he or she be silent, emulating the “good Germans” who did not speak out about the atrocities in their midst, and by his or her silence become a facilitator?’”

Despite such overheated comparisons, and his ludicrous estimates of an epidemic of  “multiples,” Kluft at least claimed “moderation”  – not so Braun, whose excesses in patient treatment led to suspension of his Illinois medical license, closure of his hospital MPD unit and at least four out-of-court settlements, one for $10.6 million.

Today he practices in obscurity, while Kluft concentrates on stifling publication of incriminating journal articles.

Jan. 6, 2016

“Many fans of (the hit Netflix documentary) Making a Murderer, which sheds light on questionable conduct by prosecutors and police involved in (Steven) Avery’s conviction, view the 53-year-old’s imprisonment as a miscarriage of justice and petitioned President Obama to pardon Avery. The online petitions have garnered more than 200,000 signatures.

“There’s just one problem: Avery is a state prisoner convicted under state law. The president only has the constitutional power to pardon or commute sentences in the federal system.

“Fans of Making a Murderer who believe Avery deserves clemency should consider signing this petition addressed to Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker, which has so far been signed by just 1,033 people….”

– From “Hey, Making a Murderer Fans: Obama Can’t Pardon Steven Avery” by Leon Neyfakh at Slate (Jan. 4)

Junior Chandler’s application for gubernatorial clemency was rejected in 2014 and isn’t eligible for reconsideration until March 25, 2017.

But those who believe almost 30 years in prison is adequate punishment for a nonexistent crime may express their opinion by writing

Executive Clemency Office
4294 Mail Service Center
Raleigh NC 27699-4294

Meanwhile, the Duke Wrongful Convictions Clinic continues to investigate Chandler’s case.

July 11, 2016

“This week Harvard Law School’s Fair Punishment Project issued a report detailing the legacies of five of the nation’s deadliest prosecutors, and (Joe Freeman) Britt was among them. The report highlights what it calls ‘personality-driven capital sentencing,’ which leads overzealous prosecutors with a flair for courtroom theatrics and a desire for personal fame to pursue death sentences at disproportionate rates….

“This personality-driven system means that a death sentence often says less about the severity of the defendant’s crime, than it does about the prosecutor’s enthusiasm and courtroom skills. Personality-driven prosecutions can also lead to wrongful convictions, when prosecutors making winning cases a higher priority than seeking justice….

“Britt often cut corners to win. Appellate courts found that Britt committed misconduct in 14 of his capital cases, the new report shows. His offenses included hiding evidence that might have proven defendants innocent and making inflammatory and improper statements to jurors….

“When they were exonerated by incontrovertible DNA evidence, Britt did not even have the heart to admit his mistake. Instead, he continued to loudly proclaim their guilt….”

– From “NC ‘deadliest prosecutor’ valued winning over justice, new report shows” by Kristin Collins at NC Coalition for Alternatives to the Death Penalty (June 30)

I shudder to speculate what might have happened in Edenton had North Carolina sanctioned capital punishment for child sex abuse. The Little Rascals prosecutors, most strikingly Nancy Lamb,  bore many of the “personality-driven” characteristics seen in a Joe Freeman Britt:

• “A flair for courtroom theatrics and a desire for personal fame”? Check.
• “Hiding evidence that might have proven defendants innocent”? Check.
• “Inflammatory and improper statements to jurors”? Check.
• “Continued to loudly proclaim their guilt”? Check…..