May 21, 2018

“Cops, district attorneys, defense attorneys, and judges make mistakes all the time. Mistakes don’t obstruct justice. Justice is obstructed by refusing to acknowledge and rectify mistakes, and instead doubling down on and repeating them….”

– From “For a small, blue state, Massachusetts wrongfully convicts a lot of people”  by George Bullen at 50 States of Blue (Jan. 30)

The prosecution of the Edenton Seven blew through one red light after another, willfully blind to the enormous mistakes it had made and hell-bent on making even more.

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.

Dec. 7, 2011

H. P. Williams Jr. was district attorney during the Little Rascals trial. He now practices criminal defense law in Elizabeth City.

I called to ask whether he had changed his mind about the guilt of the Edenton Seven.

“I’m not in a position to talk about it,” he said.

Why is that? I asked.

“It’s just not a question I choose to answer.”

As I made another stab at continuing the conversation, he ended it: “Have a good day. Goodbye.”

Williams was 39 when the first charges were filed. Today he is in his early 60s. I held out hope that over the years he had reexamined his role in crushing the lives of seven innocent citizens, had suffered a few dark nights of the soul, had harbored an unspoken wish to make amends, had summoned the honesty and courage to break with the prosecutors’ code of silence when faced with the error of their convictions….

I was naive.

April 9, 2012

“Where do epidemics go when they die?…. Have all the sadistic pedophiles closed down their day-care centers?”

– From “Mistakes Were Made (But Not by Me)” by Carol Tavris and Elliot Aronson

I asked Mary de Young, author of “The Day Care Ritual Abuse Moral Panic,” whether this epidemic might have gasped its last in Edenton as a result of “Innocence Lost.”

“Ofra Bikel certainly pounded a nail in its coffin,” De Young said. “Her excellent work on the Little Rascals case appeared after the last day care ritual abuse case was prosecuted, but she created a reason to be profoundly skeptical of all the cases that came before.

“I would give a lot of credit to Debbie Nathan (Village Voice) and Dorothy Rabinowitz (Wall Street Journal) for bringing an end to this craziness, but to be honest I think the moral panic really collapsed under its own weight – i.e., it was impossible to sustain these allegations in the absence of evidence, as well as to sustain the suspended disbelief that was required.”