Oct. 26, 2011

“Many of the investigators in the Little Rascals case (seem to have been) poised to find allegations of sexual abuse.

“The seeds of this case may have been sown in the spring of 1988, months before the first allegations of child sexual abuse…. At a 3-day conference in the Outer Banks town of Kill Devil Hills, law enforcement and social services workers convened to learn about the dangers of child molesters operating day-care facilities.

“The seminar was co-sponsored by a counseling group and assisted by Judy Abbott, a social worker who would become one of the most active therapists for the child victims in this case. The featured speaker was Ann Burgess, editor of the book ‘Child Pornography and Sex Rings’ (1984).

“Also attending were H. P. Williams, who would co-prosecute the case, and Brenda Toppin, the Edenton police officer who was first to interview most of the children in the case and to advise parents of their abuse.”

– From “Jeopardy in the Courtroom: A Scientific Analysis of Children’s 
Testimony” by Stephen J. Ceci and Maggie Bruck (1995)

June 10, 2013

“The danger posed by courts and prosecutors who abdicate their responsibilities to uphold the Constitution in favor of overwhelming community sentiment was recently illustrated in State v. Robert Fulton Kelly Jr.

“The trial prosecutor and the Superior Court judge were so overwhelmed by community sentiment that the trial was converted from a proceeding to adjudicate Mr. Kelly’s guilt or innocence into a forum to assist the families of the scores of alleged child victims recover from the gut-wrenching allegations of the 100-count indictment. The result: Justice was poorly served.

“The individuals thought to be victims and their many family members, loved ones and neighbors were frustrated, angered and in the end felt cheated. The individuals accused of heinous abuse of scores of children were deprived of a fair trial and deprived of liberty for more than three years.”

– From a talk by Henderson Hill, director of the N.C. Resource Center, Office of the Appellate Defender, at the Senator Sam J. Ervin Jr. Constitutional Issues Program, (May 18, 1995)

Oct. 4, 2013

“The essence of counterknowledge is that it purports to be knowledge but is not knowledge. Its claims can be shown to be untrue, either because there are facts that contradict them or because there is no evidence to support them. It misrepresents reality (deliberately or otherwise) by presenting non-facts as facts….

“The media were pushing the circulation of counterknowledge long before the public hooked up to broadband. Consider, for example, the satanic ritual abuse scare….”

– From “Counterknowledge: How we surrendered to conspiracy theories, quack medicine, bogus science and fake history” by Damian Thompson (2008)

Feb. 1, 2013

“The Little Rascals case serves as a good reminder that parents also are part of the child-savers interest group and have as much, in fact probably more, of a vested interest in ‘getting to the truth’ than any of their professional associates….

“From the witness stand, one mother describes how her repeated questioning of her three-year-old son finally confirmed that he, too, had been abused by Bob Kelly…

Mother: First time I questioned him, we were laying on my bed and I was just, you know, ‘Do you like Mr. Bob?’ ‘Has Mr. Bob ever done anything bad to you?’ And as we were talking I got more specific…. ‘Has Mr. Bob ever touched your hiney? ‘Has he ever put his finger in your hiney?’

Attorney: Was that the only time you questioned him?

Mother: No, it went on….

Attorney: Now tell me how it developed that you began to get statements from him that raised a question in your mind about sexual abuse.

Mother: (My son) was being questioned a lot from that first time on, quite often. And then that last week it was probably a few hours every day thing…. I got a response from him. Um, he told me that Mr. Bob had put his penis in his mouth and peed on him….

Attorney: How did he come up with those kinds of statements?

Mother: Because I asked him…. He had been hearing it at least once a week since I first started questioning him and then that last week he was hearing it every day.

“In their empirical research on repeated interviewing, Ceci and Bruck (1995) find that while children do remember more with each additional interview, their reports also become more inaccurate over time.

“Simply put, they recall both more accurate and inaccurate details with each successive interview. Further, repeated interviews signal the interviewers’ bias to the children, cueing them on how to answer in a way that pleases their interrogators.”

– From “The Day Care Ritual Abuse Moral Panic” by Mary De Young (2004)