brooklynda.org

Ken Thompson

Dec. 17, 2015

“Three men convicted of murder by arson for a 1980 fire in Brooklyn (were) exonerated on Wednesday….

“What carried the three men into prison was not reliable evidence of an intentionally set blaze, but rather an arson investigation that was more like shamanism than science, rooted in hunches and folklore and disconnected from the dynamics of actual fires. Like the comparisons of bite marks, hair and handwriting, it was a forensic practice that had the authority of white-coat laboratory science but virtually none of its rigor….”

– From “Between Guilt and Innocence, an Evolution in Fire Science”
by Jim Dwyer in the New York Times (Dec. 16)

Hats off to District Attorney Ken Thompson, who moved to vacate the three convictions, citing “circumstantial evidence, outdated science and the testimony of a single, wholly unreliable witness….”

Columnist Dwyer is reminded of a statue at the University of Pennsylvania Law School depicting a mythological Chinese beast believed to have the ability to tell the guilty from the innocent by butting them. Inscribed on its base: “Slow and painful has been man’s progress from magic to law.”

“Slow and painful” indeed. Ask Junior Chandler, who has been imprisoned since April 17, 1987, for committing the magical crime of “satanic ritual abuse.”

bc.edu

Ann Wolbert Burgess

Aug. 23, 2016

“Connell School of Nursing Professor Ann Wolbert Burgess, a pioneer in the field of forensic nursing and an internationally recognized leader in the treatment of victims of trauma and abuse, has been designated a ‘Living Legend’ by the American Academy of Nursing, the academy’s highest honor.

“Burgess is being recognized this year for multiple contributions to the nursing profession and society. [Her] research and books cover topics such as serial killers and rapists, kidnapping, sexual victimization and exploitation of children, cyber crimes, sexual abuse, and elder abuse….”

– From “A ‘Living Legend’ ” by Kathleeen Sullivan in the BC [Boston College] News (Aug. 23)

Yet again, a key fomenter of the “satanic ritual abuse” day care panic takes a career achievement bow, plowing unapologetically past the wrecked lives of the wrongfully prosecuted.

Here’s how Debbie Nathan and Michael Snedeker described Burgess in 2001 in “Satan’s Silence: Ritual Abuse and the Making of a  Modern American Witch Hunt”: “promoter of the use of children’s drawings to diagnose sexual abuse, developer of the idea of the sex ring, participant in developing the case that imprisoned the Amirault family and currently a researcher into the traumatic aftereffects of ritual abuse.”

Most grievous for the Little Rascals defendants, it was Ann Wolbert Burgess who led a three-day conference in Kill Devil Hills  just months before Bob Kelly’s arrest. The agenda: learning how to spot child molesters operating day-care facilities.

I’ve asked Professor Burgess to look back at her role in Little Rascals. No response – maybe she intends to bring it up in her acceptance speech.

Oct. 8, 2012

“Even those (ritual-abuse day-care cases) that resulted in acquittals… reflect hundreds of children and their family members referred to counseling.

“Many families were limited to a handful of approved counselors, who also helped police and prosecutors by eliciting testimony from the children. One must wonder what these counselors counsel these children about, particularly in cases in which allegations were later proved to have come from them rather than from the children – and considering that the children began showing symptoms of abuse only after disclosing – the reverse of abused children’s usual responses to counseling.”

– From “Assessing the Costs of False Allegations of Child Abuse: A Prescriptive” by Susan Kiss Sarnoff (IPT Journal, 1997)

What a calamitous exploitation of the children – but what a canny career move for the therapists!

Jan. 4, 2018

“Sexual harassment or assault, by contrast [with the Communism scare in Hollywood], obviously warrants discipline at the very least and criminal prosecution wherever appropriate. But then and now, what’s lacking is any shared obligation to respect constitutional rights, ensure due process or maintain a sense of proportion…. And that’s the thing about moral panics: they may begin with a legitimate societal concern – drug and alcohol abuse, teen pregnancy, child abuse, human trafficking – but they can devolve into Prohibition, movie and broadcast censorship, banning comic books and rock ‘n’ roll, and general crusades against anything in popular culture challenging the official conformist line. And if you’re not careful, you’ll soon find yourself succumbing to irrational fears of ‘satanic ritual abuse,’ ‘backward masking’ in rock lyrics and secret pedophilia rings run out of suburban pizzerias….

“It’s not witches, but the witch-hunters, that we should really fear, for they lead us to abdicate our responsibilities to be fair, thoughtful, measured, and rational….”

– From “Season of the witch” by Joel Bellman at LA Observed (Dec. 10)