Sept. 29, 2015

“Thomas Quick was the name adopted by Swedish petty criminal and drug addict Sture Bergwall, who under ‘recovered memory’ therapy, confessed to raping, killing and even eating more than 30 victims (during the 1970s and ’80s).

“These were supposedly reenactments of ‘recovered memories of sexual abuse’ he had experienced as a child.

“Extraordinarily compelling in the dock as a witness to his own ‘crimes’ (which he had never committed), he was convicted of eight murders. He had trawled newspapers for unsolved killings and convinced the Swedish police that he was responsible – even though he never led them to a single body.

“In 2008, his ‘confessions’ were shown to be untrue and by 2013 the last of his convictions was overturned. The Swedish government has ordered an inquiry into this devastating failure of its justice system. There will be lessons in it for our own (British) authorities.”

– From “Is the therapy that brings out false memories behind VIP abuse claims?” by Dominic Lawson in the Daily Mail  (Sept. 20)

How about that – a government that wants to examine “the devastating failure of its justice system”! If the State of North Carolina ever felt such an urge, I think I could come up with a case or two that meet that description….

Feb. 20, 2014

Following up on the curious case of Richard Noll v. Psychiatric Times, I wrote editor-in-chief James L. Knoll IV to ask about the removal of Dr. Noll’s “satanic ritual abuse” essay from the Psychiatric Times website.

Did the journal plan to address in some fashion the issues raised in Dr.
Noll’s piece? “Unfortunately, I am not at liberty to comment on the situation,” Dr. Knoll replied.

Next I turned to Psychiatric Times’ editorial board, described on the site as “(not) just figureheads with impressive résumés…. They give us their frank and unblinking appraisal of the contents of each and every issue….”

This is from a letter I sent to 22 PT board members:

“I am writing you in response to Dr. Allen Frances’s call for psychiatrists to ‘step forward and do the right thing’ about the profession’s failure to confront the ‘satanic ritual abuse’ claims of the 1980s and early ’90s.

“As you know, Psychiatric Times removed from its website Dr. Richard Noll’s history of the SRA era….

“Dr. Noll concluded by asking: ‘Are we ready now to reopen a discussion on this moral panic? Will both clinicians and historians of psychiatry be willing to be on record? Shall we continue to silence memory, or allow it to speak?’

“How do you, as a member of the Psychiatric Times editorial board, answer these questions?

“Would you now be willing to join with Dr. Frances in formally setting the record straight about SRA and in making amends to the scores of wrongfully prosecuted victims of the moral panic?”

So far I have not been overwhelmed with responses to these questions. In fact, I have received only a single “frank and unblinking appraisal” – from Thomas G. Gutheil, professor of psychiatry, Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, Harvard
Medical School.

“I do agree (with Dr. Frances),” he writes. “The 1992 FBI report compiled by Kenneth Lanning should have put an end to this, when he investigated many claimed cases from law enforcement viewpoint and in multiple cases found not a shred of physical evidence, DNA, cells or bloodstains from butchered babies or sacrificed virgins.

“The problem is that social viruses like this are hard to assess and halt, like their biologic counterparts. I agree that individuals, especially in the legal system, should own up to their serious errors and miscarriages of justice, since improved science has blown up many claims, yet some prosecutors (e.g., Martha Coakley in Mass.) have not reversed themselves nor freed the imprisoned.

“However, I am not sure the entire mental health professions should share the blame.”

To be sure, distribution of responsibility among the professions is uneven – the Little Rascals prosecutors called on no psychiatrists at all, only psychologists, off-brand psychotherapists, etc.

Feb. 8, 2016

“Bob Orr, a former North Carolina Supreme Court justice, says it’s time for a comprehensive outside review of the state agency that oversees lawyers.

“Orr… is part of a committee looking at legal professionalism as part of Chief Justice Mark Martin’s recently launched review of the state justice system….

“The call for evaluation comes amid questions about the bar’s aggressive prosecution of three defense attorneys who have worked on Racial Justice Act (text cache) and innocence inquiry cases….”

– From “Former NC Supreme Court justice calls for review of state bar” by Anne Blythe in the News & Observer (Feb. 6)  (text cache)

Right on, Justice Orr. And thanks to the N&O for its continuing attention to the flagrant self-dealing of the Prosecutors Club, most recently this account (text cache) by Joseph Neff contrasting the bar’s two sets of ethical standards:

“For most of 2015, the North Carolina State Bar vigorously and publicly pressed ethics charges against two anti-death penalty lawyers for what were eventually judged to be unimportant inaccuracies in two sworn affidavits.

“During the same time, the bar privately dismissed complaints that three prominent prosecutors – one running for attorney general, another now a Superior Court judge – used a false affidavit in a racially divisive case that has roiled Winston-Salem for more than a decade….”

I’ve even seen it suggested that the situation demands a separate panel specializing in prosecutorial misconduct (text cache).

July 20, 2012

… Little Rascals parents were caught up in a frenzy of panic and misinformation.

… Ill-prepared therapists served prosecutors, not their patients.

… In their zeal for convictions, prosecutors behaved cruelly and unethically.

… 20th century North Carolina never saw a more sweeping injustice.

… Bob and Betsy Kelly, Dawn Wilson, Shelley Stone, Robin Byrum, Darlene Harris and Scott Privott deserve full and unequivocal exoneration.