newsobserver.com

Joseph Sledge

Jan. 16, 2016

“Joseph Sledge spent 37 years in prison for a crime he didn’t commit. At his trial, the state paid a lying snitch to testify against him. While he was in prison, (Jon David, the latest Bladen County district attorney) opposed the DNA testing that would eventually prove Sledge’s innocence. And when the long-delayed tests showed Sledge wasn’t the culprit, the state waited another two years to release him from prison.

“Now that Sledge is finally free, the only person being punished is the lawyer who fought to prove his innocence, Chris Mumma. On Thursday, the State Bar found that Mumma violated professional ethics by testing a water bottle for DNA without permission from its owner – all in an attempt to gain an innocent man his freedom against long odds. (The test of the water bottle was inconclusive and had no impact on the final outcome.)….

“In all the cases where Mumma has freed innocent people, no prosecutor has ever faced charges….Instead, the State Bar sent a message that lawyers who expose the system’s misdeeds could be subject to retribution….”

– From “Let’s punish lawyers who put innocent people in prison, instead of those who free them” by Kristin Collins at NC Coalition for Alternatives to the Death Penalty (Jan. 15)

Three years ago I took DA David at his word when he promised:

“I really see us as sharing the goal of making sure (Sledge’s) conviction rests on credible and substantial evidence. I’m going to go where the truth leads in this matter.”

I was naïve. As it turned out, David’s true passion wasn’t for exonerating an innocent man but for punishing his lawyer.

uclan.ac.uk

Prof. Andy Bilson

June 5, 2016

“One in five of all children born in a single year in England was referred to social services before they reached age 5…. Up to 150,000 pre-school children were reported over fears of abuse or neglect, most unnecessarily….

“Researchers (at the University of Central Lancashire) said while public and professional vigilance was welcome, the number of alerts received by social services meant staff were wasting their time on innocent families, and making it harder to find the children who are at risk.

“After a series of high profile cases where serious abuse was missed, social workers are under intense pressure… and end up checking up more of the warnings they receive than is necessary, the research suggests.

Lead researcher Professor Andy Bilson said, ‘We have this mantra that says it’s everybody’s job to safeguard children, but what we are doing doesn’t actually safeguard children.”

–  From  “One in five children referred over suspected abuse” at BBC News (May 25)

Not mentioned in the Central Lancashire report is the subcategory of “satanic ritual abuse” – about which the British are similarly prone to false alarm.

theguardian.com

Carole Myers/Felstead

March 21, 2016

“Once again advocates of the much discredited Satanic Abuse Panic are making claims of widespread child abuse across Britain.

“Scotland appears to have become caught up in a nationwide frenzy of superstitious irrationality. This moral panic exhibits typical clichés of sensationalist psychology. In England, the case of Carole Myers/Felstead – whose family were falsely accused of an endless variety of insane criminal acts – has comprehensively demonstrated that the existence of Satanic Cults preying on vulnerable children is a myth created on the therapist’s couch…. Real victims of abuse are being let down by focusing on this nonsense.”

– From “Recent Satanic Abuse Claims in Scotland” by the British False Memory Society (March 10)

For whatever reason, the UK seems especially resistant to having its fingers pried from the myth of “satanic ritual abuse,” which migrated from the States in the late ’80s.

Oct. 7, 2013

“Today (in 2001), few contend that the interview techniques used at the outset of the Fells Acres child abuse investigation, in 1984, were proper and reliable. Middlesex County (Mass.) prosecutors admitted to appellate judges in the 1990s that those techniques – characterized by repeated suggestive questioning about molestation despite initial avowals by the children that nothing of that kind occurred – would not be employed today.

“In 1998, Superior Court Judge Isaac Borenstein ruled that under current Massachusetts law, the manner in which the Fells Acres children were first interrogated would have constituted grounds to have the case dismissed.

“That questioning included hundreds of taped episodes such as this:

• Pediatric interviewer (Susan J. Kelley): “Did the clown touch you?”
• Child witness: “No. …”
• Interviewer: “You said the clown took your clothes off. …”
• Child: “Yeah. …”
• Interviewer: “What happened?”
• Child: “Well, nothing really.”
• Interviewer: “Did the clown touch … Will you show me if the clown touched any part of you?”
• Child: “No, he didn’t touch me.”

“The child interviewed in the above example testified against Gerald Amirault at his 1986 trial, and believes to this day that she was molested by an ‘evil clown.’ ”

– From “Memories questioned, but victim still certain of ‘evil’…. Studies say kids can be easily led” by Tom Mashberg in the Boston Herald (July 8, 2001)

So what happens to the professional prospects of a “pediatric interviewer” whose ludicrously biased questioning led to the conviction of not only Gerald Amirault, but also his mother and sister?  In the short term, Susan J. Kelley had to endure even her prosecutorial allies disavowing her “suggestive techniques.”

Soon, however, Kelley’s career was back on track,  unimpeded by the tragedy wrought by her blindered incompetence. She has never apologized…. although her lengthy current resume does omit mention of her role in the day-care ritual-abuse hoax, either as a prosecutorial interviewer or as an academic apologist.