{"id":1019,"date":"2013-07-26T21:00:47","date_gmt":"2013-07-26T21:00:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.littlerascalsdaycarecase.org\/?p=1019"},"modified":"2016-07-04T13:43:52","modified_gmt":"2016-07-04T13:43:52","slug":"for-betsy-kellys-sister-a-chillingly-close-call","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.littlerascalsdaycarecase.org\/?p=1019","title":{"rendered":"For Betsy Kelly&#8217;s sister, a chillingly close call"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"style187\" style=\"text-align: right;\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright size-full wp-image-929\" src=\"http:\/\/www.littlerascalsdaycarecase.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/01\/130429Barrow2.jpg\" alt=\"130429Barrow2\" width=\"137\" height=\"200\" \/>July 26, 2013<\/p>\n<p class=\"style184\">Rereading appellate defender Mark Montgomery\u2019s\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.oocities.org\/jgharris7\/bobkelly-.html\" target=\"_blank\">thunderously compelling brief<\/a>\u00a0on behalf of Bob Kelly always delivers something I had either passed over earlier or forgotten. This time it was that<\/p>\n<p class=\"style351\" style=\"padding-left: 30px;\">\u201c(Jimmy) and Nancy Smith also declined to have their son Judson evaluated by one of the four therapists who saw the other children. By the time of trial, both Mr. and Ms. Smith had been accused by several children as having participated in the abuse. (One of the child-witnesses) said of Nancy Smith, \u2018She&#8217;s Miss Betsy&#8217;s sister, so she must be mean.\u2019 \u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"style184\">The Smiths\u2019 close call highlights once again the\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.littlerascalsdaycarecase.org\/?p=959\">terrible randomness<\/a>\u00a0of the Little Rascals prosecutors\u2019 accusation process.<\/p>\n<p class=\"style184\">How challenging the prosecutors\u2019 decision-making must have been: Which child-witness had been adequately manipulated, and which couldn\u2019t be counted on to earnestly describe the sharks, the butcher knives and the dead babies? Which innocent adult was vulnerable, and which might strike jurors as just too unlikely a serial ritual-abuser?<\/p>\n<p class=\"style184\">Nancy Smith (Barrow) recalls today that \u201cI had NO idea I had been accused until working with (defense attorneys) Mike Spivey and Jeff Miller for Bob\u2019s trial.\u00a0 I happened to read some notes from police interviews and saw my name more than once&#8230;.<\/p>\n<p class=\"style184\">\u201cNo member of my family \u2013 mother, father, Laura, Leslie, or Judson \u2013 was ever interviewed by police or prosecutors.\u00a0 Jimmy and I talked with Brenda Toppin one afternoon in her office.\u00a0 She only wanted to know about the state of Bob and Betsy\u2019s marriage.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>July 26, 2013 Rereading appellate defender Mark Montgomery\u2019s\u00a0thunderously compelling brief\u00a0on behalf of Bob Kelly always delivers something I had either passed over earlier or forgotten. This time it was that \u201c(Jimmy) and Nancy Smith also declined to have their son Judson evaluated by one of the four therapists who saw the other children. By the [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1019","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blog"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.littlerascalsdaycarecase.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1019","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.littlerascalsdaycarecase.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.littlerascalsdaycarecase.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.littlerascalsdaycarecase.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.littlerascalsdaycarecase.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1019"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.littlerascalsdaycarecase.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1019\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2578,"href":"https:\/\/www.littlerascalsdaycarecase.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1019\/revisions\/2578"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.littlerascalsdaycarecase.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1019"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.littlerascalsdaycarecase.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1019"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.littlerascalsdaycarecase.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1019"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}