{"id":1266,"date":"2014-07-11T20:07:13","date_gmt":"2014-07-11T20:07:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.littlerascalsdaycarecase.org\/?p=1266"},"modified":"2016-07-03T20:55:06","modified_gmt":"2016-07-03T20:55:06","slug":"i-was-aware-of-the-possibility-of-childish-fantasy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.littlerascalsdaycarecase.org\/?p=1266","title":{"rendered":"‘I was aware of the possibility of childish fantasy….’"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"140711Martin1\"July 11, 2014<\/p>\n

\u201c….\u00a0 As you might imagine, I had not had reason to think about the Little Rascals case until your email arrived.\u00a0 Yes, I was very interested in the case at the time, but had no role or authority to intervene. (See governor\u2019s\u00a01991 response to letter writers<\/a>.) The arrests and charges were highly publicized, as were the proceedings of the trial, upon which the two accused were convicted.\u00a0 So, like most citizens, I felt a compulsion to follow the case, at least insofar as the news coverage.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy recollection is that both the horrible accusations and the contrary indications of coached and imaginative testimony of the children were featured in the coverage….\u00a0\u00a0 Being very familiar with Arthur Miller\u2019s brilliant drama, \u2018The Crucible<\/a>,\u2019 I was aware of the possibility of childish fantasy passing as falsely condemning testimony.\u00a0 From a distance, most readers probably shared the concern, \u2018What if it were true?\u2019<\/p>\n

\u201cI do not recall whether the defense attorneys contacted my office in an appeal for clemency in 1991-1992.\u00a0 Had they done so, they would have been advised that my practice was to let the appellate courts complete their judicial review before considering clemency.\u00a0 This was complete in 1995 when the NC Supreme Court declined to review the finding by the Court of Appeals of trial error, at which time there would be no cause for Governor Hunt to intervene.\u00a0 I have great respect for the judgment and integrity of then Chief Justice Burleigh Mitchell, and that would settle the legal principles of the matter for me.<\/p>\n

\u201cI can only wonder what conclusion I might have reached had the appeal for clemency been properly before me.\u00a0 My approach in such cases was to meet separately with advocates on both sides, without restricting the nature or style of what they had to say.\u00a0 I would make my decision based on corroborated evidence and the trial record, without following its standards for disqualifying some evidence.\u00a0 I gave attention to two main standards: (a) whether the punishment was suited to the nature of the crime, and (b) whether there was doubt as to the guilt of the person convicted….<\/p>\n

\u201cI believe your cause is to persuade the Governor to issue a Pardon of Innocence for Bob Kelly and Dawn Wilson.\u00a0 It may be difficult to produce exculpatory evidence several decades after the events.\u00a0 You did not say whether Mr. Kelly and\/or Ms. Wilson wish to return to that gauntlet, considering the degree to which they have restored their lives.\u00a0 If they do, it would my hope that Governor McCrory and his counsel would weigh the two guidelines cited above, although no Governor is bound in clemency matters by any precedent of his predecessors.\u00a0 While it can be difficult to prove a negative, it would help your cause if there were former accusers now in their thirties who have recanted the accusations of their childhood.\u00a0 Otherwise, the appellate finding of procedural error alone might not be sufficient.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u2013 From a letter from former Gov. Jim Martin responding to my question\u00a0about his recollections of the Little Rascals Day Care case<\/em><\/p>\n

As welcome as a gubernatorial pardon would be, my hopes for the Edenton Seven are more modest:\u00a0 a \u201cstatement of innocence\u201d from the governor or attorney general similar to that given the defendants in the Duke lacrosse case.<\/p>\n

If only the Little Rascals prosecutors had been as familiar with \u201cThe Crucible\u201d as was the governor….<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

July 11, 2014 \u201c….\u00a0 As you might imagine, I had not had reason to think about the Little Rascals case until your email arrived.\u00a0 Yes, I was very interested in the case at the time, but had no role or authority to intervene. (See governor\u2019s\u00a01991 response to letter writers.) The arrests and charges were highly […]<\/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-1266","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\/1266","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=1266"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.littlerascalsdaycarecase.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1266\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2387,"href":"https:\/\/www.littlerascalsdaycarecase.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1266\/revisions\/2387"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.littlerascalsdaycarecase.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1266"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.littlerascalsdaycarecase.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1266"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.littlerascalsdaycarecase.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1266"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}