{"id":576,"date":"2012-07-25T01:43:58","date_gmt":"2012-07-25T01:43:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.littlerascalsdaycarecase.org\/?p=576"},"modified":"2016-07-03T14:52:19","modified_gmt":"2016-07-03T14:52:19","slug":"a-tormented-wait-for-prosecutors-to-admit-defeat","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.littlerascalsdaycarecase.org\/?p=576","title":{"rendered":"A tormented wait for prosecutors to admit defeat"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"style187\" style=\"text-align: right;\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright size-full wp-image-577\" src=\"http:\/\/www.littlerascalsdaycarecase.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/12\/120725Stone.jpg\" alt=\"120725Stone\" width=\"120\" height=\"180\" \/>July 25, 2012<\/p>\n<p class=\"style184\">\u201cThe terms of (Shelley Stone&#8217;s release on $342,000 bond) included an order to stay out of downtown Edenton so she would not run across any children \u2013 or parents of children \u2013 who had attended Little Rascals.<\/p>\n<p class=\"style184\">\u201cOne exception came two years ago, when she was allowed to attend her daughter\u2019s high school graduation.<\/p>\n<p class=\"style184\">\u201cStone and her family live in Tyner, a few miles outside Edenton. They receive public assistance.<\/p>\n<p class=\"style184\">\u201c\u2018I\u2019ve had people say to me point blank: \u201cGee, Shelley, I would hire you, but I\u2019m afraid I\u2019d lose customers,\u201d\u2019 Stone says. \u2018Now, when you can\u2019t a job within 30 miles, that&#8217;s bad.\u2019<\/p>\n<p class=\"style184\">\u201cProsecutors say they still have not decided whether to try her on 12 charges of sexual abuse, which could mean life in prison. Meanwhile, she waits&#8230;.<\/p>\n<p class=\"style184\">\u201c\u2018It\u2019s been going on for seven years. Is it going to go on for another seven years, or 10 years or 20 years? Am I going to die with this still going on?&#8230;<\/p>\n<p class=\"style184\">\u201c\u2018I worry every day. Are they going to come and say, \u201cWe\u2019re going to take you to trial now\u201d?\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"style173\" style=\"text-align: right;\"><em>\u2013 Adapted from the Associated Press, Sept. 23, 1996<\/em><\/p>\n<p class=\"style184\">Three months later the state dropped all charges against Stone (and Robin Byrum and Darlene Harris).<\/p>\n<p class=\"style184\">As in other Little Rascals cases, Nancy Lamb attributed the dismissals to\u00a0 concern for the child-witnesses and to limited resources in the DA\u2019s office, not to any belated recognition of the defendants\u2019 innocence. \u201cWe didn\u2019t bring charges in 1989 and 1990 thinking that these people weren\u2019t guilty,\u201d she told the AP. \u201cWhy would we do such a thing? We had enough evidence all along to convict all three, or we would not have brought charges.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"style184\">But Lamb needn\u2019t have been too disappointed. After all, how many juries would\u2019ve rendered harsher punishment to these three innocent young women than the seven years of torture the state inflicted?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>July 25, 2012 \u201cThe terms of (Shelley Stone&#8217;s release on $342,000 bond) included an order to stay out of downtown Edenton so she would not run across any children \u2013 or parents of children \u2013 who had attended Little Rascals. \u201cOne exception came two years ago, when she was allowed to attend her daughter\u2019s high [&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-576","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\/576","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=576"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.littlerascalsdaycarecase.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/576\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2307,"href":"https:\/\/www.littlerascalsdaycarecase.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/576\/revisions\/2307"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.littlerascalsdaycarecase.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=576"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.littlerascalsdaycarecase.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=576"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.littlerascalsdaycarecase.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=576"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}