May 29, 2016

“It’s easy to whip people into a frenzy over a moral panic (such as ‘satanic ritual abuse’ in the 1980s). All you do is tell people there’s a vast segment of humanity that wants to prey on their children. You tell them that these predatory people aren’t like us – they’re outsiders with different values. And you make sure that the talking heads on TV keep the story alive.

“Is it possible that a moral panic could happen today?

“Just ask Gov. Pat McCrory, who has cost his state millions of dollars defending a law that allegedly protects North Carolina children from transgender bathroom-goers – a statewide crisis that suddenly popped into existence during an election year, conveniently enough.

“Moral panics still exist, and they’re still absurd. The only difference is, they’re a lot more expensive than they were back in the ’80s.”

– From “History warns us to beware of ‘moral panic’ ” by Ben R. Williams in the Martinsville (Va.) Bulletin (May 27)

Aug. 9, 2015

“Suppressing evidence, coddling informants, even outright lying are some of the instances of prosecutorial misconduct that sent away nearly half the 1,621 people convicted for crimes they didn’t commit since 1989, according to the University of Michigan Law School’s National Registry of Exonerations. These are only the cases we know about, surely only a small fraction of the wrongly convicted….

“In a 2011 report on 707 such cases, only six prosecutors (none in “satanic ritual abuse” day-care cases) were disciplined. Almost all still have their licenses, and are still practicing law….

“Prosecutors are granted immunity for most kinds of misconduct. It’s easy to see the reasons for this policy: otherwise, every well-heeled convict would sue, clogging the system and making it impossible for prosecutors to do their jobs. At the same time, that immunity is so absolute that prosecutors simply get off scot-free, even when misconduct is established. Even worse, most states lack any meaningful oversight of prosecutors: no commissions, no review boards, nothing.

“America is the only country in which many prosecutors are elected…. The disciplinary commission that sanctioned Mike Nifong – prosecutor of the Duke lacrosse team on false rape charges – noted his upcoming primary election as a motivating factor for his misconduct. The pressure to produce wins has led to a ‘win-at-all-costs’ mentality in some offices, especially when voters reward such behavior.”

– From “It’s Not Just Bad Cops: Prosecutors Run Wild” by Jay Michaelson at the Daily Beast (Aug. 8)

For whatever reason, voters in the First Judicial District declined to “reward such behavior” by Little Rascals prosecutors H. P. Williams Jr. and Nancy Lamb. District Attorney Williams failed to win re-election in 1994, and Lamb lost her bid for DA in 2014.

July 24, 2013

“(Edenton police officer Brenda) Toppin, who conducted the first interviews of children allegedly abused at the center, testified that ‘In the early interviews, I had very few children disclosing to me…. Most of the children were not telling me specifically about Mr. Bob.’

“ ‘Red flags,’ however, caused her to continue her questioning. The ‘red flags’ included children being tense when the subject of the day-care center was mentioned, she said, and not talking to her as normal children would.”

– From the Associated Press (December 4, 1991)

It doesn’t take much reading between the lines to see Brenda Toppin’s persistence in the face of “very few children disclosing to me” or her overreaction to those absurdly vague “red flags.”

A surviving fragment of tape laid out even more saliently her abusive interview technique. Read for yourself a transcript of one of Toppin’s interviews with a child. The transcript entered the court record during the appeals process.

Aug. 1, 2017

“In the McMartin case, the defense used videotapes of therapists’ interviews with the children to suggest that the idea of abuse had been implanted.

“[Ofra] Bikel says, ‘The authorities in North Carolina [in the Little Rascals case], who I know met with the McMartin prosecutors, learned from them that the therapists’ notes should just be summaries. They learned that if you want to win a case, it’s a bad idea to have tapes around.’

“The prosecution interviewer [Brenda Toppin] is shown testifying that she cannot say why her original interview notes were destroyed: ‘It’s just a lot of extra paper,’ she said.”

– From “Justice Abuse? ‘Frontline’ Documentary Takes Hard Look At A Small-town Scandal” by Bart Mills in the Chicago Tribune (July 20, 1993)