Nov. 19, 2014

“While (‘The Witch-Hunt Narrative’ author Ross) Cheit… admits that there was some ‘overreaction’ and injustice to innocent people – including ‘five, possibly six, of the seven defendants’ in the McMartin case – he argues that the ‘Satanic panic’ hysteria is a myth rooted in exaggeration and distortion….

“Whether the book succeeds in making a dent in the witch-hunt narrative depends, to put it bluntly, on whether we can trust Cheit to give a fair and accurate account of this material. A close look reveals enough evasions, highly tendentious interpretations, and verifiable inaccuracies to conclude that we cannot….

“It is ironic, or perhaps symbolic, that this book has arrived in the midst of a new wave of sex-crime hysteria. Just recently, in the impassioned debate over the sexual molestation charges against Woody Allen, such feminists as Jessica Valenti and Roxanne Gay revived the call to ‘believe the survivor.’ The same mind-set also appears in the current campus climate of pressure to accept virtually all allegations of sexual assault regardless of evidence. Despite Cheit’s attempted debunking, the lesson of the witch-hunts still stands: Emotion-driven, faith-based crusades against repellent crimes are a grave danger to justice.”

– From “The Return of Moral Panic: A scholar tries – and fails – to rehabilitate the sex-abuse hysteria of the ’80s” by Cathy Young at reason.com (Oct. 25)

Young contributes a welcome follow-up to Debbie Nathan’s Cheit-busting response from the National Center for Reason and Justice. She is especially effective in pointing out Cheit’s fact-fudging and cherry-picking in the McMartin and Kelly Michaels cases.

April 24, 2015

“As was made clear repeatedly upon testimony by experts, the very first reports of the children were the ones that would be most critical in determining whether sexual abuse had indeed occurred. Yet in the first interviews, the children said almost nothing of any interest with regard to sexual abuse, and the police officer who conducted these hearings destroyed all of her notes and all of her tapes of what happened before the case went to court. She was approached by several of the mothers initially because she had taken a short course in investigating cases of child abuse.

“Officer (Brenda) Toppin was crucial to the whole process because she was the one who escalated the case from a minor complaint by one parent into a case of massive sexual abuse of dozens of children by scores of day-care workers.”

– From “Understanding The Crucible: A Student Casebook to Issues, Sources, and Historical Documents” by Claudia Durst Johnson and Vernon Johnson (1998)

Feb. 1, 2012

The HBO documentary “Paradise Lost 3: Purgatory”  surely deserves its Oscar nomination, although the only edge it holds over Ofra Bikel’s “Innocence Lost” trilogy of the ’90s is its happy-tears finale: the three defendants walking out of prison.

After much lawyering, the West Memphis Three in August accepted an Alford plea that allowed them to go free,  while protecting the state of Arkansas from a wrongful-imprisonment  suit and the national embarrassment of a retrial.

I had to laugh at this exchange from the ensuing press conference:

Reporter: “Will the state continue to investigate this case if additional information is brought forth, or is the case closed?”

Prosecutor Scott Ellington: “I have no reason to believe there was anyone else involved in the homicides of these three children but the three defendants who pled guilty today.”

Defense attorney Dennis Riordon: “Does anyone believe that if the state had even the slightest continuing conviction they were guilty that it would have let these men go free today?”

If H.P. Williams Jr., Nancy Lamb and Bill Hart were watching – unlikely, given the spotlight shone on unjust prosecution – no doubt they would have admired Ellington’s resolve in the face of reality.

Aug. 10, 2014

A final (perhaps) thought on Professor Sylvia Gillotte, after rereading this passage from our exchange of emails about her belief in “satanic ritual abuse”:

“The thing is, Mr. Powell, you can’t do this journey without a willingness to look into the darker side of humanity. You must be willing to challenge every previously held notion that you may have about the world and how it operates. You must push past your comfort zone and look beyond the veneer and the facade to what lies beneath the surface and within the bowels of the human psyche. You must be courageous enough to swim against the tide long enough to reach still water, where you can actually study dissociative trauma and even mind control in conjunction with ritual trauma allegations. Only then will you begin to see these allegations in their true light….”

Why do I continue to resist Professor Gillotte’s call to “challenge every previously held notion… about the world and how it operates”? Is it passivity? Timidity? Lack of imagination? Or is it simply a stubborn bias for fact over faith?