May 7, 2016

Twenty-five years ago today, “Frontline” aired Ofra Bikel’s landmark two-hour documentary on the Little Rascals Day Care case. It turned out to be the first of three installments over the next six years.

About the “satanic ritual abuse” day-care panic of the 1980s and early ’90s, historian Mary De Young says:

“Ofra Bikel certainly pounded a nail in its coffin. Her excellent work on the Little Rascals case appeared after the last day care ritual abuse case was prosecuted, but she created a reason to be profoundly skeptical of all the cases that came before.”

“Innocence Lost” is unavailable on DVD, but you can view all eight hours here.

Jan. 4, 2012

“A few years back, I met a fellow investigative journalist in North Carolina….The subject came around to the Little Rascals case. He assured me the day care workers were guilty….

“I told him about how the McMartin case in California had been the first nationally publicized case to use interviews that practically bullied children into reporting mythical, often totally implausible abuse. Little Rascals was a textbook case of the same kind of tactics, and Ofra Bikel’s three fine documentaries left no doubt about this terrible miscarriage of justice.

“Yet my friend refused to listen to any other evidence or point of view. It transpired that his wife had recovered ‘memories’ of sexual abuse – another subject on which he would hear no other evidence….

“I tell you this just to let you know I am familiar with cases in which otherwise objective journalists develop seemingly incurable blind spots.”

–  From a 1997 letter to Columbia Journalism Review by Mark Pendergrast, author of “Victims of Memory,” challenging criticism of the False Memory Syndrome Foundation

July 26, 2013

Rereading appellate defender Mark Montgomery’s thunderously compelling brief on behalf of Bob Kelly always delivers something I had either passed over earlier or forgotten. This time it was that

“(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, ‘She’s Miss Betsy’s sister, so she must be mean.’ ”

The Smiths’ close call highlights once again the terrible randomness of the Little Rascals prosecutors’ accusation process.

How challenging the prosecutors’ decision-making must have been: Which child-witness had been adequately manipulated, and which couldn’t 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?

Nancy Smith (Barrow) recalls today that “I had NO idea I had been accused until working with (defense attorneys) Mike Spivey and Jeff Miller for Bob’s trial.  I happened to read some notes from police interviews and saw my name more than once….

“No member of my family – mother, father, Laura, Leslie, or Judson – was ever interviewed by police or prosecutors.  Jimmy and I talked with Brenda Toppin one afternoon in her office.  She only wanted to know about the state of Bob and Betsy’s marriage.”

Sept. 29, 2014

“Duke law professor Theresa Newman has three boxes full of files about Andrew Chandler Jr.’s case: details about the bizarre allegations, the expert testimony that would not be admissible today and the multiple appeals….”

– From “Duke law clinic to review 1987 conviction” in the Asheville Citizen-Times (Sept. 27)

Thanks to reporter Romando Dixson for providing a thorough recap of the Chandler case, pegged to the recently expressed interest of the Duke Law School Wrongful Convictions Clinic.

Publication in the Asheville paper is especially welcome for Junior’s friends, family and other supporters in nearby Madison County, who likely haven’t seen the case mentioned in print since his conviction in 1987.