Nov. 20, 2013

“GEORGETOWN, Texas – A former Texas prosecutor who won a conviction that sent an innocent man to prison for nearly 25 years agreed Friday to serve 10 days in jail and complete 500 hours of community service.

“Ken Anderson also will be disbarred and fined $500…. Anderson faced up to 10 years in prison if convicted of tampering with evidence in the 1987 murder trial of Michael Morton, (who) was released in 2011 after DNA evidence showed he didn’t beat his wife to death.

“Morton watched from the front row of the gallery Friday as the man who helped convict him now sat at the defense table, just as he once did. Morton smiled and was hugged by family members after the judge adjourned….

“During a weeklong Court of Inquiry earlier this year, special prosecutor Rusty Hardin presented witness testimony and other evidence to show Anderson kept evidence from Morton’s attorneys at his trial….

“Anderson said he couldn’t remember if he had evidence at the time of the trial that could have cleared Morton, but if he had had such material, he would have turned it over to the defense team.”

– From “Former Texas Prosecutor Gets Jail for Conviction that Sent Innocent Man to Prison” by the Associated Press (Nov. 8)

Even the righteous Jack McCoy withheld exculpatory evidence at least once, but of course the “Law & Order” DA was a fictional character – unlike Ken Anderson and the Little Rascals prosecutors and their unfortunate victims.

Oct. 22, 2015

North Carolina isn’t the only state that has failed to mitigate – however little and late – the injustices it inflicted during the “satanic ritual abuse” era.

In Massachusetts, the Fells Acres Day Care case of 1984 resulted in the conviction and imprisonment of Violet, Gerald and Cheryl Amirault. Even more than in other such cases, the prosecution was gratuitously and unceasingly hateful. In 2002, at the urging of District Attorney Martha Coakley, Acting Gov. Jane Swift refused to sign the parole board’s unanimous recommendation of commutation. (At least voters managed not to rewardCoakley, with either a Senate seat or the governorship.)

In 2004, Gerald became the last of the three Amiraults to be released, but his parole carried numerous restrictions.

Barbara Anderson, a longtime advocate, provides this update:

“Gerald’s parole conditions became more burdensome over the years as real sex crimes were committed in the commonwealth: polygraph exams; exclusionary zones (towns he isn’t allowed to enter); a ban on leaving the state without a permit that must be voted on each time by the parole board (and then for no more than two weeks). For years his monthly GPS surveillance fee was $380; this has been dropped to $80 for parole supervision.

“The harshest provision seems to be the ankle bracelet, which keeps him from wearing shorts in the summer or ski boots in the winter, from swimming at the beach with his grandchildren. He has to keep a log of everywhere he goes outside his house.”

During last year’s gubernatorial campaign, Republican candidate Charlie Baker told Anderson that if elected he would address Amirault’s plight. Baker narrowly defeated Coakley, but so far he hasn’t followed through.

Anderson again calls on Baker “to remove the bracelet from Gerald’s ankle, to drop his curfew, to allow him to get a job and to start helping his wife earn money to pay the mortgage acquired during his defense.

“Just call the Sex Offender Board and ask to have him re-classified from Level 3 to Level 1 to ease his restrictions. Or ask them to vote to take him off parole…. Otherwise he’ll be suffering unfair indignities until 2024.

“Clearly there is no way for Massachusetts to make up for 30 years of injustice. ‘Pardon’ is the wrong word, since the Amiraults did nothing wrong, but it may be the only remedy since governments don’t usually do ‘apology.’ “

If Gov. Baker should belatedly rouse himself to unshackle Gerald Amirault, might his fellow Republican governor in North Carolina – or that governor’s would-be successor – take notice? The Edenton Seven may not suffer the continued punishment still visited on Amirault, but their lives too were forever and indelibly damaged by the state.

April 5, 2015

William L. Anderson, professor of economics at Frostburg (Md.) State University, writes widely in opposition to big government. He has a particular aversion to overreaching prosecutors such as Mike Nifong and Nancy Lamb.

Anderson recently spoke to a North Carolina State University audience on “The Economic Calculation of Prosecutorial Abuse,” and afterward he shared these thoughts on how justice goes bad:

“The real problem is that people in the courts and law enforcement don’t have ‘fences’ that limit their behavior and also increase their liability. If the chances that they will face any meaningful sanctions for lying and lawbreaking are almost nil, then we can expect two things:

1. People in those lines of work are going to cut corners, to lie (even if they really do believe the person is guilty) and to manufacture ‘evidence,’ and
2. The kind of people who are most likely to cut corners are going to self-select into these lines of work…..

“Take Nancy Lamb, for example. While she narrowly lost the DA election last year, nonetheless she has ridden the Edenton fame for years and has done well in her career. It helped her gain money and what the late Murray Rothbard described as ‘psychic profit.’ She suffered no consequences that I know despite the horrendous train-wreck damage she caused not only the defendants, but also the taxpayers of North Carolina…. Lamb is protected by prosecutorial immunity and also by a media and legal culture that bows down to prosecutors and judges….

“A society that accepts and honors this kind of dishonest and destructive behavior is doomed. There is no other way to put it. The people from Edenton could never get back their lives; Betsy Kelly pleaded nolo contendere because she knew the North Carolina ‘justice’ system was utterly and hopelessly corrupt….”

Also seemingly immune to appropriate consequences: Chris Bean, who went on to a long career on the bench despite having provided flagrantly prejudicial testimony against former client Bob Kelly.

Jan. 9, 2012

Perhaps the most inexplicable of the prosecution’s targets was 40-year-old Scott Privott, owner of an Edenton video store and shoe repair shop.

Son of a district court judge, he served as president of the local country club. No evidence ever surfaced to support the rumor that Privott’s video store was a hub for child pornography or to counter his claim never to have even set foot on the Little Rascals premises. According to the prosecution, children at the day care identified him as a perpetrator.

In April 1993 his bail was reduced from $1 million to $50,000, and he was released on bond from Chowan County Jail. Fourteen months later, Privott accepted the state’s offer of a plea of no contest, still insisting on his innocence, and received a sentence of time served with an additional five years probation.

He says he has been happily married for 14 years and doesn’t want to reveal where he now lives. I asked him to share some recollections about the case:

“Bob and I were more acquaintances than close friends. I played golf with him when he was the pro. Bob rented movies from my store, and he and many others would come by and have coffee and just talk. In fact, many of the accusing parents rented movies from me. (Bob Kelly suspects Privott may have been drawn into the case when Kelly’s truck was seen parked in front of the video store.)….

“In jail I spent the time reading and watching TV. We weren’t allowed newspapers, so I wasn’t sure what was being written about the case…. At times it was hard to keep my spirits up. I had gallbladder surgery and recuped at Central Prison in Raleigh and at McCain (Correctional Hospital in Raeford, closed in 2010)….

“Jail had just a walled-in area for outside activity, but at McCain I enjoyed being able to walk around the yard with others awaiting trial…I was in “safekeeping” and actually met some intelligent, thoughtful people. I never had any problems, as the majority knew the entire LRDC case was a farce….

“My wife came on Sundays, but as the years rolled on the visits were less and less, and then I noted a change I had been kind of expecting. She brought my mother with her, and in the later years she stood back and kind of let the visits be between mother and son. It turned out she had met someone new in her life. She didn’t have the nerve to tell me, but I figured it out….”