Feb. 15, 2012

I asked Mark Montgomery for an update on Junior Chandler’s latest appeal of his two life sentences for child sexual abuse:

“There are two prongs to the appeal. First, I am asking the N.C. Supreme Court to simply do the right thing by Junior. The Court said in 2010 that expert testimony like that in Junior’s case is (and was) inadmissible. That being the case, it is fundamentally unfair for Junior to be facing the rest of his life in prison, when many defendants have been freed because this sort of testimony was used against them at trial.

“Second, Junior’s lawyer objected to the testimony but did not raise the issue on appeal. I argued in a motion in Superior Court that the lawyer was ineffective for abandoning the issue. The Superior Court judge denied the motion without a hearing. If the Supreme Court will not itself set aside Junior’s convictions, it should at least require a hearing on trial counsel’s conduct.”

This is how the process works: “Petitions such as Junior’s go to one of the six associate justices. He or she decides what should be done and then presents the case to the court as a whole in a monthly (sort of) closed door meeting. The justices then vote on whether to grant the petition. If the Court grants the petition, it usually requires full briefs from both parties, but may decide the case of the basis of the petition and the State’s response alone.

“If it denies the petition, that’s the end of the road.”

The court could respond as early as April 13, according to this chart of petitions allowed and denied.

Sept. 26, 2012

“The (Little Rascals) kids stories have unerringly followed the ritual abuse plot, progressing lately to tales of witnessing babies slaughtered. Perhaps not coincidentally, their most bizarre allegations began surfacing around the time that 27 million viewers watched ‘Do You Know the Muffin Man?’ a (Lifetime TV) movie that rehashed details from several ritual abuse cases, but included the wholly fictional climax of parents discovering day-care teachers worshipping the devil amidst piles of kiddie porn.”

– From “The Ritual Sex Abuse Hoax” by Debbie Nathan (Village Voice, January 12, 1990)

“Muffin Man” aired October 22, 1989 – simultaneous with not only the ongoing arrests of Little Rascals defendants but also the satanic-baby-kidnap rumor sweeping East North Carolina.

“These stories keep cropping up all over the country,” observes the “Muffin Man” prosecutor. “With this many Satan ritual abuse cases, there has got to be something out there.” (In the Little Rascals case, this “Where there’s smoke…” rationale was most notoriously put forth by UNC Chapel Hill psychologist Mark Everson.)

In Bucks County, Pa., however, District Attorney Alan Rubenstein couldn’t help noticing that complaints about ritual abuse at Breezy Point Day School went from a trickle to a torrent the day after “Muffin Man” aired. Unlike so many other prosecutors in Edenton and elsewhere, Rubenstein saw through the claims and crushingly debunked them.

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….”

July 20, 2016

“Orr, a former state Supreme Court justice… angered party officials when he told a WRAL TV reporter that the nominee was ‘singularly unqualified to lead this country.’

State GOP Executive Director Dallas Woodhouse said Orr ‘hasn’t been a good Republican for a long time.’

“Orr said, ‘If I’d know there was some oath of loyalty, some code of omerta, where I couldn’t say anything against Trump, I probably wouldn’t have come.’”

– From “One NC delegate leaves GOP convention after criticizing Donald Trump” by Jim Morrill in the Charlotte Observer (July 19)

Orr’s willingness to break from the herd will be tested mightily in his efforts to undertake an external evaluation of the N.C. State Bar, which so eagerly finds ethics violations among innocence project lawyers but almost never among prosecutors….

Footnote: To the surprise of few, the N.C. Conference of District Attorneys supports restrictions on release of police body cameras and dashboard recordings.