Jan. 31, 2012

Expert vouching.

That odd little legalism is the crucial issue in Junior Chandler’s latest – and perhaps last – shot at justice. Durham attorney Mark Montgomery has just filed an appeal on Junior’s behalf in the N.C. Supreme Court.

In Junior’s 1987 trial in Buncombe County, the prosecution ran out no fewer than six expert witnesses, including three pediatricians.

Each expert testified that Junior’s alleged victims had in fact been sexually abused “as they described” – but none could cite definitive physical evidence on which they based their validation.

In the years since, higher courts have seen the reversible error of those ways. Expert vouching is now inadmissible in the absence of physical evidence “diagnostic of” – not just “consistent with” – sexual abuse.

The case against Junior was weak and weird on all fronts. No credible eyewitnesses or physical evidence. No storyline that made a lick of sense. (Although prosecutor Bill Hart must have liked the kidnapping-and-boat-ride scenario – he called on it again four years later in the Little Rascals trial.)

Only four children testified against Junior, accounting for less than 2 percent of the 1,407-page trial transcript. Some claimed to have been abused by… Pinocchio. And jurors never heard from those children on Junior’s bus who denied seeing abuse.

Just how important was expert vouching in imposing Junior’s two consecutive life sentences?

On all charges supported by expert vouching the jury found him guilty. On all charges not supported by expert vouching it found him not guilty.

May 3, 2013

“In the quaint village of Edenton, where residents have suffered either a sadistic witch hunt of historical proportions or a rampage by a despicable gang of ritualistic child molesters, the public has been slapped in the face by a deal between prosecutors and Elizabeth Kelly.

“Kelly is one of seven people charged with sexually molesting children at the Little Rascals Day Care center. Her husband Bob is pulling 12 life sentences for his part, and lowly cook Dawn Wilson is pulling one life sentence. But Elizabeth Kelly will serve only a few more months because her lawyer got her a good deal.

“A deal? Either she is guilty of inflicting unspeakable horrors on babies or she is as innocent as a lamb. There are no degrees here, either they did it or they didn’t. If they did it, they all deserve to spend the rest of their miserable lives in prison. But if they didn’t do it – and the prosecution now seems unable to prove it and reluctant to try – then they all deserve to be free to exact legal revenge on a community that has put them through hell.

“There is no justice, no fairness and no answers in a deal that sets her free and leaves the others to rot in jail. If Elizabeth Kelly is set free by politicians, why should Bob Kelly and Dawn Wilson be sent to jail by juries? If Mrs. Kelly gets a deal, then all of them deserve the same deal.”

– From “When justice becomes the slave of convenience, faith fades” by News & Observer columnist Dennis Rogers (Jan. 30, 1994)

Aug. 10, 2015

Since I undertook this blog in 2011, I’ve been waiting for a mass-market book that recalls the “satanic ritual abuse” day-care era with authority, insight and thoroughness.

“We Believe the Children: A Moral Panic in the 1980s” comes pretty darn close to meeting that standard. (I do wish author Richard Beck had addressed the significant post-panic contributions of Richard Noll and Allen Frances.)

I’ll be posting excerpts from the book and later an interview with Beck.

Meanwhile, I’ve been pleased to see the reviews in the news media – so far, all largely appreciative.

 “…This book does a devil of a job correcting… all the lies and self-deceptions, so credulously believed in the 1980s….”

– From “Child Abuse Cases Endure as Lessons in Hysteria” by Mark Oppenheimer in The New York Times (Aug. 6)

“ ‘We Believe the Children’ should serve to remind us of the dangers of the ‘we must believe the victim’ mindset in the case of any criminal offense. A faith-based pursuit of justice can lead to a miscarriage of justice.”

 – From  “What Fueled the Child Sex Abuse Scandal That Never Was?” by Lizzie Crocker at the Daily Beast (Aug. 3)

“ ‘We Believe the Children’ reveals the various combinations of ignorance, venality, arrogance and zealotry that characterized the major players who fueled the moral panic.”

– From “A Very Model Moral Panic” by Carol Tavris in the Wall Street Journal  (Aug. 7)

Here also is a radio interview with Beck and – inevitably – a response from witch-hunt denier Ross Cheit.

July 30, 2012

Death noted: Radical-left polemicist Alexander Cockburn, who as early as 1990 was raging against claims of satanic ritual abuse.

Cockburn gave particular attention to feminism’s role in the mania:

“In the coalition powering the satanic abuse persecutions,” he recalled in a 1999 column in The Nation, “feminists constituted a powerful component, most conspicuously in the form of Gloria Steinem and Ms. magazine.

“How did feminism, a movement that grew out of the radical passions of the 1960s, navigate itself into this demonic alliance? Charges of perverse abuse of children seemed an inviting line of attack in the larger onslaught on patriarchy, sexual violence and harassment. Social workers and therapists – many of them feminists – became the investigators and effective prosecutors.”

Cockburn oversimplified, as was his way, but it’s no stretch to see how feminism fed into not only ritual abuse, but also the sister hoaxes of recovered memory syndrome and multiple personality disorder.