Dec. 31, 2012

Anticipating Attorney General Roy Cooper’s 2007 statement dismissing charges against the lacrosse defendants, Duke law professor Paul Haagen said,

“The critical thing could be the wording. It could simply say the state can no longer prove its case, which would be a very harmful outcome for the community, (or it) could provide a full accounting of why the case should never have been brought.”

As it turned out, Cooper – elbowed along by the Duke students’ phalanx of top-shelf lawyers – chose the road less traveled by prosecutorial bitter-enders such as H. P. Williams, Nancy Lamb and Bill Hart:

“In the rush to condemn, a community and a state lost the ability to see clearly…. I think a lot of people owe a lot of apologies to a lot of people.”

Cooper’s words were appropriate to end the case of the lacrosse defendants – and they would be just as appropriate to end the case of the Edenton Seven.

March 1, 2016

“It would be hard to imagine a more glaring judicial conflict of interest than the one the Supreme Court considered in a case out of Pennsylvania on Monday.

“In 1986, Terrance Williams was convicted of killing a man named Amos Norwood with a tire iron when he was 18. Prosecutors in the Philadelphia district attorney’s office sought the death penalty, and got it….

“A state court found that the prosecutors had lied, and vacated Mr. Williams’s sentence. But the Pennsylvania Supreme Court unanimously reversed that ruling. The court’s chief justice at the time, Ronald Castille, wrote a concurring opinion criticizing the lower court’s ruling for ‘condemning’ the prosecutors.

“The problem was that Mr. Castille himself led the district attorney’s office when it prosecuted Mr. Williams, and personally authorized seeking the death penalty in that case…. Nevertheless, he refused to recuse himself from Mr. Williams’s case….”

– From “Should a Judge Rule on His Own Case?” editorial in the New York Times (Feb. 29)

Meanwhile in North Carolina, prosecutors yet again show great interest in maintaining their conviction rate and little if any in ensuring justice has been done (text cache).

Dec. 30, 2015

Where things stand at year’s end in the obscure but still hopeful world of littlerascalsdaycarecase.org:

– Junior Chandler continues to wait for a decision from the Duke Wrongful Convictions Clinic on whether to take up his case. On April 15 he will begin serving his 30th year in prison.

– North Carolina’s most recent two governors and its current attorney general all have ignored my appeals for a “statement of innocence” for the Edenton Seven. Might the approaching election offer opportunities at least to publicly frame the question?

– Professional journals are still refusing to publish retractions for the articles they published supporting the existence of “satanic ritual abuse” in the nation’s day cares.

– The Internet remains a poisonous cornucopia of authoritatively rendered misinformation. This is from a message board exchange I happened on earlier this month:

“I have heard the rumors that there are a large number of satanists who abuse their children in satanic rituals. I have heard even more about the illuminati having orgy parties like the one in ‘Eyes Wide Shut’ where they rape children on an altar and then kill them in a sacrifice to Satan and then drink their blood. But I have no idea of knowing if any of this is actually true and if it is true how common it is….”

“These stories are true, for the most part. I met a young woman through my pro-life apostolate who had had several abortions – not of her own choice. She had been a prisoner of these satanists (her parents were involved in it) who had her impregnated with the precise purpose of the ritual sacrifice of abortion…..”

The only surprise here is the qualifier “for the most part” – among SRA believers, only absolute gullibility is allowed….

–  Finally, thanks to all those who have expressed support for the wrongfully prosecuted defendants in the “satanic ritual abuse” era. Let’s hope 2016 cracks the door to the exoneration they so profoundly deserve.

Dec. 15, 2013

“….Rumor has it that people are urging former District Attorney Nancy Lamb to run against Republican (State) Rep. Bob Steinberg in Northeastern North Carolina….

“In Steinberg’s district, Democrats hold a 14% advantage over Republicans and unaffiliated voters hold a 4 point margin over the GOP.”

– From “Here Come the Women” by Thomas Mills at PoliticsNC (Dec. 5)

If the idea of a spectacularly misguided “ritual abuse” prosecutor pursuing a further political career seems unlikely, consider that two of the worst actors in the Fells Acres (Gerald Amirault) case – Scott Harshbarger and Martha Coakley – both went on to election as Massachusetts attorney general.

And Janet Reno, prosecutor of the Country Walk (Frank Fuster) case became U.S. attorney general.