Feb. 7, 2014

A sampling of responses to the recent reporting and comments of Richard Noll and Allen Frances about psychiatry’s costly failure to reject the cult of “satanic ritual abuse”:

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“Kudos to Dr. Frances….  Fortunately, repressed memory therapy is much rarer nowadays (though I still hear of new cases, to my amazement and chagrin), but where are the psychotherapists saying ‘mea culpa’? I know of precisely two therapists who have had the ethics and courage to go public and apologize for their misguided belief in repressed memories and the harm they did to their clients.

“The bad interviewing technique and rush to judgment that caused the day care sex abuse hysteria has simply morphed into individual cases of false allegations, often related to divorce/custody battles or teenagers seeking revenge, and other reasons. Whenever anyone is accused of sexual abuse, they are assumed guilty until proven innocent. See www.ncrj.org for examples.

“I am also very glad that Dr. Frances has called attention to the outrageous case of Junior Chandler. I hope pressure mounts to secure his release, finally.”

– Mark Pendergrast

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“Thanks for sending (Dr. Frances’s post).  Really good for my grad class with clinical students.“

– Catherine Caldwell-Harris

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“I’m glad Dr. Frances is speaking out – he has credentials that can’t be easily dismissed…

“How do we push for the total exoneration of those so needlessly prosecuted? I would join in that venture.”

– Moisy Shopper

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“How unfortunate that journal editors refuse to get their hands dirty, even though their journals are already saddled with something dirty in their pasts.”

– W. Joseph Wyatt here and here

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“It is hard to stir up interest in moral panics that have faded from view. Only a small number of individuals continue to take note. While most incarcerated individuals have some champions and have escaped continued imprisonment, there are always tragic cases of individuals who essentially become nonpersons.

“The good news is that the moral entrepreneurs are on the run at this point, but there are still some out there and the potential for trouble remains.”

– David G. Bromley

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“Is there any hope of starting a online petition to urge (Attorney General Roy) Cooper to do the right thing?

“Of course, now that he is running for governor he probably doesn’t want the Tea Party to say that he is a pedophile-lover.”

– Debbie Crane

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“If only Cooper could see doing the right thing as an asset to his gubernatorial campaign….”

– Ed Cone

May 29, 2016

“It’s easy to whip people into a frenzy over a moral panic (such as ‘satanic ritual abuse’ in the 1980s). All you do is tell people there’s a vast segment of humanity that wants to prey on their children. You tell them that these predatory people aren’t like us – they’re outsiders with different values. And you make sure that the talking heads on TV keep the story alive.

“Is it possible that a moral panic could happen today?

“Just ask Gov. Pat McCrory, who has cost his state millions of dollars defending a law that allegedly protects North Carolina children from transgender bathroom-goers – a statewide crisis that suddenly popped into existence during an election year, conveniently enough.

“Moral panics still exist, and they’re still absurd. The only difference is, they’re a lot more expensive than they were back in the ’80s.”

– From “History warns us to beware of ‘moral panic’ ” by Ben R. Williams in the Martinsville (Va.) Bulletin (May 27)

April 23, 2012

In 2007, W. Joseph Wyatt, writing in the professional journal The Behavior Analyst Today, looked back at the Little Rascals case:

“Prosecutors appeared to have little appreciation for the possibility, or likelihood, that they were pursuing innocent people. Prosecutorial fervor for the case evidently persisted long after it had become clear that the case had taken a series of wrong turns.

“Despite the disastrous results, one of the prosecutors continues to hold herself out as an expert. As recently as November, 2006, Nancy Lamb, still working as an assistant district attorney, was co-presenter of a training program for professionals titled ‘The Necessary Components of a Legally Defensible Child Sex Abuse Investigation.’ ”

If for no other reason, the Little Rascals case demands continued public attention as long as Nancy Lamb remains at large, presenting her cruelty and deviousness as a model for future prosecutions.

Update: At a 2010 workshop for the North Carolina Conference of District Attorneys, “Nancy Lamb… presented on how to defend the forensic interview in the courtroom.”

Aug. 17, 2014

“I’m not comfortable commenting on any of them at this point in time.”

– Lael Rubin, formerly the lead prosecutor in the McMartin Preschool case, declining to say whether she still thinks the defendants were guilty

 That’s not the only eyebrow-raiser in this recent 30-years-after piece by a Los Angeles TV station.

Rubin contends that “The strongest evidence, the physical evidence, the medical evidence, I think was very significant.” But Kevin Cody, who logged more hours in the courtroom than any other journalist, confirms my impression that the prosecution actually produced “zero medical evidence of abuse.”

Finally, Rubin credits the McMartin case with improvements in the interviewing of children: “The criminal justice system, interviewers and police, law enforcement are much more concerned about eliciting information from children, as opposed to giving them clues.”

This is disingenuous. Like John E. B. Myers, Kee MacFarlane  and Sylvia Gillotte – Rubin tips her hat to progress but refuses to take the logical next step: admitting the injustices issuing from those McMartin-style interrogations.