April 29, 2013

If you watched “The Plea,” the concluding 1997 installment of “Innocence Lost,” you might not expect that Nancy Smith Barrow, Betsy’s sister, would choose to remain in the midst of those townspeople who caused her family such brutal and unjustified pain.

But stay she has, raising a family and participating in community affairs. I talked to her recently about her life then and now.

Why she has continued to live in Edenton:

“I never considered leaving. My parents were here. This is my home. For a long time, I imagined my dad, mom, sister and I would be back here together, after it all unraveled, after people looked behind the curtain and saw the Wizard….”

What Edenton was like for her during the Little Rascals panic:

“I’d walk into a public place and scan the room to see if I would be comfortable there. I never felt any physical threat – that’s not the kind of people they are here…. But I didn’t want my children exposed to such obvious and outward hatred….”

What Edenton is like for her today:

“Once Bob’s verdict was overturned, that was the end of it. Now I go where I want and do what I want….

“Things went very badly for the indicting parents. But they still believe – because they have to believe….

“Some of them I will talk to in the grocery store or at school, but we are not welcome in each others’ homes….

“Our children went to school together, and they finished growing up together (without conflict). It was like when the adults went away, when the adults got tired of playing, the children were left to clean up the game….”

How she looks back at the case:

“My sister (who now lives in Raleigh) has a life we could never have imagined, a wonderfully normal life. Everyone I loved at Little Rascals is free. My children (now 32 and 28) are fine and healthy…. The Little Rascals case was a phenomenon of epic proportions, and we weathered it….”

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.

May 22, 2013

“One of the biggest strengths for the prosecution was that these children would go home every night to a parent or parents fully aligned with the prosecution theory. The story line would be reinforced at dinner, bathtime, playtime, bedtime….

“The children were, of course, separated from further contact with the accused day care workers, and by the time of trial their young memories of the actual person had been replaced by the fictional person, if they could remember who the perpetrators were supposed to be at all.

“At one point, a Little Rascals child pointed to a picture of the sheriff as one of the defendants; this identification, of course, was selectively ignored.”

– From “The Metanarrative of Suspicion in Late Twentieth-Century America” by Sandra Baringer (2004)

Edenton’s mayor was also among the initially accused, who numbered either 20, 24 or “dozens,” depending on the source. The inevitable question: How did prosecutors come to choose the Edenton Seven? Who lucked out – and why?

July 27, 2012

“It has always intrigued me that, in a culture that is relentlessly self-critical… the pre-school hysteria and witch-hunts of the 1980s and ’90s (have) attracted little, if any, notice among historians and social analysts.

“Which is odd: We moderns like to think that we are exempt from some of the baser instincts of human nature, but hysteria, mob rule, and spectral fears are still very much with us.

“Moreover, in this instance, the American judicial system failed systematically, blighting hundreds of lives: Many more genuinely innocent people went to prison, and for longer terms, than any Communist during the McCarthy era.”

– From “Remember McMartin” by Philip Terzian in the Weekly Standard (Nov. 11, 2011)