Feb. 13, 2012

“It is evident that, although mistakes were made in the handling of the (Little Rascals) case, these children definitely were sexually abused by one or more individuals at the day care center. To suggest otherwise is to revictimize these smallest victims.

“As a professor of social work at UNCG whose specialty is child abuse, I would like the public to be aware that research has shown that 97-99 out of 100 children who report that they have been sexually abused are telling the truth. When a child tells you that an unauthorized adult is ‘playing doctor’ with him/her, it is highly likely that he/she is describing some sort of abuse.

“If you do not believe the child, you become part of the victimization of that child. If you believe that detection and prosecution of child abuse cases are witch hunts, then you protect child molesters and allow them to continue to traumatize children. I cannot imagine that the responsible people of this state want to put themselves on the side of criminals who abuse children.”

Elisabeth Porter Hurd, Greensboro

– From a letter to the editor of the Greensboro News & Record, June 9, 1997

Does Dr. Hurd still believe that the Little Rascals children “definitely were sexually abused”? And that to doubt the prosecution’s case was to “protect child molesters and allow them to continue to traumatize children”?

Last week I asked Dr. Hurd whether she might have changed her mind – so far no response.

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.”

Feb. 22, 2017

“[When Rich Rosen, Theresa Newman and Jim Coleman began planning the state’s first innocence project], not everyone agreed their work was worth doing. To many… colleagues, in North Carolina and across the country, the letters they were reading were no more than acts of desperation: There was zero chance these inmates were innocent, only that they had nothing to lose by filing paperwork. The American criminal-justice system had always trivialized its own chances at convicting anyone wrongly, feeling certain – as lawyer Christine Mumma no longer could – that protections at trial made that outcome impossible….”

– From “A Justice Startup” by Benjamin Rachlin in “Innocent: The Fight Against Wrongful Convictions,” a Time special edition

Rachlin’s piece is excerpted from “Ghost of the Innocent Man: A True Story of Trial and Redemption,” to be published in August.

May 30, 2015

Ofra Bikel’s eight hours of “Innocence Lost” were surely powerful, but the narrowness of PBS’s audience limited their impact. What if the Little Rascals Day Care case had also inspired a major theatrical release? What if several million moviegoers had watched the dramatic nobody-dunnit even as the real-life Edenton Seven were languishing in jail or standing  trial?

For a brief moment, that seemed possible.

Kurt Luedtke, screenwriter for the ’80s hits “Out of Africa” and “Absence of Malice,” was outraged after seeing the initial “Innocence Lost” in 1991. “You can’t hold people that long without presenting the evidence,” he told the Charlotte Observer.
Now retired and living in Michigan, Luedtke recalls his “indignation mounting and (thinking) I had to do something about the preposterousness of what was going on….”

Alas, his idea apparently made it no further than a preliminary meeting in New York with Bikel and “Frontline” founder David Fanning: “I can’t remember why we didn’t go forward; maybe I had another job.”