Sept. 10, 2012

“You saw those initial documentaries, you make a choice: Am I going to watch the thing and go ‘Wow, that’s really horrible,’ and go out and get a milkshake?”

– Johnny Depp, tracing the roots of his advocacy for the West Memphis Three

That could be me talking – except that the eye-opening documentaries for me were “Innocence Lost” rather than “Paradise Lost,” that I’m a retired newspaperman rather than a Hollywood actor and – most crucial – that I went out for a figurative two-decade milkshake run rather than responding immediately to the outrage I was seeing on screen. Hats off to WM3 advocates such as Depp, who moved quickly to challenge prosecutors every bit as recalcitrant as those in North Carolina.

July 1, 2016

“Prosecutors should have to disclose evidence of innocence obtained after a person is convicted, a North Carolina State Bar panel agreed Wednesday.

“The ethics subcommittee voted 3-2 at a meeting in Greensboro to support the general principle that a prosecutor’s duty to disclose innocence evidence continues after a defendant is sentenced, although the members didn’t settle on specific language. A federal prosecutor and a former district attorney opposed the motion, while three attorneys in private practice supported it….

“The North Carolina Conference of District Attorneys had said in a letter to the State Bar that prosecutors say that the rule is unnecessary….

“The panel is just the first step in a lengthy process that – if the rule is approved at each step – involves the full ethics committee, public comment, the full State Bar Council and finally, the state Supreme Court.”

– From “NC panel: Innocence evidence right continues after sentence” by Martha Waggoner of the Associated Press (June 29)

Read more here.

March 22, 2013

“’There are some people who said we could have stopped after the first child testified.”

– District Attorney H.P. Williams Jr., expressing confidence that the jury was being persuaded by the state’s stream of child-witnesses against Bob Kelly, The Associated Press, Dec. 9, 1991

Feb. 5, 2015

“I was involved in this (McMartin Preschool) case. I remember getting dropped off at court-ordered therapy. I don’t remember the sessions, but I have seen the macabre pictures I drew. I have read the accounts the therapist wrote down for me as I detailed the abuse.

“It is my belief, after years of treatment centers and therapy, that nothing physical happened to me…. Mentally, well, that’s a different story. How about paying attention to the kids that were scarred from this therapy? Do you think that just because there was most likely no physical abuse that we didn’t still suffer? Eating disorders, alcoholism, depression, anxiety….

“I lived in fabricated fear. I have a vivid memory of one teacher telling us that she would come to our house in the middle of the night and shoot our parents if we ever told them what happened. This memory, which I now assume was a dream, was the one thing that kept me questioning for years whether or not this happened. So, while I now believe that the memories were unintentionally implanted, I still lived the nightmare through stories and drawings…”

– From “The Trial That Unleashed Hysteria Over Child Abuse” in the New York Times (March 9, 2014)  

Although I linked to Clyde Haberman’s thorough and perceptive piece when it appeared, I’m just now noticing that among the 166 reader comments was this one above from a “therapy…scarred” McMartin child. Unfortunately, it was posted anonymously – so continues the long wait for now-grown child-witnesses (other than Kyle Zirpolo) ready to go public with their recollections.