Dec. 24, 2012

“Why prosecutors sometimes fight post-conviction evidence so adamantly depends on each case. Some legitimately believe the new evidence is not exonerating.

“But legal scholars looking at the issue suggest that prosecutors’ concerns about their political future and a culture that values winning over justice also come into play. ‘They are attached to their convictions,’ (says Brandon Garrett, a law professor at the University of Virginia), ‘and they don’t want to see their work called into question.’ ”

– From “The Prosecution’s Case Against DNA” in the New York Times Sunday Magazine (Nov. 25, 2011)

“Attached to their convictions,” indeed. Nancy Lamb was so attached that in 1996, after Bob Kelly’s 99-count conviction was overturned, she rummaged around the office and turned up yet another molestation claim – this one from two years before the Little Rascals arrests.

Gerald Beaver, Kelly’s attorney, pointed out that the law requires any report of sexual abuse to be investigated immediately and called police investigator Brenda Toppin, who testified that she had told Lamb about the claim in 1992. Lamb denied any recollection of Toppin’s comment.

“All of this ‘We care about the children’ kind of went down the drain after the conviction,” Beaver said. “It was only when (Kelly) successfully appealed and was no longer pulling 12 consecutive life sentences that the state felt compelled to go out and find this witness.”

As usual, however, time proved no object for prosecutors dedicated to making life miserable for Little Rascals defendants. It would be 1999 before they dropped the final charge against Bob Kelly.

July 10, 2014

“Thank you for your letter expressing your concerns about the prosecution of the Little Rascals Day Care Center personnel in Chowan County. Although this matter is outside my jurisdiction as head of the executive branch, I appreciate your interest in the administration of justice in North Carolina….

“I would suggest that it might be appropriate to wait until after the trial when all the evidence has been heard before reaching conclusions about the correctness of actions taken by (District Attorney H.P. Williams) and the court.

“North Carolina has had a long history of evenhandedness in the administration of justice, and I am confident that the tradition continues to be in effect. Nonetheless, if you wish to express your concerns directly to the District Attorney, his address is…..”

– From Gov. Jim Martin’s response to PBS viewers appalled by the first installment of “Innocence Lost” (May 7, 1991)

Last week I found in the State Archives in Raleigh about a dozen letters beseeching Gov. Martin to look into the case. Although significantly less heated than those addressing the mayor of Edenton, the letters expressed alarm about the plight of the Edenton Seven:

“As a member of Amnesty International, I write letters to officials of foreign governments, many of them without democratic governments or traditions, urging them to look into the cases of people being unjustly treated…. (In Edenton) one fact cannot be ignored: Defendants have been held in jail without a trial for close to two years….”

– Laura J. Reid, New York City

“I was disturbed by the incredibly high bonds recommended by the District Attorney and allowed by the Judge…. I would hope that you will personally intervene to request judicial review of the bonds set….”

– Steven J. Edwards, Decatur, Ga.

“As a former teacher, I can assure you that children – especially young children – can easily be coaxed, cajoled or pressured into say just about anything an adult might wish them to say.”

– S.T. Reynolds, Woodland, Calif.

I have asked Gov. Martin, now retired and living at Lake Norman, to discuss his views of the Little Rascals case both then and now. I’ll be posting his response soon.

Oct. 15, 2017

“Remember, [this fictional child sex abuse trial] happened during an odd time in criminal justice, when the public was convinced there were satanic cults all over the country.

“I attended a forensic psychology conference in the early ’90s, and I heard a so-called expert describe vast networks of these cults abusing children and even sacrificing babies. She claimed that a quarter of her patients were survivors of ritual abuse.

“All around the country there were criminal trials going on…. Unfortunately, many weren’t based on facts but on fear and superstition.”

–  Dr. Lawrence Zucker, a character in “I Know a Secret,” the latest Rizzoli and Isles thriller from Tess Gerritsen 

That conference sure sounds like the actual one at Kill Devil Hills that preceded Bob Kelly’s arrest by just months.

And the “so-called expert”? Well, here’s how Debbie Nathan and Michael Snedeker described Ann Wolbert Burgess in 2001 in “Satan’s Silence: Ritual Abuse and the Making of a  Modern American Witch Hunt”: “promoter of the use of children’s drawings to diagnose sexual abuse, developer of the idea of the sex ring, participant in developing the case that imprisoned the Amirault family and currently a researcher into the traumatic aftereffects of ritual abuse.”

Sept. 1, 2015

 “(As witnesses) children are even less likely to be believed when their stories involve extremes of sadism, collusion among families and communities (sometimes extending over several generations) and so-called ritual or cult abuse – including the torture and killing of animals to frighten children into silence – that are so terrible that authorities decide these things just can’t be true.

“Yet many instances of such ‘incredible’ crimes are documented, sometimes by adults after years of suppressed memory, sometimes by authorities who are now beginning to believe children enough to investigate their stories…..”…

– From “Revolution From Within: A Book of Self-Esteem” by Gloria Steinem (1993)

Steinem’s semi-autobiography was a best-seller, both profiting from and contributing to the nation’s heightened concern with self-esteem.

In addition to using Ms. magazine to tout the existence of “ritual abuse,” she also helped finance the search for the imaginary McMartin tunnels.