Sept. 4, 2014

“The evidence you heard today in my opinion negates the evidence presented at trial…. Based upon this new evidence, the state does not have a case to prosecute….”

– Johnson Britt, Robeson County (N.C.) district attorney, acceding to release of two defendants cleared by DNA testing after serving almost 31 years each for the rape and murder of a 11-year-old girl

“You find a cigarette, you say it has (a different suspect’s) DNA on it, but so what? It’s just a cigarette, and absent some direct connection to the actual killing, what have you got? Do you have exoneration? I don’t think so….

“It’s a tragic day for justice in Robeson County…. Apparently the district attorney just threw up his hands and capitulated.” More here.

– Now-retired DA Joe Freeman Britt (no relation to Johnson Britt), acknowledging not an iota of doubt – “None. None.” – that the two men he prosecuted in 1984 were guilty as charged

Hats off to Johnson Britt for breaking the prosecutorial code of arrogance (although that’s always easier when the mistake happened on a predecessor’s watch).

And what is there to say about Joe Freeman Britt, the coldblooded “deadliest prosecutor in America”?

What I wish I could say is that his willfully blind resistance to exoneration is rare. But of course it isn’t.

Nov. 19, 2012

Crucial to the moral panic was a wave of ill-conceived academic and professional literature.
I asked Molly C. Dougherty, editor of Nursing Research, whether her journal had ever published a retraction of “Parental Stress Response to Sexual Abuse and Ritualistic Abuse of Children in Day-Care Centers” (January/February 1990). As is obvious in the title, Susan J. Kelley’s article embraces and promotes the existence of ritual abuse in day cares.

Dr. Dougherty told me that no retraction had appeared in the past or would appear in the future: “The authors of the article were careful to provide a thorough sample description without including information that linked participants to any specific location or case. Conditions that would lead to a retraction are not present.”

This is from my reply to her:

“Of course you are correct that Susan J. Kelley didn’t say which day-care cases were the basis for ‘Parental Stress Response to Sexual Abuse and Ritualistic Abuse of Children in Day-Care Centers.’ (Fells Acres seems a likely candidate, since it was Kelley’s own improper interviewing of child-witnesses that led to the overturning of convictions in that case.)

“But the problem here is not specific to Fells Acres, McMartin or Little Rascals. The entire article was founded on a false belief: that satanic ritual abuse occurred at even one day care. No such ‘multiple victim, multiple offender’ allegations were ever validated. In case after bizarre case, charges were eventually dropped and guilty verdicts overturned.

“The decade-long moral panic finally collapsed in the early 1990s. Today you will not find a single respected academic or professional willing to give credence to the claims of the ritual abuse era.

“By contrast, this excerpt from Kelley’s abstract demonstrated her unquestioning advocacy:

“ ‘The purpose of this study was to examine the stress responses of parents to the sexual and ritualistic abuse of their children in day-care centers…. Parents of sexually abused children reported significantly more psychological distress than parents of nonabused children, with parents of ritually abused children displaying the most severe psychological distress.’

“Plainly, this article was guilty of what you lament in your (unrelated) September 11 blog post:
“failure to address legitimate alternative views and evidence.” And what better example of the “pseudo-science in the guise of science” criticized by Eileen Gambrill?

“I will leave you with a final question: Does Nursing Research really want to leave this article as its last word on the subject?”

So far, Dr. Dougherty’s answer seems to be yes.

Jan. 7, 2013

““When I began this journey almost five years ago, I was a very strong, very optimistic, very believing and very innocent person. As I stand here today, I have become very tired, very disillusioned, very unbelieving but very much the innocent woman I was.

“When I lost my home, my job and business, my worldly possessions – then my husband and friend – I realized that what I had believed in and held onto as truth and justice no longer existed. But with the love and concern and total support of my family, my attorneys and very dear friends, I have come to realize that although prison is some place I do not want to return to, there are many worse prisons to endure out in the free world.

“I can now, for the first time in five years, look my precious daughter in the eyes and tell her that this will all be over soon and that (the) life that we have dreamed about but never dared to believe in is going to come true.

“No one in this courtroom can truly understand why I chose this pathway at this time – but I am at peace with the only true person that matters.”

– From Betsy Kelly’s statement to the court (Jan. 21, 1994), as she entered a no contest plea to 30 counts of child molestation

May 10, 2013

“Evidence at the trial of Robert F. Kelly Jr. consisted mainly of the fantasy-laced testimony of children and no physical proof. His conviction was overturned by an appeals court that said the proceedings had been unfair. Now prosecutors have dug into their bag of tricks and, ta-dum, come up with a new set of sex-abuse charges against him.

“It may turn out that Nancy Lamb has better documentation for the latest accusations, which date to 1987 and involve a girl who was then 9. She better have. Otherwise, the public will be left to conclude that the prosecution is simply engaged in a malicious effort to save face.”

– From “Never-ending prosecution” (News & Observer editorial, May 7, 1996)

Unable to gin up such documentation, of course, Lamb finally dropped the new charges – 2½ years later! And the public was indeed left to conclude that they had all been “a malicious effort to save face.”