Feb. 1, 2012

The HBO documentary “Paradise Lost 3: Purgatory”  surely deserves its Oscar nomination, although the only edge it holds over Ofra Bikel’s “Innocence Lost” trilogy of the ’90s is its happy-tears finale: the three defendants walking out of prison.

After much lawyering, the West Memphis Three in August accepted an Alford plea that allowed them to go free,  while protecting the state of Arkansas from a wrongful-imprisonment  suit and the national embarrassment of a retrial.

I had to laugh at this exchange from the ensuing press conference:

Reporter: “Will the state continue to investigate this case if additional information is brought forth, or is the case closed?”

Prosecutor Scott Ellington: “I have no reason to believe there was anyone else involved in the homicides of these three children but the three defendants who pled guilty today.”

Defense attorney Dennis Riordon: “Does anyone believe that if the state had even the slightest continuing conviction they were guilty that it would have let these men go free today?”

If H.P. Williams Jr., Nancy Lamb and Bill Hart were watching – unlikely, given the spotlight shone on unjust prosecution – no doubt they would have admired Ellington’s resolve in the face of reality.

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.

Oct. 16, 2014

“A 38-year-old man from Statesville has been accused of molesting children as young as 3 years old at the day care where he worked in the 1990s….

“Police said a girl came to them in 1999 and said (Joshua Maurice) Young had molested her at the day care between 1994 and 1995, when she was 3 years old. The alleged assaults happened in a part of the building away from the other children….

“The Statesville Police Department investigated then, according to Capt. David Onley… but no charges were filed….

“In June of this year, another alleged victim came forward, Onley said. This one said she was molested by Young at the day care between 1995 and 1997. The earliest incidents happened when she was 3, she said.

“ ‘We had a female tell us exactly the same story – same place, same details as (the first) one,’ Onley said. ‘It gave validity to that (first) one. And then we had to go track down that first victim.’ ”

– From “Day care worker accused of sexually assaulting 3-year-olds in 1990s” by Cleve R. Wootson Jr. in the Charlotte Observer (Oct. 15)

Is Joshua Maurice Young guilty as charged? I have no idea. But given the history of day-care sex abuse prosecutions, the case against him certainly warrants a skepticism by police not indicated in this account.

April 1, 2013

“Suppose an individual believes something with his whole heart; suppose further that he has a commitment to this belief, that he has taken irrevocable actions because of it; finally, suppose that he is presented with evidence, unequivocal and undeniable evidence, that his belief is wrong; what will happen?

“The individual will frequently emerge, not only unshaken, but even more convinced of the truth of his beliefs than ever before….”

– From “When Prophecy Fails” by Leon Festinger, Henry Riecken and Stanley Schachter (1956)

The three social psychologists studied the refusal of a cult of UFO believers to accept that their belief in an imminent apocalypse had been proven false. Seth Mnookin usefully dusts off this case in “The Panic Virus: A True Story of Medicine, Science and Fear,” his 2011 expose of the groundless claim that childhood vaccination causes autism.

Before the day-care ritual-abuse mania ran its course, its theorists and trophy hunters clung ever more tightly to a belief system with no rational means of support. Long after the phoniness of the Little Rascals prosecution had become clear to the world, Nancy Lamb managed to conjure up an unrelated abuse charge against Bob Kelly. And even today…