March 30, 2014

A welcome contribution to the unraveling of the “satanic ritual abuse” case against Fran and Danny Keller was this letter from Chicago psychology professor Evan Harrington dismantling the testimony of prosecution witness Randy Noblitt, a psychologist and self-described expert in ritual abuse.

Here’s how the Austin Chronicle summarized it:

“The letter, signed by 39 leading experts from across the country and around the world, presents the court with evidence not only that Noblitt was, and is, unqualified to serve as an expert at all, but also that ‘ritual abuse’ is a topic unsupported by any empirical research. Indeed, at trial the state called Noblitt to describe how the children’s allegations against the Kellers were believable and to avow that the allegations comported with ‘behaviors associated with so-called ritual abuse,’ reads the letter.

“ ‘In summary, the world portrayed by Dr. Noblitt is one in which thousands of cult abusers have infiltrated respectable society, and specifically daycare centers, in order to operate a clandestine subculture engaged in massive levels of felonious criminality,’ reads the letter. To the contrary, Harrington writes, there is not now, nor was there in the early ’90s, any mainstream support for, or scientific evidence to demonstrate, that ritual abuse is a real phenomenon. ‘In conclusion, Dr. Noblitt stated in testimony at trial that there is little controversy about his descriptions of ritual abuse,’ reads the letter. ‘This statement was not factually true in 1992, and is less true today.’ ”

I have long wondered: Why do the Ann Wolbert Burgesses, the Susan J. Kelleys, the Mark “Where there’s smoke…” Eversons and the Randy Noblitts continue onward in their careers while their victims get not even a ‘Gee, sorry, guess I was wrong’?

How do professionals, however dubiously credentialed, manage to keep their licenses and their jobs after testifying so confidently, so misleadingly and so destructively against defendants such as the Kellers and Bob Kelly?  What can be done to hold them accountable?

Dr. Harrington, who teaches at the Chicago School of Professional Psychology, says this question sometimes comes up in his class on mental health law.

“The answer, for better or worse, is ‘nothing,’ “ he says. “When you look at an ‘expert’ like Dr. James Grigson in the case of Barefoot v. Estelle, it becomes very clear that there is no remedy for dealing with bad ‘experts.’

“The best one can hope for is that sufficient scientific evidence exists to prevent such a person from getting on the stand in the first place, or that the jurors are wise enough to discard the fallacious testimony. But there really is little that can be done after the fact, except to try to exonerate those who are factually innocent.”

Grigson was a Dallas psychiatrist notorious for persuading juries that defendants deserved capital punishment.  “Dr. Death,” as he was known, was expelled from the American Psychiatric Association and the Texas Society of Psychiatric Physicians but kept his license and continued to practice.

Aug. 27, 2017

In 1999, when the last charges against Bob Kelly were dismissed, here’s how Joseph Neff of the News & Observer described the scene:

“The prosecutors in the longest, most expensive criminal case in North Carolina history picked a day when all attention was focused elsewhere to quietly throw in the towel.

“It was Sept. 15, as Hurricane Floyd churned northward toward landfall the next day, that Assistant District Attorney Nancy Lamb filed a two-page document with the Clerk of Superior Court in Edenton, dismissing eight counts of sexual abuse against Robert Kelly.”

July 1, 2013

I noted last week the continuing unwillingness of law professor John E.B. Myers, widely published authority on child sex abuse, to express an opinion “regarding the guilt or innocence of any of the McMartin defendants.”

In this passage in “Child Protection in America” (2006), which Professor Myers graciously forwarded to me, he justifies his indecision on the case by pointing to claims of secret underground tunnels supposedly discovered (too late!) beneath the McMartin Preschool:

“Several McMartin parents, especially the indefatigable Jackie McGauley, hired an archeologist to excavate under the abandoned preschool. The archeologist conducted an excavation and issued an exhaustive report concluding there probably were tunnels. The tunnels had been backfilled with dirt, but McGauley pointed out that the Buckeys had months to fill in the tunnels after the preschool closed. I read the archeologist’s report and came away convinced. Yet, I shared the report with a colleague who was just as firmly convinced the report proves nothing.”

At the very least, this approach constitutes feckless “research.” To see the tunnel report thoroughly vaporized, Myers needed only to click on “The Dark Truth About the ‘Dark Tunnels of McMartin’ ” by John Earl (1995) or “What Was Under the McMartin Preschool?” by Joseph Wyatt (2002).

When the McMartin parents went digging for nonexistent tunnels, the term “truther” hadn’t yet entered the lexicon. Too bad.

Sept. 16, 2013

“The prosecution-minded are careful to say that they do not believe everything a child says. For example, they do not believe 3-year-old Virginia’s statement that ‘Karen was cooked in a microwave.’

“But they do believe her when she says, ‘I helped my teacher put a playhandle in Karen’s heinie’ – even though one 3-year-old sodomizing another with a ‘playhandle’ an inch or 2 wide and not causing bleeding from a torn rectum is as unbelievable as cooking a child in a microwave.

“Accepting half a child’s statement and rejecting the other (death by microwave) is capricious: The truth is not a smorgasbord from which we can choose the facts we fancy and leave behind those we do not.”

– From “Magical Child Molestation Trials: Edenton’s Children Accuse” by Margaret Leong (1993)