Nov. 2, 2014

“For District Attorney – Nancy Lamb: Two equally motivated and capable candidates, Democrat Nancy Lamb and Republican Andrew Womble, have mounted compelling political campaigns to claim the job of district attorney of the 1st Prosecutorial District.

“While both have strong credentials for practicing law and for public service, they are nevertheless significantly divided by experience. Lamb’s three decades as a practicing prosecutor is an overwhelming advantage for ensuring that the office of district attorney is guided with seasoned wisdom and trade knowledge.

“Additionally, Lamb’s long trial experience and prosecutorial insight is critically important to lead an office of assistant DAs….”

– From “Our View: TDA endorses Lamb….” in the Elizabeth City Daily Advance (Nov. 1, paywalled)

Although The Daily Advance gushes over Nancy Lamb’s “long trial experience and prosecutorial insight” and her “seasoned wisdom and trade knowledge,” the paper somehow neglects to offer even a single example.

How about the Little Rascals Day Care case?

But TDA apparently doesn’t consider Lamb’s nationally-notorious  courtroom star turn worthy of even a mention, either in its endorsement or – this belongs in journalism’s “Believe It or Not!” – in the 17 news stories it wrote about her campaign.

Feb. 25, 2013

“The 99 guilty verdicts against (Bob) Kelly appear to have set a benchmark for such cases: that youthful witnesses can have enough credibility to win convictions on their word alone.

“‘This validated child witness testimony,’ said Carolyn McAllaster, who teaches a child advocacy clinic at Duke University’s law school and trial practice at the University of North Carolina School of Law.

“‘I think the reason a lot of prosecutors hesitate to take these cases is they fear these children won’t be believed by juries,’ she said. ‘They should give a child’s testimony the same weight they would give an adult’s testimony. I think that children are very believable and that their testimony can be judged on its own merits.’ ”

– From “Rascals verdict affirms children’s credibility” in the Raleigh News & Observer (April 26, 1992)

McAllaster has gone on to become director of the AIDS Legal Project and a clinical professor of law at Duke.

Has she changed her mind about the credibility of child witnesses?

I asked her.

She hasn’t responded.

March 24, 2014

As described in Richard Noll’s “When Psychiatry Battled the Devil,” the 7th annual conference of the International Society for the Study of Multiple Personality and Dissociation, held in Chicago in November 1990, proved to be a turning point in mainline psychiatry’s attitude toward “satanic ritual abuse” and the multiple personalities it supposedly spawned.

It was also notable for the involvement of perhaps the country’s most celebrated believer in SRA.

“A large hotel ballroom (was) filled with most of the more than 700 conference attendees,” Noll recalled. “Television crews were on hand…. So was Gloria Steinem….

“(Anthropologist Sherrill) Mulhern and I were strident in our outright rejection of the veracity of SRA claims….

“Steinem approached me after my talk and suggested materials to read which she felt would help me change my opinion of SRA accounts….”

Not only had Steinem been using Ms. magazine to promote claims of ritual abuse, MPD and repressed memory, but also – just months before the Chicago conference – she had underwritten an archeological search for the imaginary “McMartin tunnels.”

I asked Noll what else he remembered about their encounter.

“She came up to me while I was still sitting up on stage and hundreds of people were still milling around.  I didn’t recognize her at first until I stared down at her name tag, then she rolled her eyes and made a face that indicated, ‘Yeah, it’s me . . . .’

“She wrote down a couple of titles that I frankly do not remember….You know, for years I saved that piece of paper she wrote on.”

As far as I can tell, Steinem has never removed her name from the very long list of unapologetic SRA believers.  But who knows – maybe it’s a position she will want to reexamine as an octogenarian.

April 14, 2017

“In wrongful convictions, the jury at some point was misled, either by false testimony or bad evidence. It’s the unspoken piece that the jurors – the public – are the ones who are ultimately used to convict someone unjustly because they were misled.

“When you’re selected, you’re officially deputized to be part of the system, and the jury can’t take the nonchalant position of ‘The professionals know what they’re doing, we’re just here.’ No, you’re a key part of this. You have to think about it, and if you don’t ask, if you don’t speak up if there’s a doubt, someone’s life could be ruined.”

–  Francisco Carrillo Jr., quoted in “Wrongful-convictions database moves to UC Irvine” in the Los Angeles Times (April 14)

Carrillo spent 20 years in prison for a fatal drive-by shooting in Los Angeles County, Calif. His conviction was overturned in 2011.

Gullibility was only one of the problems corrupting the decision-making of Bob Kelly’s jurors.