June 4, 2012

“Drawing upon clinical experience and research, Faller… asserted that false allegations are quite rare and pointed out that children have little motivation for making a false accusation, but offenders have considerable motivation for persuading professionals that children are either lying, mistaken, or crazy.”

– From “Interviewing Children About Sexual Abuse: Controversies and Best Practice” by Kathleen Coulborn Faller (2007)

Yes, that Kathleen Coulborn Faller, whose stubborn belief in day-care ritual abuse was expressed four years earlier in “Understanding and Assessing Child Sexual Maltreatment.”

Although “Interviewing Children…” isn’t specific to ritual abuse cases, Dr. Faller’s casual dismissal of false allegations echoes the “Believe the Children” mantra of that era.

So much wrongheadedness she manages to pack into a single sentence:

■ “Drawing upon clinical experience and research, Faller… asserted that false allegations are quite rare… ” Here she cites not only her own anecdotal impressions, but also the profoundly misguided research conducted during the height of the abuse mania.

■ “… and pointed out that children have little motivation for making a false accusation…” In fact, children who have been coaxed, threatened and worn down have every motivation to please their interrogators.

■ “… but offenders have considerable motivation for persuading professionals that children are either lying, mistaken, or crazy.” Did it occur to Dr. Faller that offenders have not a bit more such motivation than innocent defendants?

■ ■ ■

Ritual abuse: the creationism of social science?

Jan. 11, 2013

“Chris Bean (Bob Kelly’s lawyer until becoming involved as a child-witness parent) told me that when the townspeople first saw the documentary, they thought it was OK and that nobody thought my film had personally misrepresented them.

“But then, he told me, the firestorm of national attention began and people were writing to the mayor, to the townspeople, to many of the families I interviewed, and it was like a house of cards, you know. It all came tumbling down on them.”

– Ofra Bikel, quoted in the Newark Star-Ledger (July 18, 1993)

“The only woman who never complained after the first film,” Bikel said, was Jane Mabry – Patient Zero in the rumor contagion.

Aug. 24, 2014

“The following dialogue is from Daniel Goleman’s article ‘Studies Reflect Suggestibility of Very Young as Witnesses,’ in the New York Times (June 11, 1993). It is an excerpt from 11 interviews of a four-year-old boy, who each week was told falsely: ‘You went to the hospital because your finger got caught in a mousetrap. Did this ever happen to you?’

“First Interview: ‘No. I’ve never been to the hospital.’

“Second Interview: ‘Yes. I cried.’

“Third Interview: ‘Yes. My mom went to the hospital with me.’

“Fourth Interview: ‘Yes. I remember. It felt like a cut.’

“Fifth Interview: ‘Yes.’ (Pointing to index finger….)

“Eleventh Interview: ‘Uh huh. My daddy, mommy, and my brother (took me to the hospital) in our van…. The hospital gave me . . . a little bandage, and it was right here’ (pointing to index finger).

“The interviewer then asked: ‘How did it happen?’

“ ‘I was looking and then I didn’t see what I was doing and it (finger) got in there somehow…. The mousetrap was in our house because there’s a mouse in our house…. The mousetrap is down in the basement next to the firewood…. I was playing a game called “Operation” and then I went downstairs and said to Dad, “I want to eat lunch” and then it got stuck in the mousetrap…. My daddy was down in the basement collecting firewood…. (My brother) pushed me into the mousetrap…. It happened yesterday. The mouse was in my house yesterday. I caught my finger in it yesterday. I went to the hospital yesterday.’ “

– From “Case Study of Implanted Memory” by Martin Gardner in Skeptical Inquirer (Fall 1994)

Does this experiment’s series of 11 interviews strike you as extreme? For at least one of the Little Rascals children, Judith Abbott, lead therapist for the prosecution, conducted biweekly sessions for six months!

Jan. 31, 2012

Expert vouching.

That odd little legalism is the crucial issue in Junior Chandler’s latest – and perhaps last – shot at justice. Durham attorney Mark Montgomery has just filed an appeal on Junior’s behalf in the N.C. Supreme Court.

In Junior’s 1987 trial in Buncombe County, the prosecution ran out no fewer than six expert witnesses, including three pediatricians.

Each expert testified that Junior’s alleged victims had in fact been sexually abused “as they described” – but none could cite definitive physical evidence on which they based their validation.

In the years since, higher courts have seen the reversible error of those ways. Expert vouching is now inadmissible in the absence of physical evidence “diagnostic of” – not just “consistent with” – sexual abuse.

The case against Junior was weak and weird on all fronts. No credible eyewitnesses or physical evidence. No storyline that made a lick of sense. (Although prosecutor Bill Hart must have liked the kidnapping-and-boat-ride scenario – he called on it again four years later in the Little Rascals trial.)

Only four children testified against Junior, accounting for less than 2 percent of the 1,407-page trial transcript. Some claimed to have been abused by… Pinocchio. And jurors never heard from those children on Junior’s bus who denied seeing abuse.

Just how important was expert vouching in imposing Junior’s two consecutive life sentences?

On all charges supported by expert vouching the jury found him guilty. On all charges not supported by expert vouching it found him not guilty.