Aug. 28, 2013

“It’s not by chance that day care centers are the sites of magical molestation, and not public schools with their powerful lobbies and unions…. Those primary and secondary school teachers’ organizations provide protection and security for their members, much as the AMA protects doctors and the ABA protects lawyers.

“It’s only you – a day care teacher – who has no protection at all. If hysterical parents gang up and attack you, you are as helpless as a clay pigeon in a shooting gallery.”

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

April 6, 2015

A team from the Duke Wrongful Convictions Clinic recently traveled to Buncombe and Madison counties to collect documents from court clerks’ offices, to interview witnesses and to inspect locations where Junior Chandler allegedly abused children who rode his day-care bus.

Billy Chandler, Junior’s brother, and Clayton Rice, his lifelong friend, guided the Duke investigators (and me) along Junior’s daily route. The narrow, twisting backroads led us to the sites along the French Broad River where prosecutors claimed Junior had repeatedly committed the most bizarre sexual crimes imaginable.

The photo at the right shows a typical vantage. It has always seemed incredible to me that Junior – as described in Mark Montgomery’s amended petition for writ of certiorari – “would drive off his route to a parking area next to the French Broad River, strip the clothes off the toddlers, troop the naked children down to the river, put them on a rowboat, proceed to insert various objects into their anuses and vaginas, bring them back to the bus, put their clothes back on and deliver them home.”

Actually visiting and walking around the supposed crime scenes, which are completely open to neighbors and passersby, only reinforces my impression: The allegations against Junior are simply inconceivable.

So where do things stand as Junior Chandler approaches his 29th year in prison? Clinic co-director Theresa Newman provided this cautious update: “The Duke Wrongful Convictions Clinic has spent the past few months studying the file passed to them by previous post-conviction counsel, researching the developments in the relevant medical and psychological science since the mid-1980s, and otherwise trying to master this complicated and complex case. We are now moving into the next phase of our typical investigation….”

The title of Newman’s illuminating TEDx talk at Elon University couldn’t be more apt: “Waiting is a Beast.”

Jan. 18, 2012

“One way or another, justice has failed miserably in the agonizing case of the Little Rascals Day Care…. Last week, eight years after launching an investigation into possible sex abuse at the center, prosecutors announced they were dropping all charges against those who worked at the center.

“That means one of two things:

“(1) Either the defendants originally charged with hundreds of allegations of sex abuse in the 1980s are going to go virtually unpunished for their unspeakable deeds; or

“(2) Those same defendants have been badly treated by an overzealous prosecution team that broke all the rules of fairness in winning flawed guilty verdicts….”

– Editorial in The Charlotte Observer, May 29, 1997

So was that “overzealous prosecution team” simply blindered true believers, or did they realize early on their case was rotten to the core?

Defendant Scott Privott, who pled no contest and was released on probation after spending more than three years in prison, cuts through to the truth when he asks:

“Why did they offer me a plea? You know, if I’m supposed to be the monster that they said I was, if I did these crimes that they said I did, why would they offer me a plea?”

Why indeed, H.P. Williams?… Nancy Lamb?… Bill Hart?

July 19, 2016

“The prosecutor has more control over life, liberty, and reputation than any other person in America. His discretion is tremendous. He can have citizens investigated and, if he is that kind of person, he can have this done to the tune of public statements and veiled or unveiled intimations.

“Or the prosecutor may choose a more subtle course and simply have a citizen’s friends interviewed. The prosecutor can order arrests, present cases to the grand jury in secret session, and on the basis of his one-sided presentation of the facts, can cause the citizen to be indicted and held for trial. He may dismiss the case before trial, in which case the defense never has a chance to be heard.

“Or he may go on with a public trial. If he obtains a conviction, the prosecutor can still make recommendations as to sentence, as to whether the prisoner should get probation or a suspended sentence, and after he is put away, as to whether he is a fit subject for parole.

“While the prosecutor at his best is one of the most beneficent forces in our society, when he acts from malice or other base motives, he is one of the worst….”

– From an address  by Attorney General Robert H. Jackson to the Conference of United States Attorneys, Washington, D.C., April 1, 1940

Although Jackson’s cautionary words were directed toward federal prosecutors, they could hardly be more applicable to the State of North Carolina’s prosecution of the Edenton Seven.  H.P. Williams Jr., Bill Hart and Nancy Lamb surely missed no chance to put forth “veiled or unveiled intimations,” to make a “one-sided presentation” or to otherwise act “from malice or other base motives.”