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.

May 10, 2014

“The failure to obtain convictions (in the McMartin Preschool case) combined with massive press coverage during and after, which ‘taught’ the American public various ‘lessons’ about child sex abuse, from child suggestibility to the notion that one must guard against ‘hysteria’ on such issues.

“The Witch-Hunt Narrative (by Ross Cheit) examines the evidence in the McMartin case as well as other widely reported cases, and gathers other sources on the phenomenon, to conclude that the McMartin case and reporting led to a paradigm of treating charges of abuse as a witch hunt rather than legitimate. This book goes a long way to debunk the paradigm, because there was compelling evidence for conviction….”

– From “Book of the Week” by Marci Hamilton at Hamilton and Griffin on Rights

Are we now witnessing the beginning of a belated backlash to the backlash over the “satanic ritual abuse” prosecutions? Contrary to Professor Hamilton’s enthusiastic review, Ross Cheit’s 544-page tome is riddled with inaccuracies, distortions and a shocking number of crucial omissions. Fortunately Debbie Nathan and the National Center for Reason and Justice have responded with a devastating point-by-point refutation – about which more later….

Update: I asked Hamilton, who teaches at Benjamin N. Cardozo Law School, Yeshiva University, to read Nathan’s piece and reconsider. Her response: “We will have to agree to disagree.”

Jan. 24, 2014

“Powell is right (in this News & Observer column). The state should exonerate those wrongly convicted members of the Edenton Seven and the wrongly accused who were never convicted but had their lives ruined.

“The Innocence Project has freed men wrongly accused of murder or rape, but there seems to be little interest in making amends for those wrongly accused of abusing children, no matter how fantastical the accusations.”

– From “Edenton Seven: hysteria, false accusations, ruined lives” at Erstwhile Editor (Jan. 14)

“It can be hard, in calmer times, to imagine the power of a moral panic like the one in Edenton, itself part of a broader national hysteria. Lisa (Scheer) and I wrote about the case (in Elle magazine) and in our reporting found a community where rational people seemed afraid to dissent from the fantastical narrative.

“As young parents ourselves we were sympathetic to the families we met, but clearly things had gone very wrong in Chowan County.”

– From “Injustice in Edenton” by Edward Cone (Jan. 14)

And three online responses from the N&O:

 “A few months after (Bob) Kelly’s release I met him briefly. He had a job maintaining pay phones (for Glenn Lancaster), one of which was located in a pizzeria I was managing.

“I asked him if he was indeed who I thought he was and he said yes. When I told him I believed him and considered the accusations against him ridiculous on their face, he thanked me and appeared to be grateful for the moral support. What struck me was the lowly financial state he seemed to be reduced to and the humiliation he so clearly had to endure.”

– Bruce Henry

“Mr. Powell has forgotten Dorothy Rabinowitz, the Wall Street Journal journalist/commentator who received one of her numerous Pulitzer nominations for a series on the Edenton witch hunts. Those articles were some of the most powerful and insightful I have read in my life. I recall wondering why no North Carolina newspaper had the guts to stand up and condemn the witch trial hysteria and obvious travesty of justice taking place right in their own back yard.”

– James Gamble

Rabinowitz reported heroically on the ritual abuse epidemic, but she focused mostly on cases in Maplewood, N.J.; Malden, Mass., and Wenatchee, Wash., rather than in Edenton.

“I am so glad to know that you were in Edenton at that time and you know exactly what happened. Do you really think a child molester is doing to admit what they did? I don’t think so!!!

“I’m sure you will allow them to baby sit your children or grandchildren.”

– Lu Ann Lewis Barber

Actually, I’d be glad to allow that – what potential babysitter has ever been more thoroughly vetted than the Edenton Seven?

Jan. 25, 2013

“With regard to recovered memories, ritual abuse charges and multiple personalities, the tide seems to have turned. Courts are continuing to reverse decisions…The Edenton Seven have been released from prison…. Yet many of these people’s lives have been wrecked by false allegations….

“If, as some polls claim, millions of Americans believe in alien abduction, we have a long way still to go before credulity, superstition and hysterical epidemics are on the wane…”

– From “Hystories: Hysterical Epidemics and Modern Media” by Elaine Showalter (1998)