June 25, 2012

“I saw this woman in her 20s … accused of something like 2,800 charges of child sex abuse. Oh, I thought, well, that’s very odd….

“I thought, How can (Kelly Michaels) one woman, one young, lone woman in an absolutely open place like the child care center of the church in New Jersey that she worked for – how could she have committed these enormous crimes against 20 children, dressed and undressed them and sent – you know what it is to dress and undress even one child every day without getting their socks lost? – 20 children in a perfectly public place, torture them for two years, frighten and terrorize them, and they never went home and told their parents anything?… This did seem strange.”

– Dorothy Rabinowitz, recalling on C-SPAN the 1985 case that led to her Pulitzer-winning coverage of the ritual-abuse day-care mania

“This did seem strange.”

From the vantage of 2012, of course, such allegations seem not only “strange” but also patently incredible.

So why didn’t everybody – therapists, journalists, prosecutors, jurors – share Rabinowitz’s reasonable doubt?

How did such a grotesque misconception flourish?

Had skepticism really fallen that far out of fashion during the “Believe the Children” zeitgeist?

Sept. 4, 2014

“The evidence you heard today in my opinion negates the evidence presented at trial…. Based upon this new evidence, the state does not have a case to prosecute….”

– Johnson Britt, Robeson County (N.C.) district attorney, acceding to release of two defendants cleared by DNA testing after serving almost 31 years each for the rape and murder of a 11-year-old girl

“You find a cigarette, you say it has (a different suspect’s) DNA on it, but so what? It’s just a cigarette, and absent some direct connection to the actual killing, what have you got? Do you have exoneration? I don’t think so….

“It’s a tragic day for justice in Robeson County…. Apparently the district attorney just threw up his hands and capitulated.” More here.

– Now-retired DA Joe Freeman Britt (no relation to Johnson Britt), acknowledging not an iota of doubt – “None. None.” – that the two men he prosecuted in 1984 were guilty as charged

Hats off to Johnson Britt for breaking the prosecutorial code of arrogance (although that’s always easier when the mistake happened on a predecessor’s watch).

And what is there to say about Joe Freeman Britt, the coldblooded “deadliest prosecutor in America”?

What I wish I could say is that his willfully blind resistance to exoneration is rare. But of course it isn’t.

Sept. 8, 2014

“The aging prison population represents a national human-made epidemic decades in the making. …

“Our current trajectory is economically infeasible and morally untenable….

“Although there is no commonly agreed-upon age at which an incarcerated individual is ‘old’ – definitions range from 50 to 65 – it is clear that the number of people in prison requiring significant age-related medical care will continue to rise at a substantial rate. From 1995 to 2010, the U.S. prison population aged 55 or older nearly quadrupled….

“On average, it costs approximately twice as much to incarcerate someone aged 50 and over ($68,270) than a younger, more able-bodied individual ($34,135)….

“The elderly in prison also demonstrate a greater risk of injury, victimization, ailing health, and death than their younger counterparts….

“The phenomenon of accelerated aging, which can be attributed to the prevalence of environmental stressors coupled with a lack of access to holistic healthcare, means that the body of an incarcerated 50-year-old has a ‘physiological age’ that is 10 to 15 years older….

“The stated objectives of incarceration would suggest that correctional spending should be allocated among demographics in proportion to their public safety risk and potential for behavioral change.

“Aging adults in prison have the lowest recidivism rate and pose almost no threat to public safety. Nationwide, 43.3 percent of all released individuals recidivate within three years, while only 7 percent of those aged 50-64 are returned to prison for new convictions….”

– From “The High Costs of Low Risk: The Crisis of America’s Aging Prison Population” prepared by the Osborne Association (July 2014) (Hat tip, the New York Times)

Today is Andrew Junior Chandler’s 57th birthday. He has been in prison since he was 29 years old. Even if he were guilty – which he clearly is not – how can the State of North Carolina justify his continued incarceration?

March 8, 2013

“Over 15 years ago, a number of children were sexually abused while attending three different day care centers sponsored by military services…

“This is the fourth follow-up interview with parents of 42 (of those) children….

“(In 1984 children at West Point day care) reported that the perpetrators wore masks and black robes. Pencils and fingers penetrated vaginas and rectums. Children were threatened with harm to themselves and their parents if they told that they witnessed the abuse of other children….

“After extensive investigation, the federal prosecutor declined to bring the case to trial due to the young ages of the children and the fragility of their memories….

“One lingering source of distress for the parents was that two of the criminal cases (Presidio and West Point) fell apart. It seemed to them as if reporting the abuse did not matter. This also added to the mystery of conspiracy that surrounded these two cases….”

– From “Children’s Adjustment 15 Years After Daycare Abuse” by Ann Wolbert Burgess and Carol R. Hartman (Journal of Forensic Nursing, Summer 2005)

Although Burgess’s career-making wrongheadedness isn’t news, I was still surprised to find her clinging to the ritual abuse hoax as recently as 2005. Prosecutors’ cases “fell apart”? – must be a “conspiracy”!

But it was Burgess, after all, whose conclusion that children in the West Point case had been ritually abused (with the obligatory “masks and black robes”) compelled the government to settle a civil suit by parents for $2.7 million. To acknowledge her error would require quite an “Oops!” wouldn’t it?

Footnote: I’ve got a previous commitment, but if you’re in Nashua, N.H., today, you can see Burgess honored by the American Psychiatric Nurses Association.