Aug. 11, 2016

“[North Carolina] Assistant Attorney General Jess Mekeel said [Johnny] Small’s motion should be dismissed.

“ ‘Innocence is in vogue now,’ he told the judge, the Associated Press reported.

“Exonerations are certainly on the rise. Last year, about 150 people were exonerated, a record number, according to the National Registry of Exonerations….

“Mekeel [said] he considers reopening cases based on recanted testimony to be a threat to the American legal system.

“ ‘This is an attempt to retry a 28-year-old case. Twelve jurors made that determination already. They heard the evidence. They concluded the defendant was guilty,’ Mekeel said, according to WRAL. ‘They jeopardize the stability and reliability of our justice system.’ ”

– From “Man spent 28 years in prison after his friend accused him of murder. Now, the friend said he lied” by Travis M. Andrews in the Washington Post (Aug. 9)

“Innocence is in vogue now” – what a revealing glimpse of the inner prosecutor! As if exonerations were a fad, an unwarranted threat to “the stability and reliability of our justice system.”

Is it any wonder that district attorneys such as Jon David so eagerly pursue innocence advocates such as Chris Mumma?

April 4, 2012

“An appeals court Thursday overturned the conviction of six people accused of participating in a pedophilia ring in northern France five years ago, unraveling one of the most mismanaged cases in French judicial history and leaving the nation asking how the court system could have gone so awry.

“ ‘I apologize to the acquitted and their families,’ Justice Minister Pascal Clement said at a news conference after the verdict was announced in Paris.

“He ordered a triple investigation of the police, judiciary and social services involved in the case…. ‘I want the French people to know that I will get to the bottom of this,’ he said.

“Paris’s chief prosecutor, Yves Bot, had personally asked the appeal court to acquit the six, calling the case a ‘true catastrophe’ and demanding an investigation into who was responsible for such a gross miscarriage of justice. ‘We must do what is necessary to make sure this doesn’t happen again,’ Bot said.

“But others were heartened by the appeal, saying that it showed that the courts were capable of self-criticism and self-correction.

“ ‘That’s indispensable in a democracy,’ said Dominique Wolton, a sociologist at France’s National Council for Scientific Research.

“The case began in 2000 in the town of Outreau after a number of children told a teacher that they had been abused.

“It was marred by deep doubts from the beginning, said Yves Jannier, France’s attorney general.

“He noted that the investigative report by the police in July 2002 found ‘more doubts than certainties’ in the accusations, but said, ‘No one had enough critical sense to stop the machine.’ ”

– From the International Herald Tribune, Dec. 2, 2005

Thanks to lawyer-neighbor Lou Lesesne for steering me to this account of the Outreau Affair.
Although the case differs in numerous significant ways from such U.S. ritual-abuse prosecutions as Little Rascals and McMartin, I was most struck by the readiness of French officials to acknowledge and apologize for a justice system gone crazy.

Soon after, president Jacques Chirac wrote letters to 13 acquitted defendants and to the widow of a defendant who committed suicide in prison awaiting trial: “Justice is the soul of the republic. We have the imperative duty to draw all the lessons from the immense sufferings endured by all the accused whose innocence has now been established.”

How to explain the French state’s humane response to its costly misdeeds, while our own prosecutors, attorneys general, governors, et al., keep silent?

Why aren’t they too “capable of self-criticism and self-correction”?

Why don’t they too recognize “the immense sufferings endured by all the accused”?

Aug. 16, 2013

“Ritual abuse may now seem an almost quaint aberration, a temporary fad that seized the popular imagination, as outdated as hula-hoops or disco fever. But our anxieties about children continue to affect our judgment. When a meta-analysis of research published in Psychological Bulletin (1998) suggested that not all children under the age of 18 were traumatized by having sexual experiences before adulthood, the U.S. House of Representatives passed a resolution condemning the association. Not surprisingly, the popular outcry that led to the Congressional resolution was sparked by talk show celebrity Laura Schlessinger.

“More recently, a book that explored whether overzealous response to fears about children and sexuality are harmful to the youth we seek to protect was published by the University of Minnesota press after trade publishers deemed it too controversial for their lists; Tim Pawlenty, then a state legislator, but who was elected governor of Minnesota in 2002, quickly moved to condemn the publication and the University for publishing it.”

– From “The Devil in the Details: Media Representation of ‘Ritual Abuse’ and Evaluation of Sources” by Barbara Fister in Studies in Media & Information Literacy Education (May 2003)

Aug. 28, 2014

“ASHEVILLE, N.C. – After more than 20 years behind bars, Michael Alan Parker, 57, walked past the barbed wire gates of Craggy Correctional Center and looked out at the mountain skyline on Tuesday morning.

“Convicted of sexually abusing his three children in a 1994 trial charged with allegations of Satanism, Parker was freed after Superior Court Judge Marvin Pope ruled Monday that the medical evidence would no longer be interpreted as proof of sexual abuse. Pope vacated Parker’s sentence and dismissed the charges against him….

“Parker was first jailed in February 1993, when he and several codefendants were accused of abusing Parker’s three children in and near their home in Saluda, N.C.

“At trial in 1994, Parker’s children testified in graphic detail about abuse that prosecutors labeled ritualistic. The 9-year-old girl testified that she had been sexually abused in a garage behind their home. She said a fire was burning inside a circle made of rocks, and she heard people chanting in soft voices.

“In an emotion-charged atmosphere, then-Assistant District Attorney Mike Edwards called the trailer park where the family lived ‘Sodom and Saluda’ and quoted the Bible in his statements to the jury….”

– From “Henderson County man walks free after 20 years in prison“ by Renee Bindewald in the Spartanburg (S.C.) Herald-Journal

Congratulations are in order for Mr. Parker and his appellate lawyer, Sean Devereux, who had labored doggedly (and often pro bono) on his behalf since 1999.

The similarities to Andrew Junior Chandler’s case are obvious, although the “Sodom and Saluda” allegations in the Parker case were rooted in domestic turmoil rather than in the way-too-familiar day-care fantasy. Most notable is Judge Pope’s recognition that the type of medical validation of abuse presented at trial has been persuasively discredited –  see also, the physician’s recantation that set Fran and Dan Keller free.

Will Pope’s decision prove to be an aberration? Or does it presage the breakthrough Junior Chandler has for so long been denied?