Jan. 11, 2015

Before he turned back a challenge from Little Rascals prosecutor Nancy Lamb, incumbent District Attorney Andrew Womble had given me an inkling of hope he might consider revisiting the case.

This is from a letter I sent him on Sept. 11:

“In your Q&A with the Outer Banks Voice… you recalled ‘a pervasive mindset that the job of the district attorney was to prosecute all cases and to gain convictions. The Duke lacrosse case sort of changed that in my mind; the role of the district attorney is to seek justice.’

“Your thoughtful response leads me to ask how in retrospect you view the prosecution of Bob Kelly, Dawn Wilson and the rest of the Edenton Seven. Is Little Rascals a case  you would have chosen to take to court, much less extend over eight years?

“Johnson Britt, Robeson County DA, recently disavowed the state’s allegations against two defendants cleared by DNA testing. In addition to the North Carolina Court of Appeals’ robust overturning of the verdicts against Kelly and Wilson, a quarter-century of medical and social science research has made ever more clear the innocence of the Edenton Seven….

“As district attorney, would you be willing to voice your own unofficial exoneration of the defendants in the First District’s most notorious prosecution?”

When Womble didn’t respond, I turned to Holly Koerber-Audette, his campaign consultant. Two weeks before the election she offered encouragement: “I am more than happy to talk to him about your request.  I have followed the case and your excellent efforts for a long time now…. You have my word, I will discuss it with him.”

My several follow-up emails have gone unanswered. Whatever the DA’s response, I’d be glad to see it.

April 13, 2021

If I had harbored even an iota of doubt about Junior Chandler’s innocence, it would’ve been vaporized by the podcast episode below.

Most dramatically, the Duke Wrongful Convictions Clinic’s meticulously assembled “Impossibility Exhibit” demonstrates that Junior was nowhere near the scene of his imaginary crimes….

But is the court paying attention?

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.

March 4, 2013

“What did Mark Everson, Dr. (Jean C.) Smith, Dr. (Desmond K.) Runyan, Dr. (Doren D.) Fredrickson… all say about behaviors of children who are sexually abused?”

 – From Nancy Lamb’s closing argument in the trial of Bob Kelly (March 23, 1992)

Although Lamb was understandably pleased with her parade of expert witnesses, their testimony brought only discredit to themselves, to their professions and to the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, especially its School of Medicine.

The prosecution called on psychologist Mark “Where there’s smoke….” Everson to explain away the child-witnesses’ wild inconsistencies and on pediatricians Smith, Runyan and Fredrickson to serve as “educators of the jury” about the case’s dubious physical evidence. (As detailed in this article in the Journal of Child Sexual Abuse, the pediatricians overreached but at least testified with less enthusiasm and more caution than Everson.)

One Chapel Hill faculty member, however, wasn’t fooled by the funhouse mirrors. I’ll be writing about sociologist Anthony Oberschall in Wednesday’s post.