Feb. 1, 2013

“The Little Rascals case serves as a good reminder that parents also are part of the child-savers interest group and have as much, in fact probably more, of a vested interest in ‘getting to the truth’ than any of their professional associates….

“From the witness stand, one mother describes how her repeated questioning of her three-year-old son finally confirmed that he, too, had been abused by Bob Kelly…

Mother: First time I questioned him, we were laying on my bed and I was just, you know, ‘Do you like Mr. Bob?’ ‘Has Mr. Bob ever done anything bad to you?’ And as we were talking I got more specific…. ‘Has Mr. Bob ever touched your hiney? ‘Has he ever put his finger in your hiney?’

Attorney: Was that the only time you questioned him?

Mother: No, it went on….

Attorney: Now tell me how it developed that you began to get statements from him that raised a question in your mind about sexual abuse.

Mother: (My son) was being questioned a lot from that first time on, quite often. And then that last week it was probably a few hours every day thing…. I got a response from him. Um, he told me that Mr. Bob had put his penis in his mouth and peed on him….

Attorney: How did he come up with those kinds of statements?

Mother: Because I asked him…. He had been hearing it at least once a week since I first started questioning him and then that last week he was hearing it every day.

“In their empirical research on repeated interviewing, Ceci and Bruck (1995) find that while children do remember more with each additional interview, their reports also become more inaccurate over time.

“Simply put, they recall both more accurate and inaccurate details with each successive interview. Further, repeated interviews signal the interviewers’ bias to the children, cueing them on how to answer in a way that pleases their interrogators.”

– From “The Day Care Ritual Abuse Moral Panic” by Mary De Young (2004)

Sept. 22, 2020

A burst of sunshine in these grim times. A note arrived today from Little Rascals Day Care case exoneree Bob Kelly: “Today, 25 years ago, because of Mark Montgomery’s wonderfully written and argued brief, I walked into FREEDOM…. Thanks to him and people like you who have believed in us!”

March 30, 2014

A welcome contribution to the unraveling of the “satanic ritual abuse” case against Fran and Danny Keller was this letter from Chicago psychology professor Evan Harrington dismantling the testimony of prosecution witness Randy Noblitt, a psychologist and self-described expert in ritual abuse.

Here’s how the Austin Chronicle summarized it:

“The letter, signed by 39 leading experts from across the country and around the world, presents the court with evidence not only that Noblitt was, and is, unqualified to serve as an expert at all, but also that ‘ritual abuse’ is a topic unsupported by any empirical research. Indeed, at trial the state called Noblitt to describe how the children’s allegations against the Kellers were believable and to avow that the allegations comported with ‘behaviors associated with so-called ritual abuse,’ reads the letter.

“ ‘In summary, the world portrayed by Dr. Noblitt is one in which thousands of cult abusers have infiltrated respectable society, and specifically daycare centers, in order to operate a clandestine subculture engaged in massive levels of felonious criminality,’ reads the letter. To the contrary, Harrington writes, there is not now, nor was there in the early ’90s, any mainstream support for, or scientific evidence to demonstrate, that ritual abuse is a real phenomenon. ‘In conclusion, Dr. Noblitt stated in testimony at trial that there is little controversy about his descriptions of ritual abuse,’ reads the letter. ‘This statement was not factually true in 1992, and is less true today.’ ”

I have long wondered: Why do the Ann Wolbert Burgesses, the Susan J. Kelleys, the Mark “Where there’s smoke…” Eversons and the Randy Noblitts continue onward in their careers while their victims get not even a ‘Gee, sorry, guess I was wrong’?

How do professionals, however dubiously credentialed, manage to keep their licenses and their jobs after testifying so confidently, so misleadingly and so destructively against defendants such as the Kellers and Bob Kelly?  What can be done to hold them accountable?

Dr. Harrington, who teaches at the Chicago School of Professional Psychology, says this question sometimes comes up in his class on mental health law.

“The answer, for better or worse, is ‘nothing,’ “ he says. “When you look at an ‘expert’ like Dr. James Grigson in the case of Barefoot v. Estelle, it becomes very clear that there is no remedy for dealing with bad ‘experts.’

“The best one can hope for is that sufficient scientific evidence exists to prevent such a person from getting on the stand in the first place, or that the jurors are wise enough to discard the fallacious testimony. But there really is little that can be done after the fact, except to try to exonerate those who are factually innocent.”

Grigson was a Dallas psychiatrist notorious for persuading juries that defendants deserved capital punishment.  “Dr. Death,” as he was known, was expelled from the American Psychiatric Association and the Texas Society of Psychiatric Physicians but kept his license and continued to practice.

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.”