Feb. 2, 2018

“In August 1983 [Manhattan Beach, Calif., police chief Harry] Kuhlmeyer was presented with the McMartin Preschool case. Therapists and medical doctors had identified dozens of McMartin children as sexual abuse victims. Raymond Buckey, the sole male teacher at the preschool owned by his grandmother Virginia McMartin, was the primary suspect….

“Parents demanded Buckey’s immediate arrest, but Kuhlmeyer refused. His detectives could find no corroborating evidence.

“ ‘Why hadn’t any of the suspects copped a plea, why no mea culpas, no suicides? No one got drunk and bared his soul. If everything the kids said happened, it looked like the perfect crime. Even the Mafia has snitches,’ Kuhlmeyer said.

“The Los Angeles County District Attorney’s office… drew up an arrest complaint about Buckey, but Kuhlmeyer refused to sign it. [The DA took the case to the grand jury, which routinely rubber stamps indictment requests.]

“Kuhlmeyer’s unpopular stance was vindicated seven years and $15 million in court costs later when two McMartin trials ended with no convictions.”

– From “Police chief during McMartin case refused to charge abuse suspects” by Kevin Cody in Easy Reader News (Jan. 31)

No such doubt, by either police or prosecutors, slowed the rush to put the Edenton Seven behind bars. The result, of course, was a disaster of McMartin dimensions.

Chief Kuhlmeyer died Jan. 12 in Santa Monica, Calif. He was 94.

Feb. 11, 2016

“Significant criminal justice reforms (are needed) to minimize the chances of wrongful prosecution in the future.

“Some might dismiss such goals as a liberal utopian ideal, but criminal justice reform is being embraced nationwide by tea party conservatives. Why? Because few things exemplify the overreach of an all-too-powerful government (better) than one that yanks away an individual’s freedom without legal justification….

“Conservatives in the heavily Republican Texas legislature have embraced some of the most far-reaching criminal justice reforms in the country….”

– From “Shame and joy behind 149 exonerations” in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch (Feb. 7 editorial)

And how is North Carolina’s own heavily Republican legislature taking up the cause of criminal justice reform? With the piously labeled Restoring Proper Justice Act, (text cache), which both conceals information on the drugs used for capital punishment and repeals a law requiring a physician be present.  Sponsoring Rep. Leo Daughtry railed against “roadblocks in front of the death penalty (that) have stopped us from using the punishment” for the past decade.

Had Daughtry had his way, death row inmates Henry McCollum and Leon Brown would long since have been executed – instead of exonerated and then pardoned by the same governor who blithely signed the Restoring Proper Justice Act into law.

Oct. 7, 2013

“Today (in 2001), few contend that the interview techniques used at the outset of the Fells Acres child abuse investigation, in 1984, were proper and reliable. Middlesex County (Mass.) prosecutors admitted to appellate judges in the 1990s that those techniques – characterized by repeated suggestive questioning about molestation despite initial avowals by the children that nothing of that kind occurred – would not be employed today.

“In 1998, Superior Court Judge Isaac Borenstein ruled that under current Massachusetts law, the manner in which the Fells Acres children were first interrogated would have constituted grounds to have the case dismissed.

“That questioning included hundreds of taped episodes such as this:

• Pediatric interviewer (Susan J. Kelley): “Did the clown touch you?”
• Child witness: “No. …”
• Interviewer: “You said the clown took your clothes off. …”
• Child: “Yeah. …”
• Interviewer: “What happened?”
• Child: “Well, nothing really.”
• Interviewer: “Did the clown touch … Will you show me if the clown touched any part of you?”
• Child: “No, he didn’t touch me.”

“The child interviewed in the above example testified against Gerald Amirault at his 1986 trial, and believes to this day that she was molested by an ‘evil clown.’ ”

– From “Memories questioned, but victim still certain of ‘evil’…. Studies say kids can be easily led” by Tom Mashberg in the Boston Herald (July 8, 2001)

So what happens to the professional prospects of a “pediatric interviewer” whose ludicrously biased questioning led to the conviction of not only Gerald Amirault, but also his mother and sister?  In the short term, Susan J. Kelley had to endure even her prosecutorial allies disavowing her “suggestive techniques.”

Soon, however, Kelley’s career was back on track,  unimpeded by the tragedy wrought by her blindered incompetence. She has never apologized…. although her lengthy current resume does omit mention of her role in the day-care ritual-abuse hoax, either as a prosecutorial interviewer or as an academic apologist.

Dec. 19, 2011

“In the Little Rascals case, a handful of therapists were compensated by the state for evaluating and ‘treating’ the child witnesses. But there seemed to be other motivations for these therapists to become ‘investigators’ for the district attorney’s office. According to one mother’s testimony, one therapist seemed to have a vested forensic role.

“ ‘(The therapist) evidently had been involved in this for a long time, and she was planning on flying in experts and FBI people from everywhere, because she thought this was going to be bigger than the McMartin Preschool case in California…. And she wanted to get on this one right away, wanted to get all of these expert people in here because she knew there was a lot more to to it.’ ”

– From “Jeopardy in the Courtroom: A Scientific Analysis of Children’s Testimony”
by Stephen J. Ceci and Maggie Bruck (1995)