Feb. 3, 2016

“A new survey finds that adults at school, day care and organizations such as churches and scouting groups are less likely than relatives to abuse or mistreat children.

“In general, organizations that serve young people ‘do not look like particularly risky environments,’ said study co-author David Finkelhor, director of the University of New Hampshire’s Crimes Against Children Research Center. This contradicts perceptions by some people who ‘think these are magnets for molesters,’ he said.”

– From “Child Abuse at Daycare, Youth Groups Rarer Than Thought: Survey” by Randy Dotinga in the Northwest Indiana Times (Feb. 2)

Surprising to see Dr. Finkelhor dismiss the notion of day cares as “magnets for molesters,” given that his own overwrought “Nursery Crimes: Sexual Abuse in Day Care” (1988) was an influential text in spreading the moral panic.

How did he determine back then whether sexual abuse had actually occurred? “If at least one of the local investigating agencies had decided that abuse had occurred and that it had happened while the child was at a day-care facility….then we considered the case substantiated.” In other words, one supposed “red flag” sighting from Brenda Toppin was certification enough.

As recently as 2012, when I queried Dr. Finkelhor about his beliefs past and present,  he denied being “an authority on the validity of claims” that he had laid out with such credulity in “Nursery Crimes.”

July 2, 2012

Perhaps the prosecution’s most influential expert witness during the 1992 trial of Bob Kelly was psychologist Mark Everson, director of the Program on Childhood Trauma and Maltreatment in UNC Chapel Hill’s department of psychiatry.

Here’s how Everson responded to a defense expert’s testimony that children are suggestible and should not be repeatedly interviewed: “It’s kind of naïve. It’s the kind of statement you really wouldn’t make if you worked with these kids.”

In a Charlotte Observer interview 10 years later, Everson seemed unmoved by the continuing wave of scientific research exposing the fallacy of “Children don’t lie.” He said he found it hard to believe that every Little Rascals child-witness had been badly interviewed and confused: “There’s so much smoke there, it’s hard to imagine there’s no fire.”

Where there’s smoke there’s fire?

Good lord. I wasn’t surprised to hear such naivete from a juror – “Something must have happened,” one told Ofra Bikel — but from a respected UNC faculty member whose opinion influenced whether Bob Kelly would be convicted and imprisoned?

Last week I emailed two questions to Everson at his Chapel Hill office:

– Have you changed your mind?

– How much credence do you give researchers such as Ceci and Bruck who have demonstrated the unreliability of child-witnesses?

I’ve yet to hear back.

But it’s hard to optimistic about a possible reassessment when Everson continues to choose Kathleen Coulborn Faller as his most frequent coauthor.

Nov. 9, 2011

“Fear recaptured the 9-year-old, much as it had six years ago when last he left Bob Kelly’s day care. Lingering fears gripped many of Kelly’s victims when the appellate court overturned his 99 guilty verdicts…. A week later, the little boy is still too frightened to ride his bike around the block….

“We forget the victims – unless we live with them. Our wounds from media distortions heal. Our memories of Kelly’s manipulation of ‘the system’ fade. But the genuine fears of our sons and daughters persist.

“What would you do if you knew your little ones had been sexually abused? Would you seek justice? Would… you be able to endure the years of trauma and persecution? We implore our fellow North Carolinians to ponder those questions…. Join us in requesting that the North Carolina Supreme Court uphold these verdicts.

“If the court denies the opinions of two separate juries that found both (Kelly and Dawn Wilson) guilty, the innocent victims will be under attack again. Do helpless child victims forget the brutality of rape, sodomy and crimes against nature? A more significant question is: Do we in North Carolina want to pry those agonizing details from them once more?

“True, many are old enough to realize that Bob Kelly can’t work his threatened evil to kill their families. But others still draw pictures of their visions of safety: pictures of heaven and guardian angels because they say, ‘I know Mr. Bob won’t be in Heaven.’

“We must take a stand against re-victimization of the innocent. Don’t interrupt the healing that is emerging in these courageous young ones. Refuse to allow the media to create a ‘circus’ in our noble state. Child sexual abuse can no longer be allowed or excused in North Carolina.”

– From a letter to the editor of the (Norfolk) Virginian-Pilot, signed by 17 parents of children involved in the Little Rascals case (May 14, 1995)

Buried in the Edenton parents’ heartfelt plea to the N.C. Supreme Court (which would soon agree with the Court of Appeals’ overturning the convictions of Kelly and Wilson) is this profoundly revealing question: “Do we in North Carolina want to pry those agonizing details from them once more?”

If only those details had not been pried from the children in the first place….

June 17, 2013

“I don’t know if Bob Kelly and the staff of that now-infamous Edenton day care center abused those children… But I do know, beyond any reasonable doubt, that something is dreadfully wrong in that case, and I applaud the (N.C.) Court of Appeals ruling that ordered a new trial for Kelly and Kathryn Dawn Wilson. Everyone who cares about justice should join in a standing ovation for the court’s common-sense ruling.

“Fat chance of that.

“The prosecution, led by Attorney General Mike Easley, has already begun its campaign to discredit the ruling as a nitpicking exercise that found minor technicalities in the state’s longest and most expensive trial….”

– From “Justice unlikely for Kelly” by News & Observer columnist Dennis Rogers (May 9, 1995)

Easley said he would petition the N.C. Supreme Court to review the cases immediately: “The decision casts no doubt on the credibility of the children or the integrity of the investigation…. In both cases, the facts supporting the convictions were clear and overwhelming. (The appeals court) disregarded these facts and misapplied the law.”

The Wilson Daily Times opined that “Easley’s vow to appeal the overturning is futile, and he knows it. … Easley tried to play tough prosecutor… implying the convictions were thrown out because of technical indiscretions. But he well knows that the errors in the trials were substantial and egregious (and) made a mockery of justice.”

 Four months later, when the N.C. Supreme Court upheld the Court of Appeals, Easley had lost his bravado. “All prosecutors know that cases involving children weaken with age,” he said. “A retrial in this matter will be extremely difficult.”