Oct. 9, 2013

“We are a society that, every 50 years or so, is afflicted by some paroxysm of virtue – an orgy of self-cleansing through which evil of one kind or another is cast out.   From the witch-hunts of  Salem to the communist hunts of the McCarthy era to the current shrill fixation on child abuse, there runs a common thread of moral hysteria.

“After the McCarthy era, people would ask: But how could it have happened?  How could the presumption of innocence have been abandoned wholesale? How did large and powerful institutions acquiesce as congressional investigators ran roughshod over civil liberties – all in the name of a war on communists?  How was it possible to believe that subversives lurked behind every library door, in every radio station, that every two-bit actor who had belonged to the wrong political organization posed a threat to the nation’s security?

“Years from now people doubtless will ask the same questions about our present era – a time when the most improbable charges of abuse find believers; when it is enough only to be accused by anonymous sources to be hauled off by investigators; a time when the hunt for child abusers has become a national pathology.”

– From “From the Mouths of Babes to a Jail Cell” by Dorothy Rabinowitz (Harper’s Magazine, May 1990)

April 19, 2013

“What can have spurred so many communities to such (ritual abuse) hysteria? The answer may be day care itself. The mothers who report that children never lie are simply unfamiliar with the ways of children. They may also feel guilty about putting their children in day care. A righteous rage against the day-care provider can certainly distract a parent from wondering whether she is doing an adequate job as a mother.”

– From “Believe the children?” by syndicated columnist Mona Charen (October 11, 2003)

Although Charen approaches the subject as a proselytizer for stay-at-home motherhood, less partisan observers also have speculated about the role of day-care guilt.

April 27, 2012

Friday news roundup:

■ Darkness to Light, the Charleston-based nonprofit with the goal “End Child Abuse,” has responded to my request to disassociate itself from one of the last promoters of the ritual-abuse day-care hoax. This is from Erika Rowell, program coordinator for D2L: “After taking a long look at the Survivorship website we have decided to remove it from our resource list.”

■ The North Carolina Supreme Court’s latest release on petitions allowed and denied included no ruling on Junior Chandler’s appeal. Next possible release date: June 14.

■ The New York Times reports a jarring increase in the number of retractions published in scientific journals. The Times focuses on heavyweights such as Science and the New England Journal of Medicine, but I have to wonder whether – OK, hope that – this phenomenon might one day extend to the likes of the Journal of Child Sexual Abuse, the Journal of Psychohistory and Treating Abuse Today, all of which failed to apply professional skepticism to the abuse fantasies of their contributors.

Oct. 12, 2012

The exoneration of Willie Grimes warms my heart, and not just because the 66-year-old parolee has become “Free at last!” after a 1987 rape conviction in Hickory.

As often lamented on this site, prosecutors such as those in the Little Rascals case simply refuse to acknowledge, much less take responsibility for their mistakes.

In the Grimes case, however, District Attorney Jay Gaither told the Innocence Inquiry Commission panel, “The State cannot argue any conclusion other than for innocence in the case of Willie Grimes,” then rested the state’s case and sat down.

Afterward, he explained that “In this week’s presentation of evidence we counted no less than 35 pieces of evidence and testimony in support of innocence…. The fact that the three-judge panel was so emphatic in its conclusion and decision only strengthens the confidence I have in our decision.”

But Gaither went even further, on camera and rebroadcast by WSOC-TV: “On behalf of the district attorneys of North Carolina, I want to offer an apology to Willie Grimes.”

Yes – an apology!

Although the Grimes conviction occurred long before Gaither took office in 2002, DAs often feel compelled to defend even their predecessors’ performance. As former New York prosecutor Bennett Gershman has observed, “The prosecutor can’t do anything that undermines the public’s confidence in the prosecutor’s office. Once the public begins to doubt that prosecutors convict guilty people – that there may be mistakes in the system – that undermines confidence in the prosecutor….”

Gaither took the opposite approach. “You don’t just brush off 24 years of a man’s life and go on,” he told me Wednesday. “A series of events denied Mr. Grimes a fair trial. Closure was required.

“I wanted the public, as well as Mr. Grimes, to know that we weren’t just beat down, but that we were actually sorry.” (Click Gaither’s picture above to watch the broadcast that includes video of the courtroom apology.)

Also notable is how Gaither framed his apology: “I was speaking not so much for district attorneys as individuals, as for the State of North Carolina…. Only 44 of us have that right to say ‘The state says….’ ”

In this case, that right was admirably used. Would that it happened more often.