Dec. 28, 2016

“The problem of juror pressure on a dissenting juror has long been known by defense attorneys and prosecutors.

“In a National Center for State Courts project on hung juries, researchers surveyed 367 unanimous decisions…. In nearly 40 percent of the cases at least one juror [disagreed] but went along with the majority and made the verdict unanimous….

“Research shows that dissenting jurors often go along not because they are convinced about points of evidence but because they bow to ‘normative pressure’: A lone holdout is under relentless and harsh pressure from other jurors to knuckle under. The pressure from the push for speed, the verbal battering and the threat of ostracism is virtually impossible to resist.

“The problem is made worse [in cases] when it’s impossible for a dissenting juror to say with absolute certainty whether the position of the majority is the right one and when the verdict could do horrible legal damage….”

– From “Why Zimmerman Juror B29 Believed in His Guilt But Still Voted to Acquit” by Earl Ofari Hutchinson on the Huffington Post (July 28, 2013)

Bob Kelly’s jury serves as a sad example of the contaminated chemistry of verdict making.

Feb. 12, 2017

“One day after Indiana Gov. Eric Holcomb pardoned him for a 1996 armed robbery he did not commit, [Keith] Cooper, 49, said he was grateful to the new governor for doing something his predecessor, Vice President Mike Pence, long had refused to do….

“Cooper spent nearly a decade of a 40-year sentence behind bars before he was released in 2006. Nearly three years ago, after the victims who had identified him as the shooter recanted and DNA evidence pointed to another man, the Indiana Parole Board unanimously recommended Cooper be pardoned. His request, though, sat unsigned on Pence’s desk….

“In response to a request for comment, the vice president’s spokesman did not address the Cooper pardon but said Pence ‘is proud of his record’ as Indiana’s governor.”

– From “Wrongly accused of armed robbery, he says Pence ‘abandoned me‘ ” by Christy Gutowski in the Chicago Tribune (Feb. 11)

It wasn’t easy, but Pence made North Carolina’s former governor seem absolutely eager to rectify a wrongful prosecution.

Feb. 15, 2013

From a letter that the police chief in Manhattan Beach, Calif., sent to parents of children attending McMartin Preschool after the arrest of Ray Buckey on Sept. 7, 1983:

“This Department is conducting a criminal investigation involving child molestation…. The following procedure is obviously an unpleasant one, but to protect the rights of your children as well as the rights of the accused, this inquiry is necessary….

“Please question your child to see if he or she has been a witness to any crime or if he or she has been a victim.  Our investigation indicates that possible criminal acts include: oral sex, fondling of genitals, buttock or chest area, and sodomy, possibly committed under the pretense of ‘taking the child’s temperature.’  Also photos may have been taken of children without their clothing.  Any information from your child regarding having ever observed Ray Buckey to leave a classroom alone with a child during any nap period, or if they have ever observed Ray Buckey tie up a child, is important.

“Please complete the enclosed information form and return it to this Department in the enclosed stamped return envelope as soon as possible….”

“Please question your child….”

As would be demonstrated in McMartin, Little Rascals and dozens of other day-care ritual abuse cases, these four words ensured that anxious parents interrogated their children until they at last “revealed” stories of sharks, witches and murdered babies.

The chief’s letter showed his naïvete not only about the allegations of  “possible criminal acts” at McMartin, but also about the inevitable hysteria they would produce. “….Please keep this investigation strictly confidential,” he advised parents, “because of the nature of the charges and the highly emotional effect it could have on our community.”

Nov. 23, 2012

“The great enemy of the truth is very often not the lie – deliberate, contrived and dishonest – but the myth – persistent, persuasive and unrealistic.”

– John F. Kennedy

Viewed most generously, Little Rascals therapists and prosecutors fell for and promulgated the myth. But when they obstinately refused to consider ever-growing evidence to the contrary, they ended up defending the lie.