Feb. 9, 2018

“Both prosecution and defense [in a trial in Palo Alto, Calif.] called expert witnesses to testify to ‘child sexual-abuse accommodation syndrome’….

“Roland Summit, a southern California psychiatrist, coined the term in 1983. He defined the syndrome through five categories: secrecy, helplessness; entrapment and accommodation; delayed, unconvincing disclosure; and retraction. The categories describe how victims often do not resist the abuse because of power dynamics in the relationship with an adult, often delay disclosing the abuse and may change their stories due to pressure or guilt….

“Blake Carmichael, a clinical psychologist at the University of California, Davis, testified for the prosecution that child sexual-abuse accommodation syndrome is not a diagnosis but rather a set of concepts that provide context for a child’s experience of sexual abuse. He testified that research supports Summit’s original claims.

“By contrast, William O’Donohue, a clinical psychologist at the University of Nevada, Reno, testified for the defense that Summit’s paper is ‘junk science’.

“O’Donohue co-authored a literature review of Summit’s work that determined the syndrome is not a scientific theory grounded in research. O’Donohue noted that a second article Summit published in the 1990s described child sexual-abuse accommodation syndrome as his ‘clinical opinion’ and a ‘pattern’ rather than a diagnosable condition.”

– From “Former teacher denies sex-abuse allegations” by Elena Kadvany in Palo Alto Weekly (Feb. 7)

So here we are, 35 years after Roland Summit fanned the flames in the McMartin Preschool case, and prosecutors are still using his cockamamie conceit to win over jurors. It’s not just on the internet that no bad idea ever dies….

Aug. 13, 2012

I wrote Mark Davis, general counsel to Gov. Bev Perdue, to ask that she issue a “statement of innocence” on behalf of the Edenton Seven. This is Davis’s response: “Because the Attorney General’s Office handled the appeals in the cases you reference in your letter, I think that office is in the best position to evaluate this issue. I suggest you contact them regarding this matter.”

So noted. This, then, is from a letter I sent last week to Roy Cooper, attorney general of North Carolina:

When the Duke lacrosse case collapsed in 2007, you granted the defendants a “statement of innocence.” Although the statement was not a formal legal document, as I understand it, it clearly demonstrated your commitment to making amends for a wrongful prosecution by the State of North Carolina.

I am requesting that you take similar action on behalf of the defendants in the notorious Little Rascals Day Care case.

For more than a decade, beginning in the 1980s, day care centers across the United States were victimized by a wave of wholly unsubstantiated charges of “ritual sexual abuse.” The testimony of child-witnesses, corrupted by misguided therapists, resulted in dozens of convictions and incarcerations.

In all these cases, charges eventually were dropped, convictions overturned or plea agreements accepted with no admission of guilt.

Today there is no dispute among respected psychiatrists, psychologists and social scientists: The defendants were innocent victims of a “moral panic” that bore striking similarities to the Salem witch hunts 300 years earlier.

One of the most prominent of these prosecutions, of course, was the Little Rascals case in Edenton. Between 1991 and 1997 the PBS series “Frontline” devoted a total of eight hours to the plight of the Edenton Seven, leaving millions of viewers appalled at North Carolina justice.

After the longest and costliest trial in state history, Robert Kelly was convicted of 99 counts of child abuse and sentenced to 12 consecutive life sentences. He served six years before the North Carolina Court of Appeals overturned his conviction.

Dawn Wilson was convicted on five counts of child sex abuse and given a life sentence. She served two years in prison or under house arrest. The Court of Appeals also overturned her conviction.

Betsy Kelly and Scott Privott both agreed to plea deals with no admission of guilt.

Charges against Robin Byrum, Darlene Harris and Shelley Stone were dropped.

After the defendants were released, however, prosecutors continued to insist they were guilty. Exoneration was willfully withheld.

The Little Rascals case not only shattered the lives of the defendants, but also left a deep and ugly stain on the reputation of the State of North Carolina.

In 2001, Massachusetts Governor Jane Swift signed a resolution proclaiming the innocence of the victims of the Salem Witch Trials.

In time, such victims of the ritual-abuse day-care panic as the Edenton Seven will surely receive similar exoneration. Why not now? Why not in North Carolina? This is an opportunity to demonstrate moral leadership on a national scale.

I blog about the case at littlerascalsdaycarecase.org, where you will find an extensive archive and updates. I would be eager to provide additional facts by e-mail or to meet with you in Raleigh at your convenience.

Mr. Cooper, I appreciate very much your attention to reviewing this case and to perhaps mitigating the profound injustice suffered by these seven innocent North Carolinians.

I’ll post his response, of course.

Sept. 8, 2015

“Jennifer (a pseudonym) reached out to me after seeing an interview I gave about the McMartin Preschool trial…. She said she had been involved in a similar case as a child and that her experiences with the police, the judicial system, and a series of therapists mirrored those of the McMartin children. Now an adult with a career and family of her own, she agreed to speak with me about her experiences during the trial and in the decades since….

“Jennifer’s experiences illustrate the consequences of the misguided ‘belief’ in children that so many therapists, parents, and cops professed during the 1980s….”

– From “Moral Panic and the Myth of Recovered Memory” by Richard Beck at Literary Hub (Aug. 18) 

Although Beck presents more as a historian than a journalist, his interview with Jennifer is a significant addition to the sparse roster of recanting (or not) child-witnesses. Not surprisingly, her account offers numerous parallels not only to McMartin but also to Little Rascals:

• “lots of phone conversations and meetings” among parents
• an interviewer with “anatomically correct dolls”
• her initial insistence that “nothing had happened”
• “a tour of the jail” arranged by the therapist to assure her that the supposed molester was safely behind bars
• her capitulation in the face of endless therapy sessions, leading her to “finally just start… making stuff up.”
• the eventual overturning of her day-care teacher’s conviction

Might Jennifer’s coming forward, however tentatively, lead the way to more recantations by child-witnesses?

July 27, 2012

“It has always intrigued me that, in a culture that is relentlessly self-critical… the pre-school hysteria and witch-hunts of the 1980s and ’90s (have) attracted little, if any, notice among historians and social analysts.

“Which is odd: We moderns like to think that we are exempt from some of the baser instincts of human nature, but hysteria, mob rule, and spectral fears are still very much with us.

“Moreover, in this instance, the American judicial system failed systematically, blighting hundreds of lives: Many more genuinely innocent people went to prison, and for longer terms, than any Communist during the McCarthy era.”

– From “Remember McMartin” by Philip Terzian in the Weekly Standard (Nov. 11, 2011)