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Friday, July 23, 2010

The Accusation and Conviction Machine, Part IV

In my final post on this series, I will lay out again how both the incentives provided in the sexual misconduct accusation machine and the attitudes of modern American prosecutors, along with a "Progressive" news media, have resulted in "witch hunts" and other examples of prosecutorial and judicial misconduct that have landed scores of innocent people into prison. Most "Progressives" love to think of themselves as intelligent and sophisticated, and not capable of repeatedly falling for the same nonsense, but the facts speak otherwise.

I suspect when Tonya Craft first started searching the Internet for information about being accused by child "welfare" agencies of child abuse and child molestation, she was stunned. So am I. There are thousands of websites out there including those run by lawyers and law firms, which means that there are a heck of a lot of people being charged with these crimes. For example, here is one with Dr. Demosthenes Lorandos explaining how to protect yourselves.

It is utterly tragic that Americans constantly have to be on the lookout to protect themselves against false child abuse/molestation charges, but thanks to the "Progressive" federal government, that is our lot in the 21st Century. What began with Walter Mondale's bid to "save the children" has turned into a legal hell that is comparable to the worst things that Stalin and Mao did to their people.

There are two things driving this holocaust of false allegations: (1) federal money, and (2) federal guidelines for states that want federal money. Of course, all of this was made possible by an ultra-expansionist view of the Commerce Clause of the U.S. Constitution, which "Progressives" believe is necessary for all sorts of good things to happen here.

Tracking the money is difficult, given that states and localities don't advertise how much money they receive from the federal government for each case in which authorities "determine" that someone was molested or abused. Obviously, we are dealing with a huge moral hazard, as the incentive to determine that children are abused or molested is huge because there really is no downside.

Why? The various state laws (which come from federal guidelines) proscribe punishment for people who do not report abuse that they allegedly see, but there are no legal punishments for making false allegations of child abuse or sexual misconduct. Furthermore, once an allegation is made, no matter how transparently false it might be, nonetheless authorities MUST investigate the matter as though it were true.

(Tonya Craft is suing a number of individuals plus Catoosa County for the ordeal they put her through with lying and false allegations. However, people like Sandra Lamb, Sherri Wilson, Joal and Sarah Henke, and Suzi Thorne won't be facing any criminal charges, despite the fact that all of them openly committed perjury during their trial testimony. Likewise, the people of the Children's Advocacy Center don't have to worry about having to pay for their lies and criminal conduct by losing their freedom.)

By setting into motion a whole process that is based upon the assumption that all the allegations of abuse/molestation are true, the federal government guarantees that people will be falsely accused, and I can say with confidence that few people in the government really care. Since they know that THEY won't be accused, and that they can intervene to save their friends (even if those friends actually are guilty), they could care less about the innocent.

Making things worse, according to attorney Paul G. Stuckle, is the fact that most wrongly-accused people really believe that the police and child "protective" workers simply want the truth. He writes:
Rule No. 1: Nothing an accused can say or do will convince a childsaver (Child Protective Service, child advocacy prosecutor, police investigator) that the abuse did not occur. NOTHING!

Rule No. 2: Talking to Child Protective Services or the police investigator, or anyone without an attorney present is the single worst thing a wrongfully accused person can do.

Rule No. 3: In most cases an experienced attorney will not allow you to talk to Child Protective Services or the police or give a statement. The attorney knows whatever you say will be used against you.

The violation of the above three rules by those falsely accused is commonplace. An innocent person believes sanity will intervene at some point, and decides to cooperate fully with the police and Child Protective Services. The accused gives written statements and videotaped statements to CPS and the police. In addition, the accused talk on the phone to detectives and caseworkers. They talk in the investigators offices without knowing whether they are being recorded. They often talk themselves into a corner that is extremely difficult to ever get out of.

Unfortunately, Child Protective Services and the police are not interested in conducting a fair and thorough investigation. The accused who walks into the child advocacy center without an experienced attorney to “tell their side of things” or “clear this all up” is doing exactly what the authorities want. The child savers know what they are doing. At this meeting they will obtain real or implied admissions and circumstances presenting opportunity for abuse coming from the accused’s own mouth.
It gets worse. Continue reading to find exactly how these people work, and how they manipulate the conversation to where literally anyone can be falsely accused:
The Child Protective Service investigator will start off by asking questions that appear to be innocuous but are intentional set up questions. The investigator may ask an alleged perpetrator if they have ever given their child a bath or changed a diaper. The accused will answer “Yes” as that is a normal parental function. Then the investigator will move in for the kill. The next questions will focus on other instances in which the alleged perpetrator has touched the genital areas of the child.

For example, the investigator may ask if you have ever touched your child’s bottom or genital area. If the accused says “No”, the next question will be whether you have ever wiped your child’s bottom after changing a diaper. This will be followed by whether you have ever applied medicine or a lotion for diaper rash. After the accused says “Yes”, the investigator will become more aggressive. “Are you now are admitting to touching your child’s genital area?”. The accused, knowing that any contact was done without sexual intent and solely for personal hygiene reasons is confused. The accused may say, “No, not in the manner that you are describing”. The investigator will follow up by saying, “ Are you now denying touching your child’s genital area?” The follow up questions will be to establish opportunity for abuse, such as: “Are you ever alone with your child? Have you given baths while alone with the child? “ Applied medication to your child without any one else around ? What about the date of the allegation, isn’t it true that you were alone with your child at that time?”

The falsely accused now will face an official investigative report which will read like this:

Alleged perpetrator at first denied any sexual contact with child, but then after questioning admitted such contact. When this inconsistency was pointed out by the investigator, the perpetrator attempted to limit admission of contact by stating that same was done “only while giving baths and applying medications”. Investigator finds alleged perpetrators answers to be inconsistent, evasive, and untruthful.
After observing prosecutor Chris "Alberto-Facebook" Arnt tell jurors that when Tonya Craft put medicine on the bottom of her daughter (when the child had a rash), that was a "bad touch," the previous section makes sense as to the attitudes of the police and prosecution. Now, I am sure that Arnt has done the same with his own children, but he is protected from such accusations, yet had authorities wanted to charge him with child molestation, they easily could have done it, using the same tactics that Arnt and Len "The Man" Gregor used. However, we can be assured that Arnt and Gregor never will have to face the same tactics they use on other people.

The problem is that authorities have the incentive to charge people with molestation even if they know or strongly suspect that the charges are false. Remember, there is no downside for those who bring false charges, and there is money and fame, as the press will declare anyone who goes after evil child molesters to be "heroic." Furthermore, as we saw with Channel 9, which sent reporters to Tonya's neighborhood in order to scream, "A CHILD MOLESTER LIVES HERE!!" people accused are considered guilty until proven...guilty. Stuckle writes:
What should you do once an allegation has been made?

"I'm innocent. This is crazy. If I talk to them and explain it will go away." This is the initial feeling of the wrongfully accused. They have done nothing wrong and therefore there should be no adverse consequences. Those in authority will quickly recognize their innocence, the mistake, the overreaction, and it will all go away.

For the self-proclaimed child savers though, no mistakes are ever made. "Of course the accused will deny it. Who among us would admit to being a child molester? Children do not lie. Adults lie. Molesters lie. You are lying." This is the mind-set of those who will prosecute you. Child protective services caseworkers and prosecutors believe the case is over once the child makes an outcry of abuse and that outcry is subsequently substantiated during the videotaped interview. No other evidence is necessary for them to submit the case to a grand jury. No physical evidence of abuse. No medical evidence of abuse. Nothing.

Now they may try to get such evidence. However, in their minds a failure to obtain it does not undermine their conviction that abuse has occurred. Hymen still intact? Well the hymen does not have to be broken in order for abuse to occur, or for digital penetration. Lack of semen? Well, of course, this offense occurred over the course of years and the child did not make an outcry immediately after the incident. Lack of substantiating witnesses? No matter, molesters work behind closed doors, in private, when no one else is around to witness. Lack of criminal record for the accused? The accused is a child molester, he is interested in secretly abusing children, not in committing adult crimes. Has the accused pass a polygraph test? Those are not admissible because a savvy adult can manipulate such tests.
What one has to understand is that the views of the "child protectors" come from the "experts" and, of course, federal agencies, and the federal government NEVER is wrong (at least when the "correct" people are in charge). Thus, it is rare indeed that a person charged with child molestation does not go to prison, and I am sure that Ms. Craft understood that point, as well as did Arnt and Gregor, who were laughing and smirking at Ms. Craft when she came into the courtroom to hear the verdict. (Of course, the Dishonest Duo was in full pity party mode in the infamous Channel 9 love fest, and the smirks were gone from our heroes who claimed to have been victims of a vicious defense led by Tonya Craft and her ruthless attorneys.)

Few Americans wish to admit or even to contemplate that this country no longer has a "justice" system. It is an accusation and conviction machine that once in a long while produces an outcome that is semi-compatible with justice. We no longer can count on police and prosecutors to be honest, as I suspect most cops, most "child protection" agents, and most prosecutors would just as soon convict an innocent person as a guilty one, just as long as there is a conviction.

No free society can withstand the kind of assault on truth that has accompanied the Mondale Act, the Violence Against Women Act, and the two Victims of Child Abuse acts. I suspect that we are left with three classes of people in this country: (1) those who have been accused of child molestation, (2) those who are going to be accused of child molestation, and (3) those who either make the accusations of child molestation against others or are protected from being charged because of their legal and political connections.

16 comments:

KC Sprayberry said...

You hit the nail on the head at the beginning of this article, Bill. The federal money is only a small part of this epidemic. No one involved with the accusation part of these allegations fears any kind or retribution therefore, they make these charges to get even with the accused and then sit back and watch the person's life fall apart. As was the case of SL, she laughed at Tonya during one of the early appearances. How awful our system of justice has never moved beyond the mentality of the Salem Witch Trials, more than three centuries ago. Today's witch hunts are far worse in that we are more educated than those people were yet we are seeing a pervasive method of entire communities falling under a spell of hysteria as they seek to destroy the witches (or warlocks) of the 21st century. The idea children won't lie, especially those in trouble and looking for a way out, proves those charged with protecting children have no idea how to deal with children on a day to day basis. Children lie from the time they discover admitting the truth will get them into trouble for doing something wrong from anything as small as taking a cookie without permission to what seems like innocent play that parents consider evil. In order to stop this horrible misadventure by those charged with protecting children, we must repeal those laws that give no punishment for the false accusers and those in the justice system who support them. Accountability has to become the rule of the day, for only in that will false accusers think twice about using these laws to get even with those they want to destroy. Of course, these people have no conscience and will always proclaim the person to have done wrong, but without the protection of the law, their claims won't give them the pity parties they so desire.

Trish said...

Bill, When my son was accused in the death of his step-daughter, I too did a lot of research on the internet. You ought to research the number of people who are falsely accused in the deaths of young children, especially when a head injury is involved. I will try and find it, but there was a man in California who was babysitting his girlfriends toddler who fell off the couch and hit her head on the hearth and died from the head injury. He was convicted and spent 20 years in prison, before his conviction was overturned. The mother of the child stood by him all those years and they are now married. There are many other cases out there of those falsely accused and convicted.

I wish we had known then what we know now, we never would have talked to anyone, but then again with dfcs and detectives, you are damned if you do and damned if you don't!!

Doc Ellis 124 said...

no need to post

Greetings Dr Anderson,

I have linked this to my
BikerorNot blog line at http://www.bikerornot.com/docellis124
and I tweeted this to
Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/docellis124 , to
MySpace at http://www.myspace.com/docellis124, and to
LinkedIn at http://www.linkedin.com/in/docellis124
Thank you for writing this

Doc Ellis 124

no need to post

Anonymous said...

Feds do the sort of interview summary you describe all the time. Its called an FBI 302. Nothing you say will help you. Even if you say something helpful, they do not write it down. They will summarize the interview in the most damning way possible. Never, ever, ever, talk to the police.

John Washburn said...

Don't Talk to Cops

Don't Talk to Cops (Part I) Where Professor Duane, a defense attorney, explains why even with ever increasingly improbable scenarios of innocence it is still a terrible idea to talk to cops.

Don't Talk to Cops (Part II): Where Detective Bruch agrees with Professor Duane and then proceeds to describe the techniques he routinely uses during an interrogation. (Oops. sorry, the term is interview not interrogation.)

Both are about 25 minutes long.

Here is an article of one man's response to being "Hotlined" to Child Protective Services by some anonymous antagonist. The scariest thing about the Grigg’s article is that his response was rational, measured, and prudent given the CPS culture in the USA. It is a mad, mad, mad, mad, mad, world when immediate evacuation is the prudent and least disruptive thing you can do to protect your family.


What made this work is that Mr. Grigg "Dug His Well Before He was Thirsty". There a powerfull lesson in that for all of us. Who ya gonna call when the come for you? The knock on the door is usually too late.

John Washburn said...

My take away the Don't Talk to Cops videos is this imaginary conversation.

Cop: How you doing today, Sir?
Me: <silence>
CPS "investigator": What is your name?
Me: Can I talk to my lawyer before I answer that?
County DA: Is the sky blue?
Me: Can I talk to my lawyer before I answer that?
Cop: Will you come with me?
Me: Can I talk to my lawyer before I answer that?

No matter what the question is the answer to the "investigator" is either
1) Silence (very hard for humans) or
2) Can I talk to my lawyer before I answer that?

Mary Jane said...

Dr. Anderson,

Your "The Accusation and Conviction machine" series has been extremely educational to me. I am in the position to be in contact with children of all ages daily, and my mentality was exactly as you have described as that of most innocent people: I did nothing wrong; and therefore, I should not be afraid to speak to the police. If one day a disgruntled parent falsely accuse me of anything including child molestation, I will never speak to the police without the presence of my lawyer.

maria said...

Why can we not do anything about this. America always has been the country of the free!!! This needs to be brought in the news for everybody to see and learn. We have to change the law in this country, or there will be a lot of families destroyed in the future!

kbp said...

This crooked operation makes money every direction they go, be it prosecution, kidnapping children for foster care or just plain stealing them for adoption.

Governments never shrink in size until they are over thrown, so the best you can hope for short of that is a slow down in growth and a ruling or two that changes operations on only a temporary basis.

eagle1 said...

Wow Bill,
This is one of your best posts and should scare and enlighten everyone privileged enough to take the time to read it.
I suppose the "system" is structured to trap the ones who are actually guilty of a crime. Within this the power is given to the investigators who can manipulate the prosecutors. Then if the prosecutor is not willing or able to catch a serious error, mistakes can easily be made; as did with Tonya Craft.
Seems to me not many lies have to be told by angry parents, using confused or manipulated children to result in a terrible mistake.
I am sure the ones who wrote the laws are trying to eliminate the ones who are really guilty walking away.
This is not an easy situation to alter.
I say that changes MUST be made and your blog should help if the ones in charge will read it.
The term "innocent until proven guilty" is in shackles at the moment. This is just wrong, and all the judges + prosecutors need to repeat it until they respect it.

Anonymous said...

wish you would take up the cause of getting Michael and Gabriel back to their mother where they belong and other families who are being denied their cases in court in Catoosa County.

Doc Ellis 124 said...

Anon 5.55: why don't you do something about this situation? You can blog and promote the injustice too, you know. Why is Dr Anderson responsible for other causes about which you know? If you know about an injustice, you take ownership of it and you tell everybody about it. Don't be relying on Dr Anderson like he is your daddy. He isn't.

To all: Lose the Anon tag. You have a name. Use it. I have been following this blogspot for a while. I have noticed that a lot of you are snipers: you hide behind the Anon tag. You undercut your credibility when you shoot and hide. So, if your ideas are worth sharing, share your ID, too.

Trish said...

Thought this would be of interest to those who are following the injustices across the country. www.kevinkeith.org

Lame said...

Maria asked why can we not do anything about this. The answer is simple and yet complex; paradox, I know, but hear me out.

The simple answer is because we have allowed ourselves to remain uninformed about these things until it was too late.

The more complex answer is that the ruling elite used the press and popular culture to lull America's electorate into a dual sense of security and terrorized wariness. The security came from having a period of unparalleled prosparity and increasing the standard of living to a point where the poorest of the poor in this country live better than the wealthiest of the wealty 2000 years ago. At the same time the media has terrorized America with threats of nuclear anihlation, gang violence, ethnic violence, child molesters, serial killers, and thieves around every corner. I don't have to even speak about the news reports and what they are filled with. You all already know. But, look also at the commercial advertisements. What are they all about? Home security systems to protect against break-ins; insurance providers for the inevitable car crash; investing in gold for the inevitable collapse in the economy (which is actually counter to reality, as when the economy collapses, gold loses value); practive solution to get rid of that zit that causes everyone to judge you; weight loss methods and exercise equipment to make your body look more presentable, because nobody wants to look fat--these commercials are often followed up almost immediately by a Carls' Jr commercial showing someone stuffing their face with a giant hamburger.

The whole thing is part of a running game with a fake handoff. They want everyone to think that the ball is going one way, when in reality, it's going somewhere else. They want America to become distracted, either by their own laziness or by getting them worked up over something, and while they're not looking, or better yet, in the disguise of reacting to a perceived threat, like child molesters or terrorists, they are slipping in things that are incidiously taking away our freedoms.

Simon Bolivar said that if an electorate can be made to lose focus and not be informed about the government's true intentions, the voters themselves will become the instrument of their own destruction. That, ladies and gentlemen, is what has happened. We lost focus, we didn't stay informed about exactly what macinations were going on behind the scenes, and those who did pay attention, well, they were just wild conspiracy theorists, and then, oops, all of a suddent, here are are waking up to the fact that our rights are all gone.

William L. Anderson said...

Trish,

I signed the petition. On a high theological basis, I can support execution, but not execution in this country, especially with all of the prosecutorial misconduct we have. The prosecutors in this cuntry no longer care about guilt and innocence; they are competitive people like Len Gregor, who just care about winning and not the truth.

We also know that eyewitness ID is fraught with error, yet most prosecutors don't care. They just don't care.

For someone like me with a fairly simply view of right and wrong, I cannot fathom why a prosecutor would be willing to take a chance with someone's life.

Blackhearted and Bitter said...

Damn I just typed all this out and it got lost. So, I was saying that we never thought this could happen and then after my husband informed his ex, four years ago, that he intended to divorce her, her little schizophrenic sister (they have no kids to use as weapons) went to school and said he had touched her. After the family oddly set up a weird situation where they asked him to drive her to school which had never happened before. Kid's in constant trouble, a compulsive liar, a pain in the ass to everyone for attention. Her school records were not subpoenaed, her mental illness and behavior problems were not allowed in court, and after four years of moving on with his life while waiting for trial, assuming innocence would be proven as there was SUBSTANTIAL evidence to his innocence and her telling a lie (such as she lied on the freaking stand and got caught at it but it was ok for some reason; and she'd had a friend make a similar accusation and the friend admitted under pre trial questioning that she was lying at her friend's request and retracted her statement but that was not allowed in court!!! oh and there's more) He get sentenced to 12 years for a first "offense" the sentence range is 5 - 15, he was never in trouble with the law ever once in his life before. Family broken, baby fatherless now and you've never seen a more dedicated and loving father in your life; me, numb and not giving a f*^987K about much anymore, angry and bitter and hateful, depressed, anxious, crying always, barely functioning. Well they got what they wanted I guess, I'll most likely end up where they want me - alone, vulnerable, needing a "daddy/husband" government to do all the things he naturally is willing and able to do, creating against my will a child that is programmed into the machine.

Wake up people, we're as bad off as those in Iran or similar places, evil abounds and Americans got no protections at all. What a joke of a country. You should all become paranoid and spend a lot of your time figuring out how you'll defend yourself against the witch hunters when they come for you, because each generation that grows up in the machine is more and more alienated and self-serving and lacking a conscience; each generation is more likely to lie to incriminate those it desires power over, which creates a vicious cycle of having to account for and "represent" somehow the huge numbers of manufactured victims, which in turn reinforces the victim mentality and teaches more fatherless kids to lash out because that is a legit way for them to garner power. come on, with all those people fawning over you, willing to let you have your way, and all you have to do is say "he did it" of course you're gonna say it. You stand to gain something for it, even if just the pleasure of winning and seeing someone you're angry at or whom you perceive as bothering or hurting someone you love, utterly and completely destroyed and soul killed. Wow. Can't believe the world we live in. If one more person listens to me rant and then tells me it will be ok because I could get welfare and hit up food banks and be strong and start over, I'll puke on the spot. They're all missing the point. My husband is my partner and we are a team and seeing this done to him and the baby we planned and dreamed of is sucking my soul out. The worst is, the law community is so desensitized to it, no one will or even knows how to help. What am I supposed to do with all this rage I don't know.