Chapter 4 - Text - B - Panics

Chaper 4 - text - continued [Page 144]

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Reports of sexual abuse of children, even of infants, in day-care institutions have
shocked the nation, provoking demands for ha rsh penalties and instant reforms…The
crisis is evident. [* 220]

• [* 220 - Fred M. Hechinger, “Abuse at Centers: Underlying Flaws” New York Times August 28, 1984, pg. C6. 145]

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The crisis elaborated upon in the Times article, which cites cases in the Bronx, Manhattan Beach, California, Chicago, Reno, and Alabama as sites of multiple day-care abuse allegations, was one that hit small towns and big cities across the country. Even hose communities that were spared the costly trials were visited by an increase in daycare and preschool closures, and media outlets from newspapers and magazines to television
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documentaries and feature films covered the crisis as it spread throughout the decade and into the one that followed. Indeed, the first and last of the big 1980s daycare abuse cases both ended in the 1990s.

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With a final cost to the government of fifteen million dollars, the McMartin Preschool trial was the most expensive and longest running criminal case in US history at its conclusion in 1990, seven years after the first accusation of child molestation was leveled against Ray Buckey.

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Four hundred children were questioned over the course of two trials in which the defendants were charged with more than three hundred counts of child abuse. The accusations included claims of

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Both print and television news media covered the case, presenting the allegations of children and parents largely unchallenged.Ultimately, no convictions were obtained against Buckey and six other employees of the McMartin Preschool (including Buckey’s mother, grandmother, and sister).

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The acquittals and mistrials further polarized the community of Manhattan Beach, California, and they offered little remedy to the defendants whose careers, finances, and reputations were irreversibly damaged by what most observers now admit was a modern day witch-hunt.

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Despite its high profile, the McMartin case was one of several that gripped American communities in the 1980s. From 1982-1984 several residents of Bakersfield, California were arrested and convicted for participating in a series of child sexual abuse rings. [* 221]

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Away from the West Coast, allegations of the ritualistic satanic sexual abuse of children circulated in Jordan, Minnesota in 1983, and against day-care workers in Edenton, North Carolina in 1989.
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The existence of ritualistic satanic abuse has since been discredited, and the child abuse panics of the 1980s are now seen as cautionary tales about the dangers that public hysteria poses to the innocent. Nevertheless, what are now acknowledged as the moral or sexual “panics” of the 1980s represent both a response to the sexual politics of the 1960s and ‘70s as well as a foundation for the “war on pedophiles” of the 1990s and 2000s. [* 222]

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The abuse panics took place on the heels of highly publicized child murders in Atlanta, Georgia and Oakland County, Michigan. [* 223]

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As these cases unfolded, parents and teachers renewed their efforts to inform children about “stranger danger.” Fears about child safety were reflected in the prevalence of public service announcement enquiring about the whereabouts of children. At the same time, however, information about the likelihood of abuse at the hands of a person known to the child (rather than a stranger) was beginning to reach wider audiences. The panics of the 1980s arose as a kind of culmination of the fears and dangers that already surrounded children. [* 224]

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In affected communities, every child was perceived as vulnerable and every adult was a potential perpetrator.

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After seven years and two trials, the McMartin Preschool case finally ended in 1990 with no convictions against any of the seven accused. More than four hundred children were questioned by police, therapists, and prosecutors to generate the hundreds of charges
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that were filed against Virginia McMartin, owner of the preschool; her daughter, Peggy McMartin Buckey; and Peggy’s children, Ray and Peggy Ann Buckey; along with preschool teachers, Mary Ann Jackson, Bette Raidor, and Babette Spitler.

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The McMartin case distinguished itself as the most widely publicized, most expensive, and longest running criminal trial with an interwoven cast of characters and escalating series of events worthy of a soap opera.

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Over the course of the investigation, the McMartin school was vandalized and set on fire, the original complainant died after being hospitalized following a psychotic break induced by paranoid schizophrenia, the investigative journalist who first broke the story had a live-in affair with the social worker who “uncovered” the abuse, and one of the prosecuting attorneys resigned rather than continue working a trial in which he believed in the innocence of the defendants.

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The McMartin family was close-knit and headed by matriarch, Virginia McMartin. Touted by some in her neighborhood as “St. Virginia,” she had devoted her adult life to working with and on behalf of children and had been repeatedly honored for that work. [*225]

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After working for several years as a school bus driver, Virginia McMartin had saved enough money to open the McMartin Preschool in the Los Angeles suburb of Manhattan Beach, California. The school was a family affair from the beginning, with Virginia’s daughter Peggy Buckey working as an administrator.

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By the time the case erupted, the school had been open for more than twenty-five years, and McMartin’s daughter and grandchildren had all worked there. The remainder of the teachers and staff had attended church with McMartin family for several years, and the atmosphere
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at the school encouraged closeness between employees. At the time of her indictment in March 1984, seventy-six-year-old Virginia McMartin was taken into custody in a wheelchair wearing dark glasses to shield her eyes after cataract surgery. Peggy was fifty-seven, and teachers Mary Ann Jackson and Bette Raidor were both in their sixties.

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The events that were eventually described as “scarr[ing] a whole generation of children” began with a single accusation. [...] In August 1983, prompted by her son’s painful bowel movements, Judy Johnson reported to the police that the two-and-a-halfyear-old had been sodomized by McMartin school aide, Ray Buckey.Buckey, the grandson of school’s founder, Virginia McMartin, and the son of Peggy McMartin Buckey, an administrator at the preschool, denied all wrongdoing.

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Over the next two months Johnson continued to levy increasingly bizarre accusations against Buckey and other employees at the McMartin preschool alleging that, among other things, her son was “buried alive…[and] sodomized by a lion.” [...] Johnson would also accuse her husband of abusing their son, but police and prosecutors, who had already begun mounting a case against Buckey, were reluctant to pursue another investigation that could undermine the McMartin case.

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After Buckey’s September arrest, he was released for lack of evidence. It was at this time that police chief Harry Kuhlmeyer sent a letter to the parents of 200 current and former McMartin Preschool students. The letter informed parents of the ongoing investigation against Buckey and instructed them to question their children to see if they had been abused or witnessed abuse while at the preschool.
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The letter asked parents to gather

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After the letter was distributed, the number of victims and charges quickly multiplied. Within five months, Virginia McMartin and her daughter were forced to close the school permanently.

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Overwhelmed by the growing number of children involved in the case, the police department asked Kee MacFarlane, a social worker with Children’s Institute International (CII), to interview the children and make a determination regarding alleged abuse. Though she was not licensed in any state, MacFarlane had worked with abused children for more than a decade. She taped all of her interviews and used anatomically correct dolls to allow the children to identify body parts and actions and hand puppets to put the children at ease and allow them to gain distance from disclosures of abuse.

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As the case generated more publicity, MacFarlane became a kind of spokesperson for abused children, and she was portrayed and accepted as an expert, eventually testifying before Congress about “an organized operation of child predators designed to prevent detection.” Prompted by circumstantial evidence, MacFarlane claimed that within such networks preschools “serve as a ruse for larger unthinkable crimes against children.”  [...]

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The McMartin case was picked up by the national news media after Wayne Satz aired a series of exclusive investigative reports on the case for local Los Angeles station, KABC.

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Satz’s two year long coverage of the McMartin case won him two Golden Mikes awards, and is frequently credited with catapulting the case into the national spotlight. In fact, on reporter working the case has gone on record saying that

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Both the District Attorney and Satz himself deny that his reports had this level of influence. However, after his initial reports aired, charges of abuse at McMartin and other area preschools and day-care centers increased dramatically, forcing several to close. Satz underwent further criticism for pursuing a romantic relationship with Kee MacFarlane, a primary prosecution witness, though Satz defended his behavior and insisted that there was no conflict of interest. By the time indictments were handed down against the seven defendants, KCBS reporter Ross Becker claimed that, “the story took on a life of its
own.” [...]

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After the grand jury handed down indictments against McMartin, the Buckeys, Jackson, Raidor, and Spitler in March 1984, the seven were quickly arrested. At their bail hearings, prosecutor Lael Rubin argued against bail for the defendants, claiming that they had committed 397 crimes in addition to the 115 on which they had been indicted, and that the nature of the crimes combined with the threats made against the victims made remand necessary in this case.

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Bail was denied for Ray Buckey, and bail for Peggy Buckey was set at $1 million. Unable to make bail, all defendants except for Virginia McMartin were imprisoned awaiting trial. Over the course of the pretrial proceedings, which lasted nearly eighteen months, Peggy Ann was released on bond.

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And in 1986, the newly elected district attorney, Ira Reiner, dismissed charges against all defendants except Peggy and Ray Buckey, both of whom had remained incarcerated, citing “incredibly weak evidence.” [...] The prosecution proceeded to trial against Ray and Peggy Buckey on 65 counts of child abuse.

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The trial against Ray and Peggy Buckey was unprecedented not only because of it duration and cost, but also because of the scope and sensitivity of the issues involved.

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Before it was over “63,000 pages of testimony, 917 exhibits and 124 witnesses” were generated.  [...] Over the course of the 33-month trial, the defense strategy seemed to be to highlight the errors made by the police, the staff at CII and the district attorney’s
office.

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In the end, many jurors were convinced that something had happened to the children, but they were unable to return a guilty verdict. Their reluctance to convict stemmed from the misconduct on the part of police who released Buckey’s name to parents before charges were filed, what they perceived as coercive therapeutic techniques, and inconsistent testimony from prosecution witnesses.

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On January 18, 1990, more than six years after Judy Johnson made the first complaint, the jury found the Buckeys not guilty on 52 counts, and deadlocked on 13 others. Echoing statements made in juror interviews, Ray Buckey’s attorney, Daniel Davis, told reporters after the conclusion of the trial,

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A mere two weeks later, the district attorney’s office announced its intention to retry Ray Buckey on eight of the thirteen counts for which no verdict had been reached. The second trial, though quicker, also ended in a hung jury.

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If, as Gail Rubin asserts, disputes over sexual behavior mask broader social anxieties, then the day-care abuse crisis ignited by the McMartin case can be read as evidence of Americans’ ambivalence about the care of their children. [* 235]

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In the 1970s, feminists identified the home as a potentially dangerous place when they publicized the realities of incest in the face of class- and race-based fears of stranger danger. [*236]

At the same time, steady increases in women’s work force participation saw greater numbers of American children in day-care facilities in the 1980s.

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As the child-abuse panics ofthe later decade spread, the media framed the issue as one of oversight, with some in the public demanding greater regulation and higher standards for day-care facilities and others pointing to women’s absence from the home as the root cause of children’s increased vulnerability. [...] With both the home and the school identified as sites of danger to children, Americans’ fears about their children’s well-being were on the rise.
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Debates about children and youth sexuality also underwent significant transformation. The earlier decade witnessed the rise of public debates about young people’s ability to possess sexual desire and consent to sexual activity. [* 238]

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The 1980s elevation of the child-victim shifted public discourse from a focus on consent to
one on vulnerability. Even the nature of the scandals that received media attention reveal this shift, highlighted by the 1970s media focus on adolescent prostitution and the 1980s attention to day-care abuse. [* 239]

• [* 239 - Two prominent child prostitution cases were heavily publicized in 1970s Boston, the Sunshine Girls case in which a group of under-aged girls was alleged to have been prostituted to prominent business men and the pedophile panic in which gay teens were reported to have been at the root of the arrest of gay men in the Boston public library.]

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What McMartin and other subsequent cases revealed, however, was that the discourse of children’s vulnerability was complex, and that it often identified multiple actors as dangerous to children. That is, perpetrators of sexual violence were not the only threats to children when“overzealous prosecutor[s]…and a ‘cottage industry’ of child-abuse psychologists” were also capable of manipulating children into believing
that abuse had occurred. [...]

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That children were in peril seemed not to be in doubt; it was the source of children’s danger that was unclear. As children and their parents lamented the failures of the justice system with the same intensity displayed by the defendants and their attorneys, it was clear that this trial ushered in a new set of concerns for the child-victim and those accused of child abuse.

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After the first McMartin jury returned not guilty verdicts on more than fifty counts, some jurors conceded that they believed that children had been abused, but held that the prosecution had not convinced them that the abuse had taken place at the McMartin preschool or at the hands of Peggy or Ray Buckey:

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For others on the jury, however, the credibility of the children was at issue:

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Indeed, the McMartin case would begin a debate in both judicial and psychological circles about the ability of children — especially very young children — to provide credible testimony. This question would be raised throughout subsequent abuse trials in the ‘80s, and would persist in the face of suspect therapeutic techniques and children recanting.  [* 243]

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Members of both the prosecution and the defense, along with police officials, social workers and legislators all agreed that the McMartin case provided useful lessons and hoped that its legacy would be to see those lessons borne out. After the verdict, social worker and key prosecution witness, Kee MacFarlane said,

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Judicial analysis turned to the length of the trial and to the special needs of child witnesses. [...] In a statement made after the verdict, district attorney Reiner said,

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Because of the case’s seven-year duration, however, these observations came too late to halt similar panics from cropping up. After the case first came to public attention in 1984, however, a rash of similar cases emerged throughout the country. The extent of the accusations and the frequency of day-care closures prompted a national debate about the need for regulation in nursery- and preschools, and for new guidelines for questioning children. Still, for those involved, the resolution of the case provided no comfort.

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Similar charges were filed in Jordan, Minnesota in 1983. Within a year, 25 adults and one juvenile were arrested, dozens of children were removed from their parents’ custody, the FBI and state police launched an investigation into alleged child pornography and infanticide, the state attorney general decried the handling of the case as “a tragedy,” and the only trial based on the charges resulted in acquittal.

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Like other child abuse cases in the period, the charges in Jordan quickly multiplied, and stories of ritualistic satanic abuse surfaced. Unlike the McMartin case, however, one suspect
pleaded guilty, and key witnesses admitted to fabricating charges by the end of 1984.

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The arrest of more than two-dozen people for participating in a “sex ring” rocked the small town of Jordan, Minnesota. Thirty-five miles outside of Minneapolis,
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Jordan was founded in the mid-nineteenth century. Despite its proximity to the Twin Cities, it was described as

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Heavily wooded, with homes nestled on bluffs or waterfronts, the town celebrated its “rural” feeling by setting aside forested land in a series of state and federal parks. The community of 2,700 was transformed by the allegations:

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The case began in September 1983 when a resident reported that her nine-yearold daughter had been sexually assaulted by trash collector, James Rud, a man twice convicted of child molestation who was then under probation. In a 113-page statement made in August 1983, Rud implicated others in Jordan, including a deputy sheriff, a police officer, mechanics, and waitresses. [...]

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By the time the first case proceeded to trial, more than forty children, ranging in age from toddlers to teenagers, were identified as victims of twenty-five adults. The accused were said to have abused their own and each other’s children in an elaborate sex ring in which parents exchanged children with each other for the purposes of sexual exploitation. Once three boys came forward claiming to have witnessed the sacrifice of babies, the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension (BCA) and the FBI were called in to investigate.

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In addition to the sexual abuse and murder charges, authorities began looking for evidence of a child pornography syndicate based in the town.

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Ultimately, no evidence of murder or pornography was found, and the case, from its initial investigation to its ultimate prosecution, was described by state attorney general, Hubert H. Humphrey III, as having “clearly [gone] awry.” [...]

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Though attorneys from Humphrey to Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia acknowledge that abuse occurred in Jordan, James Rud was the only one of the accused to be convicted as a result of a guilty plea. [...] Rud agreed to testify against other Jordan defendants, and in exchange, Scott County attorney, R. Kathleen Morris, agreed to drop 98 of the 100 charges pending against him.

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Ultimately, this plea undermined the credibility of the prosecution’s case and contributed to the not guilty verdict in the only case that went to trial. The acquittal combined with CBA and FBI findings, with witnesses recanting, and with Rud’s own admissions that he had made false statement to obtain leniency, left prosecutors with little choice by to drop the remaining charges. [...]

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The only case to go to trial was that of Robert and Lois Brentz, a husband and wife who were charged with molesting their six-year-old son and four other Jordan children. The couple was acquitted after a four-week long trial and two days of jury deliberation. As in the McMartin case, children’s vulnerability to manipulation focused attention both on those accused of sexual abuse and on the leading tactics of the prosecution and its witnesses. In response to the verdict, county prosecutor R. Kathleen Morris proclaimed,
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In a case that “rested almost exclusively on the credibility of the children,” an acquittal suggested that even if community hysteria contributed to child abuse panics, skepticism still prevailed in the jury room. [...]

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As the 1980s drew to a close, the small town of Edenton, North Carolina made national news when the owners of its most prominent day-care, Little Rascals, were arrested for the sexual abuse of children in their care. Unlike the cases in Minnesota and California, the Little Rascals case was set apart because jury convictions were obtained against some of the accused, and because the media coverage ranged from uncritical to skeptical.

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The quiet calm of small town life was disrupted when the first allegations surfaced in January 1989. By the time the final Little Rascals charge was dismissed in 1997, more than four hundred counts of abuse were levied against seven people, including Bob and Betsy Kelly, the daughter and son-in-law of a local business owner and politician, and Scott Privott, son of a judge, successful business owner, and country club president.

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In fact, coverage of the scandal and subsequent trials revealed a community equally as shocked by the nature of the crimes as it was by the status of the people who were accused. 

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Bob and Betsy Kelly, owners of the Little Rascals Day-care Center, were at the heart of the case. The couple married in 1979 and opened Little Rascals in 1986. Two years later the couple moved the day-care into a converted bottle factory owned by Betsy’s father.
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The new location allowed them to care for more children and to hire additional staff. Located just one block east of Edenton’s main street, Little Rascals became the town’s “most prestigious day-care.” [...]

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This distinction carried weight in a town like Edenton, whose population in the mid-1980s was about six thousand. The small town atmosphere was based on more than the number of residents, however. The rural community on the edge of the Albemarle Sound boasts a number of historical markers as a testament to its eighteenth century founding and long-ago stint as unofficial state capital. Within its borders, many residents live in colonial homes and are part of families whose members have known one another for generations.

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The closeness of Edenton residents became evident as the Little Rascals scandal unfolded. Three days after the new location opened, Bob slapped Joel Mabrey, the fouryear-old son of Betsy’s friend Jane. The circumstances surrounding the incident remain unclear; however, the Kellys refusal to apologize to Jane Mabrey, though they eventually claimed that the slap was an accident, are well documented. [* 256]

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According to interviews conducted as part of the first of three Frontline documentaries covering the allegations and subsequent trials, Jane was “devastated” by the incident. After her son told her that he had been slapped, she

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Upset that no one seemed to take the slapping seriously, Jane confronted the Kellys:
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• “And we had a very bad scene. I was crying and weeping and saying, ‘How could this happen?’ at the time still thinking it was an accident, but knowing I could never bring Joel back down there unless he understood that adults could make mistakes and they can rectify them. And that was never done.” [...]

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No apology from the Kellys was forthcoming. Jane’s dissatisfaction with the resolution of the event was still evident two months after the incident that prompted her to remove Joel from Little Rascals. She approached the Kellys again:

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Bob and Betsy’s continued refusal to acknowledge the wrong that had been done to her son compelled Jane to act.

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Betsy Kelly’s sister, Nancy Smith, believed that Jane instigated the panic that consumed Little Rascals less than four months after Jane removed her son from the daycare. According to Nancy,

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Indeed, Jane’s own words indicate that she uncovered what would become the first allegation of abuse after she began speaking with parents whose children attended Little Rascals:

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After her conversation with Jane, Stever approached police officer, Brenda Toppin. Stever and Toppin were friends, and Toppin, who had recently attended a seminar on child sexual abuse, told Stever how to question three-year-old Kyle. During this next round of questioning, Kyle told his mother that Mr. Bob played doctor with him and other boys at the day-care. According to Kyle, “playing doctor” meant “sticking things in your butt.”

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As a result of this conversation, a complaint was filed with social services, and eventually, a full scale investigation was launched. The social service complaint alleging abuse was filed January 19, 1989. By February two more children disclosed abuse at Little Rascals, and each passing month saw the number of allegations grow. Though several parents initially rallied around Bob, the tide of public support shifted as the list of allegations grew.

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Bob Kelly was arrested in mid-April, and by the end of the month the day-care was forced to close. Unable to pay a bond that eventually reached 1.5 million dollars, Bob remained in prison awaiting trial. At his first pre-trial hearing in April, members of the prosecution approached Kelly’s lawyer, Chris Bean, to tell him that his son had been named by other children as a victim of abuse at the hands of Bob Kelly. Just after the grand jury handed down the first set of indictments against Kelly, Bean withdrew from the case. Bean’s refusal to represent Kelly was seen by Jane Mabrey and other Edenton residents as confirmation of Kelly’s guilt.

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Toppin and other police officials encouraged parents whose children had ever attended Little Rascals to have them evaluated by trained therapists. As the case grew, the state set aside monies to pay for these evaluations, and in some cases, to pay for treatment as well. Four therapists were recommended by the police, and the prosecution based the bulk of its case on their findings. Parents who refused to have their children evaluated were made to feel neglectful, while those who wanted independent evaluations from professionals removed from Edenton and Little Rascals had to pay for the services themselves. More than ninety percent of the allegations were based on statements made to Toppin or one of these four therapists, but the defense was not able to question them or review their notes.

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By September, more than ninety children were involved in the case. In fact, the case had grown so much that Bill Hart was appointed as special prosecutor. The police and prosecution looked beyond Bob Kelly, and charges were filed against other Little Rascals employees. Betsy Kelly was the first to be arrested, charged with several counts of sexual abuse and even more counts of conspiracy. Scott Privott was arrested the same day as Betsy, his bail set at $1 million.

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Privott maintained throughout his questioning and imprisonment that he had never even been inside Little Rascals. After Betsy’s and Privott’s September arrest, the others followed in rapid succession. By the end of the month Dawn Wilson, the cook at Little Rascals, and Shelly Stone, who worked with older children were also arrested. Bail was set at $880 and $375 thousand respectively. In January, the last two arrests were made when Robin Byrum and Darlene Harris were taken in to custody.

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Though seven arrests were made in connection with alleged abuse at Little Rascals, only two defendants ever made it to trial: Bob Kelly and Dawn Wilson. Kelly’s trial was first. It lasted eight months, was covered extensively in the print media, and was the topic of the second Frontline documentary on the Little Rascals scandal.

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The therapists never took the stand, and their reports were never made available to the defense team. Twelve children testified, all between the ages of three and five when the alleged abuse took place. The jury deliberated for two weeks before finding Kelly guilty on 99 of 100 charges. The next day, on April 23, 1992, he was sentenced to twelve consecutive life sentences. [...]

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The Little Rascals case had frequently been compared to McMartin because of its scope and cost, but the conviction became the biggest difference between the two cases. This resolution was haled as a victory by the prosecution and by Edenton parents. According to juror interviewed just after the trial, “the children were convincing.” [...]

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In November of 1992 the prosecution mounted its case against Dawn Wilson. Wilson, the single mother of a young daughter, was offered a plea bargain just before her case proceeded to trial. In exchange pleading guilty on some of the charges, the prosecution offered her a drastically reduced sentence of 1-2 years, and they would count the seventeen months Wilson had already spent in prison as part of her time served. Rather than facing multiple life sentences, Wilson could conceivably serve no additional jail time. She refused the offer. Only four children testified against Dawn, but this time the prosecution introduced the therapy reports into evidence just before the jury began its deliberations.
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After just under three months, Wilson was convicted on all counts and sentenced to life in prison.

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A few months after Dawn Wilson returned to prison, Scott Privott’s bond was reduced from $1 million to $50 thousand. Unable to make bond before this reduction, Privott had been in jail awaiting trial for three years. He and the remaining four defendants waited to see who would be brought to trial next.

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More than three years had passed since the initial allegations were made, and each of the five had been offered several increasingly good deals by the prosecution. All had stated their unwillingness to confess to crimes that they did not commit. Moved by the convictions of Bob Kelly and Dawn Wilson, and haunted by her own years of imprisonment, Betsy Kelly pleaded no contest on January 28, 1994. She served ten months. Scott Privott, after being promised that he would have to serve no additional jail time, also pleaded no contest in June 1994.

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Defense teams for Bob Kelly and Dawn Wilson filed several appeals, alleging, among other things, jury misconduct. In January 1995, they argued their cases in front of the state court of appeals. On May 2nd, the Appellate Court overturned the convictions of Bob Kelly and Dawn Wilson, and in September the state supreme court upheld the appellate court decision.

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Dawn Wilson had been released and placed under house arrest pending her appeal, while Bob Kelly had spent the time in prison. With these decisions, both were free on bond pending new trials. In 1996, more than seven years after the initial allegations were made, charges were dropped against Robin Byrum, Shelly Stone, and Darlene Harris after their lawyers argued that the prosecution had violated their sixth amendment right to a speedy trial.
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Unlike the doomed McMartin and Jordan cases, the initial prosecution wins against Little Rascals defendants were heralded as victories for the children. Just as in the first two cases, the verdict “hinge[d] on testimony by a dozen children.” [...] Jurors in this case, however, believed the children. After delivering the verdict, jury foreperson, Katherine Harris, reported:

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The credibility of the children was also at issue in the successful appeals that ultimately overturned the verdicts and ordered new trials in both cases. Defense lawyers argued that misconduct on the part of the prosecution, especially their exclusive reliance on child testimony and therapy reports in the absence of corroborating evidence or point of contact documentation, had compromised the proceedings and resulted in a miscarriage of justice.

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The appellate decision can be read as a vote of no confidence in the handling of very young children in these cases up to and including their testimony. The mixed messages of the Little Rascals trials were centered on children’s (lack of) credibility stemming from their particular vulnerabilities.

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Though the defense tried to paint a town that had been swept away by hysteria and allegations that were the product of fanatical therapists, and though the second Frontline documentary revealed a fractured jury, the unanimous verdict in both trials was vindication for the children and their parents as well as for the therapists involved in the case.

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In as much as the 1980s revealed fissures in children’s credibility, the child also became dangerous not just to itself but also to others. The abuse panics exposed how easily manipulated children could be both by those seeking to harm and those seeking to protect them. As such, children’s vulnerability became a danger to the innocent, to the justice system, and to communities that too easily got swept away in an hysteria of allegations and prosecutions.

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The vulnerabilities highlighted in the day-care abuse panics were an extension of the ways that children were reframed in the preceding decade. Children became central to the description and definition of “the victim” in the 1970s, as demonstrated by the rhetorical strategies of the Boston Women’s Health Collective, the Elizabeth Stone House, and even NAMBLA.

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Despite the differences in their political missions, each group seized the figure of the child and sought to reveal its vulnerabilities and victimization. By positioning themselves as both saviors of children and victims of the same violence that persecuted children, members of these social movement groups staked their legitimacy on occupying savior and victim positions simultaneously.

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This tension forced them to grapple with a radical politics of liberation on the one hand and a conservative politics of protection on the other. The day-care abuse panics can thus be understood as a broader implication of this rhetorical shift toward protectionism and as evidence of a national consensus regarding child-victims.

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Ultimately, the figure of the child framed the limits of the libratory discourses advanced by these social movement groups and their rhetorical reliance on that figure contributed to a broader shift towards a culture of (sexual) conservatism.