Roxbury, Massachusetts —June 15, 2009—The NCRJ applauds a district attorney’s decisionon June 9th to cease further appeals and drop all charges against Bernard F. Baran, Jr. During the national hysteria over ritual sex abuse  in daycare centers in America in the 1980s, Baran was the first childcare worker ever to be convicted in one of these cases.

Baran was convicted in January of 1985 of molesting five pre-school children at a daycare where he worked, in Pittsfield, MA. He was 19 years old at the time. The only evidence against him was the contradictory testimony of these children, testimony produced by long since discredited interviewing techniques. Baran is gay, and the initial accusation was motivated by homophobia. Like the other accused workers of that era, Baran was convicted by juries carried away by emotion, junk science in the courtroom, and a media feeding frenzy.

Videotapes had been made of the child accusers, but they were never turned over to Baran’s lawyers and only a highly edited version was shown to the Grand Jury. These tapes were eventually acquired by the appellate attorneys, but the process took nearly four years. The tapes demonstrate the interview techniques that make young children say whatever the interviewer suggests. The interviews are described in somber detail by Judge Francis Fecteau (who threw out the conviction in 2006) and by the Appeals Court who upheld Fecteau’s decision in May.

By the mid-1990s, Baran had languished in prison for over a decade. He had suffered repeated rapes, beatings, as well as other humiliations, and was all but forgotten by the outside world. Baran’s family couldn’t afford lawyers to help him.

The NCRJ helped raise over $300,000 for the case. Baran’s conviction was thrown out by Judge Fecteau in June of 2006, chiefly citing gross incompetence on the part of Baran’s counsel. Berkshire County, Mass. DA David Capeless insisted upon appealing this decision. On May 15th, a three-judge appellate panel not only unanimously agreed with Fecteau but strengthened his ruling and suggested misconduct on the part of the prosecutor, Daniel Ford, now a sitting judge himself.  Capeless subsequently dropped all charges last week.

Although the peak of the satanic ritual abuse and daycare abuse hysteria has passed, false accusations of harm to children continue to arise with chilling frequency. Suspicions arise for various reasons. But they often occur during bitter divorce and custody battles, and family disagreements.

All too many interviews with children continue to use leading and improper techniques, and the interviews are not always recorded by video or audiotape. Hearsay evidence is frequently allowed in these cases, which are always highly emotional. The idea of a child being molested is horrifying to most people, including jurors, and DNA evidence will not exonerate such falsely accused people because there probably was never a sex crime in the first place.

The NCRJ currently sponsors only 25 cases (for details, visit our website at ncrj.org, and click on the link Who We Sponsor).

These are certainly only the tip of an enormous iceberg, and represent only the cases the NCRJ has been able to research. The group receives many other heart-breaking requests for help in similar cases.

“Without the help of the NCRJ, I would have died in prison,”  says Bernard Baran.

Posted by rbchatelle on Monday, June 15th, 2009 @ 6:25PM
Categories: Bernard Baran
Tags: Newsroom

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