[Note: Friends of Justice is a personal blog. I speak only for myself.]
National Center for Reason and Justice ─ NCRJ
For immediate release: December 22, 2021
Contact: Bob Chatelle mgr@ncrj.org
The NCRJ hopeful for victory at last in the Nancy Smith-Joseph Allen Head Start abuse case
The National Center for Reason and Justice is encouraged by today’s action by Lorain, Ohio Judge Chris Cook in scheduling a hearing on the new-trial motion filed by Mark-Godsey of the Ohio Innocence Project and by Joseph Allen’s attorney, Richard Parsons. We are exceptionally pleased that this motion is unopposed by Lorain District Attorney, J.D. Tomlinson. And we rejoice that Joseph Allen today was released from prison on bond.
The NCRJ has been fighting for justice in this case since our founding in 2002. We had hoped the case had ended in 2009, when Judge James Burge examined the evidence, set the convictions aside, and acquitted both defendants.
Unfortunately, the prosecution appealed the acquittals to the Ohio Supreme Court, which reinstated the conviction. Nancy Smith was resentenced to time served. But Joseph Allen was returned to prison in 2013, where he has remained since.
Since 2013, NCRJ has focused on helping Joseph. We found him excellent attorneys, Paula Brown and Richard Parsons, and raised the money to pay them. We sent him commissary funds every month and paid for his family phone calls. Executive Director Bob Chatelle kept in constant contact him by mail, email, and telephone. We believed that keeping up his spirits was as important as getting him legal help.
NCRJ’s expertise is in investigating suspected false allegations of harm to children, including sexual abuse. Our support was instrumental in securing freedom in other important cases, including Bernard Baran of Pittsfield, Massachusetts, The San Antonio Four, and Victor Rosario, of Lowell, Massachusetts.
NCRJ is overjoyed that Nancy Smith and Joseph Allen are on the road to freedom and we hope exoneration.
But the road is long and hard, Anyone accused of hurting children is automatically considered the lowest of the low. Such people find it almost impossible to get help to preserve their due process rights, even from those who otherwise passionately defend civil and human rights.
This has to change. This is why NCRJ sponsors cases like the Smith-Allen and others nationwide. We do this to help free innocent people and make the criminal justice system more rational, humane, and just. We do it so people can learn about the larger issues embedded in these cases, then confront them. What are these issues?
For one, what happened to Nancy Smith and Joseph Allen shows how easy it is in America for ordinary people to be falsely accused, denied due process, and banished from society. All kinds of ordinary people get caught up in our justice system. Some are more vulnerable than others.
Joseph Allen is a working-class black man. Bernard Baran was gay. Victor Rosario is Puerto Rican. The San Antonio Four are Latina lesbians. Justice is hardest to obtain for racial, ethnic, and sexual minorities. Most of the cases NCRJ has sponsored fall into these categories.
As the criminal justice system can railroad the innocent, it tramples the civil and human rights of people who have committed crimes. Child sex abuse is a terrible crime. But using society’s revulsion for this crime, the system has employed sex offenders as a wedge to treat every accused person with increasing harshness both in prison and afterward—sometimes for a lifetime.
Even guilty people have human and due process rights. Yet even when they have served their time and paid their debt to society, they are typically banished from the community, undermining their ability to reintegrate as law-abiding people, and hurting their families and communities.
One form of banishment is the sex offender registry and accompanying restrictions on housing, work, travel, and social life. These policies do not protect children. In fact, studies show that they may put children at increased risk. These rules are often senselessly cruel.
More than two million people are in prison in the U.S. Per capita, and in pure numbers, we incarcerate more people than any other country. Many good people are disturbed by this. Many worry about the barbaric way that the accused and convicted get treated. But when confronted with people labeled as child abusers, many good people stop thinking.
This situation endangers us all. As long as we allow some people to be turned into pariahs, the justice system will be able to get away with injustice—denying due process to anyone and everyone.
That’s why our cases are so important. That’s why NCRJ is proud to support Nancy Smith, Joseph Allen, and many others.
For more information, visit www.ncrj.org
