Friends of Justice

Dear Friend of Justice,

I recently received this email from my good friend Carol Tavris:

“I spoke this morning to JD Tomlinson, who, as you see, is up for reelection as DA against a challenger likely to use JD’s release of Joseph — and the apology he made to Joseph — as an attack. How dare a prosecutor apologize to someone falsely convicted?

“He will let me know what we might do closer to the election, in terms of writing letters of support to the newspaper or an op-ed. Of course all contributions gratefullly accepted.

“Incidentally, he would also be interested in speaking about the Allen/Smith case in any lecture venue—law students included. He was a defense attorney for 10 years and thinks that experience was invaluable in countering most DA’s inclinating to withhold exculpatory evidence and jump to conclusions about a defendant’s guilt.

“Do feel free to send his message to anyone who might be interested.

“Healthy new year to all,

“Carol”

If you need refreshing about the Smith-Allen case, here is detailed information.

In brief, during the great childhood sex panic of the 80’s and 90’s a white school bus driver named Nancy Smith and an uneducated black man named Joseph Allen were convicted of horrendous crimes against children. crimes that never occurred.

The prosecutors were ambitious, ruthless, and less than ethical. The trial was a horrendous miscarriage of justice.

For twenty years, all efforts to correct this injustice were thwarted by the Lorain county prosecutor, the Ohio Supreme Court, and the Ohio Attorney General. All were dedicated to the belief that convictions must be preserved — justice be damned.

But the convictions were finally thrown out, largely due to the efforts of J.D. Tomlison, a person of honor and integrity. Let’s do what we can to keep him in office.

Here is his campaign website.

Please donate.

Volunteer if you can.

Anyone who knows a prisoner knows how important it is to them to receive mail, especially at this time of year. Many prisoners receive no outside support at all.

Please send a letter, a Christmas card, a holiday card, or whatever. They will be delighted no matter what you send.

Here is a list of prisoners. If you have additions or corrections to this list, please let me know.

For more than 20 years, the NCRJ has been instrumental in supporting, freeing, and winning exoneration for people falsely convicted of crimes against children. And now, the board of directors has decided to close up shop.  We wish to thank all our supporters and say goodbye.

The NCRJ was founded in 2002. It grew out of the Bernard Baran Justice Committee, set up by Bob chatelle, lawyer Harvey Silverglate, and journalist Debbie Nathan. In 1985,  19-year-old “Bee” Baran was convicted in a kangaroo court and given three life sentences for outlandish, horrific sexual abuse of the children in his charge, crimes that never occurred. Bee was the one of the first daycare workers accused in what could become a flagrant sex panic that spun accusations of ever-more outlandish sexual abuse and satanic ritual sexual abuse. None of these acts was real, but the panic lasted into the 1990s and destroyed the lives of scores of innocent people: sentenced to decades, sometimes centuries, in prison, like Bee most of these people refused to show remorse or undergo treatment related to crimes they did not commit. As a result, they could never be granted parole. Some of them died behind bars.

Over the years the roster of our “sponsees” shrank—because they were finally released from prison, and in some cases exonerated. At the same time, we broadened our purview to include people wrongly accused of other crimes against children, typically with use of “junk science” evidence—homicide by arson or by shaking, for instance. As the Sex Offender Registries and their accompanying systems of restriction and surveillance of people convicted of sex-related crimes became denser, more byzantine, and crueler, we began to work against these laws and the hysteria and hatred that produces them.

Also in the past two decades, a small movement of people—mostly those on the registry and their families—emerged to oppose the sex offense legal regime. Like us, the people in this movement believe that no one, guilty or innocent, deserves the perpetual ostracism and punishment these laws impose. Everyone deserves fairness, dignity, and another chance. NCRJ also made alliances with the strengthening prison abolition movement. The need for our work diminished, and with it, our activities.

The board is hugely grateful to our donors, advisors, and past board members; to the lawyers, social workers, researchers, and others who have worked indefatigably for the people we’ve sponsored; to the journalists who’ve investigated and publicized their cases; and, most of all, to our executive director, Bob Chatelle, without whom the NCRJ would not have existed and none of what it did would have happened.

For justice,

The NCRJ Board of Directors

Members of the The National Center for Reason and Justice were actively fighting to rectify this dreadful miscarriage of justice before we were even incorporated. Indeed, it was because of this case, and others like it, that we decided our organization was necessary.

We did more than publicize the case and support efforts to overturn the wrongful convictions. We kept in close personal touch with the family. We frequently visited Gerald in prison. When a family member was lost, we attended wakes and funerals.

One of our Advisors, Harvey Silverglate, was part of the legal team. We sometimes thought that victory was ours. But the Supreme Judicial Court, to their disgrace, always torpedoed our efforts.

Because Massachusetts courts dug in their heels and refused to budge, our remaining hope was the Governor. And eight years ago, Wen Charlie Baker was elected, we were hopeful that the case was at an end.

Baker chose not to run for a third term, and a new Governor was elected. Baker finally acted and has requested pardons for Gerald Amirault  and Cheryl Amirault LeFave.

Here is one news story. Many more will follow.

We are more than halfway to our goal!

If you are unable to give at this time, please share this appeal on Facebook, Twitter, or other social media.

Here is the link to the appeal.

-Bob

Please look at his GoFundMe appeal.

“How to account for trauma’s creep? Take your corners. Modern life is inherently traumatic. No, we’re just better at spotting it, having become more attentive to human suffering in all its gradations. Unless we’re worse at it—more prone to perceive everything as injury. In a world infatuated with victimhood, has trauma emerged as a passport to status—our red badge of courage?”

Far too many people get their scientific “information” from best-selling novels and popular movies and TV shows. As a result, there is a vast misunderstanding of trauma and a concurrent belief in baseless theories, such as repressed memory. The consequences have been disastrous. For example, many innocent people are rotting in prison for committing crimes that never occurred.

In this essay, literary critic Paruh Sebgal argues that the reliance on trauma as a plot device has also led to a lot of over rated literary and theatrical fiction Read the entire article in The New Yorker.

One of my favorite carols.