Child-abuse hysteria has produced hundreds, if not thousands, of wrongful convictions over the past 30 years. One of the most virulent strains of this hysteria was the one that started it: Satanic ritual abuse. Linda Rodriguez McRobbie offers a hopeful update here that suggests that the last vestiges of this panic are unraveling. But immense damage was done, and if the lessons left behind aren’t learned, there will be more panics and more innocent people sent to prison for crimes they didn’t commit or that didn’t even occur.
Blog Editor
Mark Godsey
Daniel P. & Judith L. Carmichael Professor of Law, University of Cincinnati College of Law; Director, Center for the Global Study of Wrongful Conviction; Director, Rosenthal Institute for Justice/Ohio Innocence Project
Order Here
Contributing Editors
Justin Brooks
Professor, California Western School of Law; Director, California Innocence ProjectOrder his book Wrongful Convictions Cases & Materials 2d ed. here
Cheah Wui Ling
Assistant Professor, Faculty of Law, National University of Singapore
Daniel Ehighalua
Nigerian Barrister
Jessica S. Henry
Associate Professor of Justice Studies, Montclair University
Carey D. Hoffman
Director of Digital Communications, Ohio Innocence Project@OIPCommunicati1
Shiyuan Huang
Associate Professor, Shandong University Law School; Visiting Scholar, University of Cincinnati College of Law
C Ronald Huff
Professor of Criminology, Law & Society and Sociology, University of California-Irvine
Phil Locke
Science and Technology Advisor, Ohio Innocence Project and Duke Law Wrongful Convictions Clinic
Dr. Carole McCartney
Reader in Law, Faculty of Business and Law, Northumbria University
Nancy Petro
Author and Advocate Order her book False Justice here
Kana Sasakura
Professor, Faculty of Law, Konan University Innocence Project Japan
Dr. Robert Schehr
Professor, Department of Criminology & Criminal Justice, Northern Arizona University; Executive Director, Arizona Innocence Project
Ulf Stridbeck
Professor of Law, Faculty of Law, University of Oslo, Norway
Martin Yant
Author and Private Investigator Order his book Presumed Guilty here-
Wrongful Convictions Blog 
Mr. Yant, Thank you for covering this critical subject that has been swept under the rug — out of sight, out of mind. The damage has been immense and needs to be investigated to free the innocent and wrongfully convicted whose lives have been shredded in this new “war” replacing the “War on Drugs”? Those caught in this “industry”, received essentially life sentences as a new sub-class of people with the creation of a Sex Offender Registry. A registry that mixes juveniles experimenting with sex with the most violent sexual predator, and gets harsher with each new emerging crime.
Moral panics create poorly written laws that enrich those in this child abuse / sex abuse industry, who seek political and financial gain. Once those who file false allegations, face felonies and punishment like they want for the accused, these cases will evaporate, along with all the money.
See Arizona Supreme Court website Rules Forum Case No: R-11-0033 Petition to Amend ER 3.8 – Ethics responsibility of prosecutors, recently passed. The prosecutors adamantly fought its passage, gave misleading or untrue statement to the Arizona Supreme Court judges — like there are NO wrongful convictions in Arizona, NO Brady violations in Arizona. These letters should be a case study in law schools, social justice and public policy schools. Until we get at the root of who and what drives all this, nothing will change.
Now, who’s going to “right the wrongs” that the lawmakers and prosecutors have turned a blind eye to and do not want to recognize?
Maricopa County, AZ: NO wrongful convictions, NO new evidence, NO Brady violations?
http://blogs.phoenixnewtimes.com/valleyfever/2013/10/bill_montgomerys_actions_argue.php
Bill Montgomery’s Actions Argue in Favor of Ethical Rule He Opposes
By Stephen Lemons Mon., Oct. 7 2013 at 2:00 PM
“At the beginning of August, I wrote about proposed new ethical rules for Arizona prosecutors, in a petition currently pending before the Arizona Supreme Court.
Opposed by Maricopa County Attorney Bill Montgomery, as well as numerous other county, state and federal prosecutors in Arizona, these amendments to Ethical Rule 3.8 would require prosecutors to reveal to defense counsel or a court any “new, credible, and material” evidence that creates a “reasonable likelihood” a convicted defendant did not commit the crime in question.
Under the suggested guidelines, a prosecutor must “make reasonable efforts” to look into the matter or have the “appropriate law enforcement agency” investigate the new evidence. And if there is “clear and convincing” evidence of a convicted person’s innocence, the prosecutor must work to “set aside the conviction.”
See also:
Bill Montgomery Opposes Ethics Rule Requiring Prosecutors to Reveal Evidence of Wrongful Convictions
The changes were suggested two years ago by the Arizona Justice Project, a non-profit group that works to free the wrongly convicted. The proposals are based on more stringent language adopted in 2008 by the American Bar Association.”
link: Maricopa County Attorney Bill Montgomery Opposes Ethics Rule Requiring Prosecutors to Reveal Evidence of Wrongful Convictions
missing link: Bill Montgomery Opposes Ethics Rule Requiring Prosecutors to Reveal Evidence of Wrongful Convictions http://blogs.phoenixnewtimes.com/bastard/2013/08/bill_montgomery_opposes_propos.php
Thank you, Mr. Yant. I blog about the Little Rascals Day Care case and other episodes from the moral panic of the 1980s and early ’90s….
littlerascalsdaycarecase.org
At least one victim of the era — North Carolina day care bus driver Andrew Junior Chandler — remains imprisoned after 27 years (!)….
http://www.citizen-times.com/story/opinion/contributors/2014/11/15/chandler-deserves-last-shot-exoneration/19040429/