McMartin Fallout: Will It Chill Child Abuse Inquiries?

With the charges dropped against five of seven defendants in the McMartin Pre-School molestation prosecution, some child abuse experts are worried that the collapse of the case may have a chilling effect on efforts across the country to fight child abuse.

They fear that police and prosecutors might be discouraged from investigating complex and demanding cases, and that parents of molestation victims may be reluctant to report abuses or subject their children to a judicial system not equipped to cope well with them.

Other prosecutors believe, however, that recent developments in the now-shrunken but once-massive case will not discourage them from pursuing child sexual abuse allegations.

And, the experts say, the entire McMartin case offers valuable lessons in how future cases should be handled and will spur more child abuse education, as well as legislative and judicial reform in the area of child testimony.

“McMartin serves to illustrate how ill-prepared we are to deal with those kinds of cases,” said Seth Goldstein, a sexual assault investigator for the Santa Clara County district attorney.

“The fear I have is that some people now may be reluctant to report abuse, afraid of a repetition of what happened in Los Angeles, or that some law enforcement investigators may become somewhat hesitant to delve into those areas.

‘Most Unfortunate Outcome . . .’

“But the most unfortunate outcome of all this would be if people came to believe that accusations by children have no merit.”

San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Sgt. Toby Tyler of the crimes against children detail adds: “I’m afraid if we have learned anything from McMartin, it is just how abusive the criminal justice system tends to be.”

But Donald Bross, with the Denver-based National Assn. of Counsel for Children, a professional organization of attorneys, said: “Stopping investigations and trials won’t do away with the child abuse. I think professionals realize that it is unrealistic to believe every allegation will be proved.”

While many prosecutors and police investigators expressed concern about professionals shying away from child abuse cases, none said they personally were slowing efforts in that area.

Joyce Karlin, senior litigation counsel for the U.S. attorney’s office in Los Angeles, said her office has four sexual exploitation cases under indictment, one in trial and several others in the preparation stage.

“If anything has changed it is that nationally there is recognition of the need to be cautious . . . in taking a conservative approach to indictments because of the impact of the charges,” Karlin said.

In New York City, Linda Fairstein, head of the sex crimes unit of the New York County district attorney’s office, does not believe the McMartin case will have a harmful effect.

“While McMartin may make a handful of parents think twice, most people want to do something when they find abuse,” she said.

Other officials point out that the McMartin case was not the only one to highlight the inadequacies of the justice system in defending both the rights of children and those accused of molestation. They cite the collapses of similar cases in Bakersfield and in Jordan, Minn.

Douglas J. Besharov, a consultant with the Washington-based American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research, believes that officials’ overreaction to public pressure aggravated problems inherent in those large cases.

‘Tending to Jump the Gun’

“Investigators are tending to jump the gun,” he said. “If we exaggerate the scope of the problem and allow the hysterical voices to shape public response, then in a few years, you are going to see a lot of negative counterreaction. We need some reasonable reform of our own house. “

The McMartin case began in the fall of 1983 when police received a report that a 2-year-old boy had been molested by a teacher at the Manhattan Beach preschool. At onset of the preliminary hearing, which lasted 18 months, prosecutors said they would call 41 child witnesses. But by the time it was over, only 14 children testified to allegations, including rape, sodomy and drugging by teachers.

In some instances, parents would not let their children testify after seeing what they considered prolonged cross-examinations and harassment by defense attorneys. After the seven defendants were bound over for trial, the district attorney’s office dropped charges against five of the seven teachers.

Families See Victimization

Many families, angry and devastated, said that their children had been victimized by not only the preschool, but by the legal system as well. The defendants, too, said that the legal system had failed, noting that if the prosecutors had taken more care, they never would have had to endure an 18-month-long hearing and lost jobs, homes and reputations. “Cases such as McMartin really challenge the system to respond to the needs of the defendants and protect the alleged victims, too,” says Ross Eatman, of the American Bar Assn.’s National Center for Child Advocacy and Protection in Washington.

Eatman, who is assistant director of the center’s child sexual abuse law reform project, notes: “We are now more cognizant of the dangers involved in such an investigation and more aware of the caution that must be exercised.

“Of course, this may be small comfort to those who view themselves victims of the process,” he adds.

Case Raises Multiple Questions

The child abuse professionals note that the McMartin case raised a number of questions that have just begun to be addressed nationwide:

- Should psychological treatment precede or be intertwined with the case investigation interviews?

- What is the best way to provide that psychological help without muddying the investigation?

- How should attorneys question children on the witness stand?

- Should vulnerable children be allowed to testify by closed-circuit television instead of facing those they accuse?

The ABA’s Center for Child Advocacy, with such questions in mind, has begun a study of child abuse cases in Annapolis, Md., Charleston, S.C., Cambridge, Mass., and Cleveland. From this extended examination they hope to be able to offer innovative suggestions for new legislation.

“The best hope for protecting children are well-trained professionals,” said G. Norman Coleman, Minnesota’s assistant attorney general, noting that the Minnesota Legislature had responded to the ill-fated case in Jordan by providing money for training of police and social workers.

No Decrease Detected

Coleman also noted that reporting and filing of child abuse charges have not decreased in light of the recent case in which 24 adults were charged with sexually molesting 40 local children as part of ritualistic games.

In that case, James Rudd pleaded guilty to 10 counts of sexual molestation. However, after the first couple was acquitted, the Scott County attorney dropped charges against the remaining 21 defendants. A subsequent investigation of the case by the state attorney general found that “the credibility problems resulted from handling of these cases by Scott County authorities, included repeated questioning, a lack of investigative reports and cross-germination of allegations.”

In California, the state attorney’s general office released in April, 1985, recommendations for preventing and prosecuting child abuse, noting that young victims are “re-victimized by the system as a result of clumsiness or insensitivity.”

Recommendations Adopted

Among report recommendations adopted by the Legislature were allowing children to testify by closed-circuit television in certain instances, and protection of child witnesses from harassment and repetitive cross-examination.

The attorney general is also considering sponsoring legislation which would set up a judicial advisory committee to review investigative and legal practices, officials said.

In Los Angeles, county supervisors will vote this week on a motion by Supervisor Ed Edelman to form of a local task force of child abuse professionals. The group would develop standards and procedures “to prevent a costly reoccurrence of what happened with the McMartin case,” Edelman said.

“I just hope McMartin won’t have a chilling effect on child abuse. People who commit such acts against children have to be dealt with. I would hope that instead of shying away, we can learn from the experiences we have had,” he added.

Advisory Committee Formed

The governor’s Commission on Peace Officer Standards and Training has formed an advisory committee of child abuse experts to make revisions in curriculum at police academies and in child abuse investigation procedure manuals used by law officers statewide, said Tom Hood, consultant for the project and a Berkeley police investigator.

Hood said the committee, while not making the changes just because of the McMartin case, will nevertheless take a close look at that investigation.

“Police officers get very frustrated when cases fall apart, but that doesn’t stop them. If it did, they wouldn’t be in the business very long. The only thing you can do is scrutinize what happened. There are lessons to be learned,” Hood said.

Most experts underlined the need for child abuse cases to be handled by special child abuse task forces made up of representatives from several professions. “We don’t expect one fireman to put out a five-alarm fire. But we have expected a few individuals, who are isolated from other professionals, to put out the fires of child abuse,” said Bross of the National Assn. of Counsel for Children.

Many Look to Los Angeles

He noted that many professionals in the past have looked to Los Angeles, with its variety of resources and experts, for information in conducting their own cases.

“So naturally it was a shock. If Los Angeles can be overwhelmed by such a case, what can happen to the rest of us, especially in the rural areas?”

He believes that regional teams of medical experts, social workers, law enforcement officials and prosecutors, would be beneficial because, “they would have the expertise to handle the extraordinary case as if it were ordinary.”

He also suggests that consultation hot lines be set up to aid professionals in dealing with their cases. “It would be like a second opinion in the medical field. They could get assistance from those who had done more than they, who could point out pitfalls.”

Karlin of the U.S. attorney’s office, notes that her agency works as part of a larger federal task force (including experts from the U.S. Post Office, Customs, FBI and local law enforcement agencies) in handling child exploitation cases.

‘We Are Learning’

“When we execute search warrants, we ask trained investigators to be with us. We know we don’t know what to do with the children yet. We are learning.”

Some critics have questioned why the Los Angeles County district attorney’s child abuse section did not handle the McMartin case.

Rita Stapleton, deputy in charge of the Los Angeles County district attorney’s child abuse section, said that officials did not want to tie up three of their eight staff members on the lengthy litigation of one case.

Stapleton says her unit works on 200 cases at any one time. The unit has not slackened its efforts in light of the McMartin case problems, she said.

Stapleton believes that the attention focused on McMartin, will mirror what happened in adult rape cases in earlier years.

“The more people knew about them, the more sensitive they became to the crime and victims,” Stapleton said.