McMartin Debacle

The McMartin Preschool child-molestation case has been a can of worms from the outset. Since it began nearly three years ago, it has been beset by extraordinary circumstances that have put the legal process itself on trial. The reliability of children as witnesses has been a continuing problem. Then the question of allowing the children to testify by television had to be resolved by the California Legislature.

There was a 20-month preliminary hearing, after which all seven defendants, despite their steadfast protestations of innocence, were ordered to stand trial. Barely had the ink dried on those stories when the new district attorney, Ira Reiner, announced that the cases against five of the defendants were so weak that he could not in good conscience proceed against them.

Now a former prosecutor in the case has signed a contract to make a movie about it that would argue that all seven defendants are innocent. In what he says are the interests of justice, the former prosecutor has given information to the defense that would undermine the prosecution’s case.

At this point it is virtually impossible to judge who is right, and we suspect that no one but the participants will ever know for sure whether any or how much child-molesting went on at the McMartin Preschool in Manhattan Beach. Robert Philobosian, the former district attorney who started the case, is as persuasive about its merits as Ira Reiner, the current D.A., is about its faults.

But Reiner does say that he continues to have a case against the remaining two defendants, Raymond Buckey and Peggy McMartin Buckey. He could have asked for dismissals against all seven defendants last spring, but he didn’t. No one can tell whether he is doing the right thing, because the vital tapes of interviews between the children and child psychologists--the original basis for the indictments--have been sealed.

The trial would probably be under way now had not Glenn Stevens, the former prosecutor turned movie maker, gotten into the act. Stevens may be a legitimate whistle-blower, but he chose an odd--perhaps unethical--way to go about blowing the whistle. He could have and should have shared his doubts about the case with his superiors or with the judge presiding over the preliminary hearing. His effort to use his role in the case to his financial advantage undermines his argument and has made a difficult case still more difficult.

The jury is still out on whether justice can be done in the McMartin case. We’re doubtful, but we’ll withhold judgment pending trial.