McMartin Defense Urges Jury to End Years of ‘Vile Allegations’

McMartin defense attorney Dean Gits asked jurors Tuesday for a quick verdict to end “six years of people making vile allegations” against his client, Peggy McMartin Buckey, and urged them to apply common sense and the concept of reasonable doubt to acquit her.

Buckey, 62, is charged with 12 counts of molestation involving four children who attended her family-owned Manhattan Beach nursery school, and a single count of conspiracy shared with her son, Ray Buckey, who is charged with molesting 11 youngsters.

In a daylong rebuttal of the prosecution’s final arguments, Gits blamed “the insanity” that became the McMartin Pre-School molestation case on inept investigators, unscientific physicians, gullible parents, suggestible children and a firestorm of rumor that swept through the seaside community in late 1983 and early 1984.

“These are the things that got in the way of the truth,” he said, adding: “I’m not sure you’ll ever know (what happened). That’s the horror of this situation.

“Children can be led to believe they were molested,” he said, then asked: “Then why can’t we be led to believe they were molested?”

Alluding to his opening statement more than two years ago in which he promised to reveal “the enemy,” Gits said, “So now you know the enemy. It’s us--our inability to accept that our environment can control major aspects of our life.”

Pacing back and forth in front of the jury, sometimes lowering his voice to a whisper, and coughing and popping throat lozenges as the day wore on, Gits said many of the allegations “defy logic,” while others have innocent explanations.

For example, he cited one child who accused both Buckeys of molesting him at a time when Ray Buckey was not present at the school, and who testified that he played naked games in a non-existent “secret room,” watched a horse being hacked with a machete and drank rabbit blood during a satanic ritual at a local church.

“This child really believes that this happened. The games were all played in a secret room. But there is no possible doubt that that secret room never existed. It defies logic. But he believes that it exists. Somebody taught him about it or he created it in his head. . . . He never even knew there was a Ray Buckey,” Gits said, because, according to payroll records, his attendance preceded the male teacher’s arrival on the scene.

“If you can’t believe him, why can you believe anybody else (making allegations)? If he is wrong, this case should be over,” Gits added.

He juxtaposed photographs of the nine children who testified against one or both of the Buckeys with those of 38 teachers and others who were present at the school and testified that they saw nothing suspicious.

He did not answer several questions raised by the prosecution--such as what is contained on a missing half-page carefully snipped from family matriarch Virginia McMartin’s 1983 diary. The missing portion was for Aug. 11, the last day of school attendance by the child whose allegations triggered the massive investigation.

But he posed some questions himself that he said the prosecution had failed to answer, such as how could a conspiracy of silence be maintained for so long? Would every child react to molestation in the same way? Why did no one else see the alleged molestations? Where are the pornographic photographs that were supposedly taken? And where are the dead animals the children talked about?

And, perhaps most important, if the more bizarre allegations cannot be believed, why should any of the accusations stand?

Gits said the prosecution’s case is too full of holes and inconsistencies to persuade the jury “beyond a reasonable doubt and to a moral certainty.” He said it has not proved that some of the alleged acts took place within the six-year statute of limitations. And he suggested that “a two-second touch on the penis or a pat on the outside of the vagina are things that do not seem to have any sexual purpose,” as the charges require.

Afterwards, as Gits sat drained with his hands folded at the counsel table, Peggy McMartin Buckey left the courtroom, effusive in her praise for her attorney.

“I think it was great,” she said of his argument. “I couldn’t have asked for anything more. He told the truth.”

She said she and her husband, Charles, who was present in the courtroom, planned to celebrate their 36th wedding anniversary Tuesday night.

Her son’s lawyer, Danny Davis, now has 5 1/2 days for his rebuttal arguments, after which the prosecution will have 3 1/2 days for the last word before the case goes to the jury.

Although Los Angeles Superior Court Judge William Pounders has curtailed the final days of the trial--the longest and costliest criminal proceeding in world history--he predicted Tuesday that the jury’s deliberation process “could well take several months” given the amount of testimony and exhibits it may have to review.

Pounders warned that the coming weeks are “a very dangerous time” since the jury will not be sequestered but needs to be protected from outside pressures.