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No Crueler Tyrannies: Accusation, False Witness, and Other Terrors of Our Times
In No Crueler Tyrannies, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Dorothy Rabinowitz re-frames the facts, reconsiders the evidence, and demystifies the proceedings of some of America's most harrowing cases of failed justice. Recalling the hysteria that accompanied the child sex-abuse witch-hunts of the 1980s and 1990s, Rabinowitz's investigative study brings to life such alarming examples of prosecutorial terrors as the case against New Jersey nursery school worker Kelly Michaels, absurdly accused of 280 counts of sexual assault; the as-yet-unfinished story of Gerald Amirault's involvement in the Fells Acres scandal; Patrick Griffin, a respected physician whose life and reputation were destroyed by one false accusation of molestation; and Miami policeman Grant Snowden's sentencing of five consecutive life terms for a crime that, as proved in court eleven years later, he did not commit.
By turns a shocking exposé, a much-needed postmortem, and a required-reading assignment for prosecutors and judges alike, No Crueler Tyrannies is ultimately an inspiring book about the courage of ordinary citizens who believe in the American judicial system enough to fight for due process.
By turns a shocking exposé, a much-needed postmortem, and a required-reading assignment for prosecutors and judges alike, No Crueler Tyrannies is ultimately an inspiring book about the courage of ordinary citizens who believe in the American judicial system enough to fight for due process.
256 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2003
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Displaying 1 - 10 of 10 reviews
November 25, 2010
If you think witch hunts died out with Salem, you need only read this book to realize they continue on. We no longer call them witches or burn people at the stake. However, the singleminded pursuit by so-called experts easily creates the same type of mass hysteria found in witch hunts.
In the mid '80s, I was a new mother living in my home state of Massachusetts when the nursery school sexual abuse epidemics began. One of the worst cases took place at Fells Acres Day School in Malden, Massachusetts. Being local, we were besieged with news of this scandal. I remember thinking how absurd the whole thing sounded. Now, reading the details we weren't given back then, I find it not only absurd but horrifying. This was a modern day witch hunt at its best.
This book takes on that case and several more. In no way does the author trivialize child abuse or make claims that child sex abuse never happens. But these sensationalized cases not only trivialized the truth, they destroyed the lives of innocent adults and the children these experts were supposed to protect.
In the mid '80s, I was a new mother living in my home state of Massachusetts when the nursery school sexual abuse epidemics began. One of the worst cases took place at Fells Acres Day School in Malden, Massachusetts. Being local, we were besieged with news of this scandal. I remember thinking how absurd the whole thing sounded. Now, reading the details we weren't given back then, I find it not only absurd but horrifying. This was a modern day witch hunt at its best.
This book takes on that case and several more. In no way does the author trivialize child abuse or make claims that child sex abuse never happens. But these sensationalized cases not only trivialized the truth, they destroyed the lives of innocent adults and the children these experts were supposed to protect.
April 11, 2014
About the Author: Dorothy Rabinowitz is a reporter for The Wall Street Journal. She is a recipient of the Pulitzer Prize for Commentary.
Overview: The fear of being labelled soft on punishing the sexual abuse of children has caused many individuals in the criminal justice system to remain silent when false accusations have been made. To exonerate one accused child molester would, they fear, lead to undermining the crusade against child abuse.
An Epidemic of Prosecutorial Misconduct: During the 1980s and 1990s in the United States, many innocent people were convicted of molesting children in non-family settings, such as school and child care. The author describes several causes of these injustices:
• repeated interrogations of children until the children’s integrity broke down and they said what their interrogators wanted them to say
• phony experts in child abuse who made careers out of promoting child abuse hysteria
• the qualifications of so-called expert witnesses are not carefully examined
• the same expert witnesses keep being used again and again at different trials
• over zealous district attorneys trying to make a name for themselves
• district attorneys and expert witnesses asking the children leading questions and coaching them what to say on the witness stand
• biased judges, who allowed improper testimony from the prosecution side, but who were overly restrictive in what expert testimony from the defendants’ side they would allow
Child Abuse Prevention and Treatment Act (1974): CAPTA is also called the “Mondale Act”, after its prime sponsor, Senator Walter Mondale. It greatly increased federal funding for child protective services, which sometimes lead to overzealous behavior on the part of government officials trying to ferret out instances of child abuse.
Signs of Fabrication: The author points out that the cases involving wrongful prosecution differed from those where a crime actually occurred, in that when the crime actually occurred, the children talk only about the sexual violence itself, and there was no embellishment fantasy involving clowns, robots, hot-air balloons, and eating frogs. In the imaginary cases of abuse, there was usually a lack of physical evidence tying the accused to the crime, or even showing that a crime had been committed.
Never Change Wet Underwear Without a Witness: At the Fells Acres Day School in Malden, Massachusetts, a member of the Amirault family changed the underpants of a boy who had wet his pants, and was later charged with sexually molesting the boy.
Always Have a Nurse Present: Internist Patrick Griffin of New York City did not have a nurse present during a colonoscopy, and was later charged with sexually molesting his patient.
Protect Your Ass with a Paper Trail: Police officer Grant Snowden and his wife Janice were babysitters in Florida. They noticed welts on the face of a boy they babysat. Office Grant Snowden confronted the boys parents with this information. The parents responded by accusing Grant Snowden of sexually abusing their son. Since Officer Grant Snowden had not filed a police report regarding the boy’s welts before confronting the parents, he was not in a position to accuse the parents of being motivated by a desire to deflect attention away from themselves.
Other Victims of False Accusations
• Kelly Michaels of the Wee Care Day Nursery of Maplewood, New Jersey
• Numerous families in Wenatchee, Washington
Overview: The fear of being labelled soft on punishing the sexual abuse of children has caused many individuals in the criminal justice system to remain silent when false accusations have been made. To exonerate one accused child molester would, they fear, lead to undermining the crusade against child abuse.
An Epidemic of Prosecutorial Misconduct: During the 1980s and 1990s in the United States, many innocent people were convicted of molesting children in non-family settings, such as school and child care. The author describes several causes of these injustices:
• repeated interrogations of children until the children’s integrity broke down and they said what their interrogators wanted them to say
• phony experts in child abuse who made careers out of promoting child abuse hysteria
• the qualifications of so-called expert witnesses are not carefully examined
• the same expert witnesses keep being used again and again at different trials
• over zealous district attorneys trying to make a name for themselves
• district attorneys and expert witnesses asking the children leading questions and coaching them what to say on the witness stand
• biased judges, who allowed improper testimony from the prosecution side, but who were overly restrictive in what expert testimony from the defendants’ side they would allow
Child Abuse Prevention and Treatment Act (1974): CAPTA is also called the “Mondale Act”, after its prime sponsor, Senator Walter Mondale. It greatly increased federal funding for child protective services, which sometimes lead to overzealous behavior on the part of government officials trying to ferret out instances of child abuse.
Signs of Fabrication: The author points out that the cases involving wrongful prosecution differed from those where a crime actually occurred, in that when the crime actually occurred, the children talk only about the sexual violence itself, and there was no embellishment fantasy involving clowns, robots, hot-air balloons, and eating frogs. In the imaginary cases of abuse, there was usually a lack of physical evidence tying the accused to the crime, or even showing that a crime had been committed.
Never Change Wet Underwear Without a Witness: At the Fells Acres Day School in Malden, Massachusetts, a member of the Amirault family changed the underpants of a boy who had wet his pants, and was later charged with sexually molesting the boy.
Always Have a Nurse Present: Internist Patrick Griffin of New York City did not have a nurse present during a colonoscopy, and was later charged with sexually molesting his patient.
Protect Your Ass with a Paper Trail: Police officer Grant Snowden and his wife Janice were babysitters in Florida. They noticed welts on the face of a boy they babysat. Office Grant Snowden confronted the boys parents with this information. The parents responded by accusing Grant Snowden of sexually abusing their son. Since Officer Grant Snowden had not filed a police report regarding the boy’s welts before confronting the parents, he was not in a position to accuse the parents of being motivated by a desire to deflect attention away from themselves.
Other Victims of False Accusations
• Kelly Michaels of the Wee Care Day Nursery of Maplewood, New Jersey
• Numerous families in Wenatchee, Washington
October 8, 2008
In 1742, Charles-Louis de Secondat, Baron de Montesquieu, wrote, "There is no crueler tyranny than that which is perpetrated under the shield of law and in the name of justice."
This book documents innocent people accused of sex crimes under a runaway justice system.
In today's society, immoral people exact revenge by accusing those they do not like of a sex crime and let the government use its resources to inflict life changing revenge.
This book documents innocent people accused of sex crimes under a runaway justice system.
In today's society, immoral people exact revenge by accusing those they do not like of a sex crime and let the government use its resources to inflict life changing revenge.
September 16, 2012
Scarier than any fiction.
February 25, 2015
While often emotionally leading and needlessly wordy, this book (which reads as a long-form essay) is disturbing but important. My loathing of the American prison system is only magnified after reading this unbelievable account of injustice.
August 17, 2017
This is one of the scariest books I have ever read. When mass hysteria takes over, no one is safe.
May 20, 2023
Read this book and tell me the justice system in this country does not scare you. The corrupt system has been the same since day one the only difference is the corruption was once part of a concept called justice. Now it is just played as a game for money and power. The book is well written and very understandable with out being preachy.
June 3, 2018
It’s very well possible for an entire society to be wholly unaware of its own follies. That eternal cliché came to mind while reading Dorothy Rabinowitz’ ‘No Crueler Tyrannies’. As we’re surrounded with never-abating collective hysteria over supposed right-wing white bogeymen continuously preying on innocent black kids, climate change threatening to wipe out the entire planet unless we completely throw our carbon-based economy overboard, and more of this kind of juvenile hyperbole, it’s good to step back a little and look at these phenomena from a larger cultural perspective.
This book shows us that we’ve been here before. It chronicles several well-known sex crime cases whipped up during the day care sex abuse frenzy in the 1980s and 90s. These were the days moms started working full-time jobs en masse, and the cultural anxiety resulting from this trend led to an irrational fear that our little ones might become the next victims of sexual predators lurking inside well-nigh every day care facility. One case gets the ball rolling, and before you know it, mass orgies involving a dozen teachers dressed up as clowns in ‘magical rooms’ are happening all around you.
I didn’t make up the example above; It comes straight out of one of the cases highlighted by Rabinowitz. The charges were generally so outlandish and incredible as to warrant ridicule. But, because of the mass hysteria surrounding these cases, prosecutors were able to get away with nearly everything. And anyone protesting their neighbors or colleagues being thrown in the slammer on bogus charges risked being next in line themselves, as many found out the hard way.
None of the children involved initially confessed to much, but two years of pre-trial prep was often sufficient to get them to say just enough to put the defendants in a serious pickle. And if they didn’t, there would always be an army of ‘expert witnesses’ ready to explain that, when a supposedly-sexually-abused 5-year-old insists nothing happened, it’s actually a sign that something DID happen. It’s that reversed psychology getting the better of those little buggers, you see?
The trial juries were often gullible enough to buy into the shenanigans. After all, a bunch of experts with expensive educations explained it all to them under oath, and they were unaware of the testimony boot camp the children underwent before the trials even started. However, that the judges should go along with it, wiping their eyes as they’d tell the defense attorney cross-examination was out of the question lest the little kiddies’ poor feelings be hurt, is a testament to how deeply we have fallen as a society.
The real victims in these cases were put behind bars, in some cases for decades. Entire lives were destroyed by shoddy police work and overzealous DAs, abetted by equally overzealous Child Protective Services departments. Even if justice eventually took its turn and the defendants got out of prison, it would be almost impossible for them to pick up a normal life, tainted as their names had become. The prosecutors, however, faced no consequences whatsoever for their gross misconduct, as Rabinowitz aptly remarks in her epilogue. One of them, Martha Coakley, almost made it into the U.S. Senate in 2010. Such is life.
If there’s one negative thing to be said about this book, it’s that one shouldn’t go look for cultural and philosophical explanations here. Don’t expect data about the larger phenomenon as it played out in the final two decades of the last century, or analysis on the role of mass media in the modern age. Rabinowitz is a story-teller. She invokes details about the lives of the defendants, and anecdotes about their first nights in prison, to name but one example. The bigger picture is somewhat missing.
The life-stories chronicled by Rabinowitz are as well-written as they are distressing, though, and I had trouble putting the book away at night. (In fact, I finished this book within 72 hours, an achievement in its own right, what with my busy work and family life.) To anybody assuming they’ll be able to stay out of trouble as long as they don’t go looking for it, I would heartily recommend they read ‘No Crueler Tyrannies’ to open their eyes. It’s a testament to the follies, tunnel vision and hysteria that can inform our decisions, individually, but also collectively as a society. That is a rather disturbing thought.
This book shows us that we’ve been here before. It chronicles several well-known sex crime cases whipped up during the day care sex abuse frenzy in the 1980s and 90s. These were the days moms started working full-time jobs en masse, and the cultural anxiety resulting from this trend led to an irrational fear that our little ones might become the next victims of sexual predators lurking inside well-nigh every day care facility. One case gets the ball rolling, and before you know it, mass orgies involving a dozen teachers dressed up as clowns in ‘magical rooms’ are happening all around you.
I didn’t make up the example above; It comes straight out of one of the cases highlighted by Rabinowitz. The charges were generally so outlandish and incredible as to warrant ridicule. But, because of the mass hysteria surrounding these cases, prosecutors were able to get away with nearly everything. And anyone protesting their neighbors or colleagues being thrown in the slammer on bogus charges risked being next in line themselves, as many found out the hard way.
None of the children involved initially confessed to much, but two years of pre-trial prep was often sufficient to get them to say just enough to put the defendants in a serious pickle. And if they didn’t, there would always be an army of ‘expert witnesses’ ready to explain that, when a supposedly-sexually-abused 5-year-old insists nothing happened, it’s actually a sign that something DID happen. It’s that reversed psychology getting the better of those little buggers, you see?
The trial juries were often gullible enough to buy into the shenanigans. After all, a bunch of experts with expensive educations explained it all to them under oath, and they were unaware of the testimony boot camp the children underwent before the trials even started. However, that the judges should go along with it, wiping their eyes as they’d tell the defense attorney cross-examination was out of the question lest the little kiddies’ poor feelings be hurt, is a testament to how deeply we have fallen as a society.
The real victims in these cases were put behind bars, in some cases for decades. Entire lives were destroyed by shoddy police work and overzealous DAs, abetted by equally overzealous Child Protective Services departments. Even if justice eventually took its turn and the defendants got out of prison, it would be almost impossible for them to pick up a normal life, tainted as their names had become. The prosecutors, however, faced no consequences whatsoever for their gross misconduct, as Rabinowitz aptly remarks in her epilogue. One of them, Martha Coakley, almost made it into the U.S. Senate in 2010. Such is life.
If there’s one negative thing to be said about this book, it’s that one shouldn’t go look for cultural and philosophical explanations here. Don’t expect data about the larger phenomenon as it played out in the final two decades of the last century, or analysis on the role of mass media in the modern age. Rabinowitz is a story-teller. She invokes details about the lives of the defendants, and anecdotes about their first nights in prison, to name but one example. The bigger picture is somewhat missing.
The life-stories chronicled by Rabinowitz are as well-written as they are distressing, though, and I had trouble putting the book away at night. (In fact, I finished this book within 72 hours, an achievement in its own right, what with my busy work and family life.) To anybody assuming they’ll be able to stay out of trouble as long as they don’t go looking for it, I would heartily recommend they read ‘No Crueler Tyrannies’ to open their eyes. It’s a testament to the follies, tunnel vision and hysteria that can inform our decisions, individually, but also collectively as a society. That is a rather disturbing thought.
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January 21, 2008though DR and i live in different political dimensions, if you remember the lesbian sm wars or the hordes of 'satanic ritual abuse' survivors that popped up overnight you know moral panic is still alive and well and so is mob mentality
the childhood hysteria movement that started in the 80's is well documented here-- though the writing style is choppy and lackluster-- a good reminder that silence=complicity
the childhood hysteria movement that started in the 80's is well documented here-- though the writing style is choppy and lackluster-- a good reminder that silence=complicity
March 30, 2016
Another example of a sad miscarriage of justice
Displaying 1 - 10 of 10 reviews