Information on alleged Kearn County California Sex ring
* Jeffrey Modahl: Conviction Without Evidence
* Human Rights
* Judge Frees 2 Couples Imprisoned 14 Years in Child Molestation Case (San Diego Union-Tribune, 1996 Aug. 14)
* NEWS: KNIFFEN'S AND McCUAN'S CONVICTIONS OVERTURNED (1996 August 13)
* News Release regarding overturned
convictions of Kniffens and McCuans from The Justice Committee of San Diego (1996 August 11).
* BAKERSFIELD
/ KERN COUNTY, CA RITUAL ABUSE CASE summary from OCRT
* Article on defendant Donna Sue Hubbard (1995
December)
* Information on Kern County "sex ring" case from the Justice Committee of San Diego (1995
September)
* Article on defendants Alvin & Debbie McCuan and Scott & Brenda Kniffen (1996 July)
* Article on recantation of accusing children, now adults, of Scott & Brenda Kniffen (1996 July)
* Return to other alleged witchhunt cases
* Return to Witchhunt Links
* Deja.com
Deja.com search: kern & ( (sex^ring) | abuse | witchhunt)
Articles on these cases culled from the FMSF and Witchhunt Mailing Lists (opinions are those of the authors):
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F M S F O U N D A T I O N N E W S L E T T E R (e-mail edition)
Vol 5 No. 8, September 1, 1996
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3401 Market Street suite 130, Philadelphia, PA 19104, (215-387-1865)
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. . .
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Judge Frees 2 Couples Imprisoned 14 Years in Child Molestation Case
San Diego Union-Tribune Aug. 14, 1996
Two
couples will be freed from prison following dismissal of their
convictions of child molestation because authorities repeatedly asked
the children leading questions thereby tainting their testimony. Scott
and Brenda Kniffen and Alvin and Deborah McCuan will not be retried
because so many years have passed and because two Kniffen boys now say
they were not molested.
In the Kern County Superior Court ruling, Judge Jon Stuebbe wrote,
"It is apparent to this court that the result of the interviewing
techniques used in this case was to render fundamentally unreliable
the children's testimony at trial." This included "telling the child
reports of abuse would help their parents and they could all go home
and live together again."
These families are two of several who were prosecuted for sexual
molestation in Kern County in the 1980's and have since had their
convictions overturned.
________________________
Date: Tue, 13 Aug 1996 07:39:51 -0400 (EDT)
From:
pjf@saul.cis.upenn.edu (Peter Freyd)
Subject:
Victory in California
Carol
Hopkins writes:
Kern County Superior
Court Judge Jon Steubbe today [Mon, Aug 12]
overturned the convictions of the Kniffens and McCuans!!! He has
ordered that they be released immediately. These two couples were
convicted during the Kern County "sex ring" trials and have served
fourteen years. Mike Snedeker was the appellate attorney who prevailed
after also obtaining overturned convictions in a number of the other
Kern County cases.
For
some of the background:
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F M S F O U N D A T I O N N E W S L E T T E R (e-mail edition)
Vol 4 No. 8, September 1, 1995
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APPEALS COURT OVERTURNS CHILD-MOLESTATION CONVICTION
Fresno Bee, August 10, 1995
Robert Rodriguez
Donna
Sue Hubbard was convicted of child molestation in 1985 and
given a 100-year sentence. The 5th District Court of Appeal overturned
the conviction which was one of the famous Kern County cases during
the mid 1980s. "The climate at the time was one of mass hysteria,"
said Glenn Cole, former Kern County grand jury foreman.
"There is substantial likelihood that the children's resulting
testimony was false and thus unreliable," appellate Justice Thomas
Harris wrote. The court also faulted the trial judge for faulty
instructions to the jury. The decision will result in a new trial if
prosecutors choose to retry the case.
According to the article the "allegations began 10 years ago when
police investigated the possible molestation of a 6-year-old boy by
one of Hubbard's neighbors. As investigations continued, the
allegations became increasingly detailed and horrific. The neighbor
was accused of "tying him up -- placing him on a wall hanger with
either a rope, harness or chain -- and molesting him." Investigators
found only a small cup hood with a shank three-eights of an inch long
in the apartment.
Hubbard became involved after a neighbor said that Hubbard's son was
also at the neighbor's house. She became a suspect after a paid
informant "accused her of receiving money for allowing others to
molest her son."
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F M S F O U N D A T I O N N E W S L E T T E R (e-mail edition)
Vol 4 No. 9, October 1, 1995
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_________________________________________________________________
"MANY KERN COUNTY (CALIFORNIA) MOLESTATION" CONVICTIONS OVERTURNED
_Fresno Bee_, 8/30/95
On
August 7, 1995 the 5th District Court of Appeal in California
overturned the conviction of Donna Hubbard. She was one of 37 people
convicted in the early and mid-1980s as Kern County prosecuted eight
"rings" of child molesters. Since that time, 14 of the 26 people found
guilty have had their convictions overturned.
Hubbard and two men were convicted in 1985 of the molest of
Hubbard's 9-year-old son and two other boys. She was sentenced to 100
years. Hubbard's son later recanted much of his testimony.
In its 470 page opinion, the Appeals Court was sharply critical of
the Kern County investigators' interview methods. The court noted that
investigators repeatedly used leading questions and conducted numerous
interviews with the children. The court said that there was
"substantial likelihood" that Hubbard's conviction was based on false
evidence.
# Return to top of page
Sender: Is there a child sex abuse witchhunt?
Date: Tue, 13 Aug 1996 23:22:57 -0400
From: "Carol L. Hopkins"
CAROLHOP1@AOL.COM Subject: Kern County/Congressional
Hearings
The Justice Committee
625 Broadway, Suite 1111
San Diego, CA 92101
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
MONDAY, AUGUST 11, 1996
Kern County Superior
Court Judge Jon Steubbe today vacated the convictions of
Brenda and Scott Kniffen and Alvin and Debbie McCuan. He has ordered the
State of California and Kern County to expedite the immediate release of
these prisoners who have each served fourteen years of combined sentences of
over 1000 years for child sexual abuse. These are only the most recent
overturned convictions in this type of case. Kern County alone has already
witnessed numerous others. The investigation which led to these convictions
was the subject of a 1986 scathing review by the California Department of
Justice which did not, however, take the courageous position of recommending
immediate review by the courts. Instead, many of those convicted have
languished more than a decade in prison. In 1995, in a related case, the
California Supreme Court overturned the conviction of Donna Sue Hubbard in a
highly critical, but unpublished, decision. Donna Sue served eleven years.
At that time, the
Justice Committee wrote a detailed letter to both Attorney
General Lungren and District Attorney Ed Jagels calling for them to stop
contesting the appeals of the remaining prisoners. Included in those
letters was documentation of new scientific evidence regarding the now
discredited standards for physical evidentiaries at the time of the
convictions as well as information regarding recent experiments on child
suggestibility in the face of leading questioning. Questioning in
Bakersfield went far beyond the definition of leading and was, in fact,
coercive, threatening, brainwashing of young children.
The Justice Committee
pleaded fruitlessly with authorities, both in the name
of justice and fiscal prudence, to stop defending these highly flawed
convictions. Mr. Jagels was quoted in the local press as saying that he had
filed our correspondence in the round file and that he had every intention of
continued, vigorous defense of these convictions. More than a year later in
the lives of these tortured innocent people, and hundreds of thousands of
taxpayer dollars later, they will finally walk free.
The Kniffens and
the McCuans are only four of the Justice Committee s more
than 1000 cases of false convictions resulting from the child sexual abuse
hysteria generated by the McMartin Case. These cases have occurred in every
state in the Union. The Justice Committee has spent the last year moving the
Congress toward hearings into the causes of these prosecutions and the
remedies for those who have been falsely convicted. Congressmen Sonny Bono,
Bill Archer, Dick Armey, among others. have joined with the Justice
Committee and also support the need for these hearings.
Please contact Carol Hopkins for more information about the Justice Committee
and other cases.
------------------------------
# Return to top of page
Sender: Is there a child sex abuse witchhunt?
Date: Sun, 4 Aug 1996 07:10:28 -0400
From: Nicholas Peters
Subject: Edward Jagels Witch Hunt Unembellished
[This is an article
from the Bakersfield Californian of July
26, 1996. The article demonstrates the mode of operation of
the anti-justice, and anti-family and anti-science Kern
County child abuse witch hunt led by District Attorney
Edward Jagels and Assistant District Attorney Andrew Gindes.
It is not a pretty picture. The witch hunt has continued
from 1982.]
KNIFFEN SONS WANT PARENT BACK
Sons
of Convicted Parents Tell How Testimony Was Coerced
Brian Kniffen clung to his mother as the deputies
swarmed around them.
"Go with these people and do what they say," said
Brenda Kniffen to her weeping 6-year old son that day in
April 1982. "Then everything will be alright and we'll be
back home."
Those were the last words Brian heard from his mother
for many, many years, he said Thursday after testifying once
again in a Kern County courtroom.
He had been here before, as a child, sitting on a
booster seat in a witness chair 10 feet away from his mother
and father, Scott, weeping and scared and made to start over
and over again.
At that 1984 trial, he testified that his parents,
Brenda and Scott, and their two friends, Deborah and Alvin
McCuan, had molested him in hotels, hung him from hooks in
their homes and sodomized him repeatedly.
Thursday, he was hoping to make things right by telling
a Kern County judge what really happened. Now 20, he told
Judge Jon Stuebbe in a closed courtroom that he was coerced
and badgered by social workers and district attorneys, he
said after the hearing.
"I believed my mother's words when she said to do what
these people said," Brian said. "And I believed them
(social workers and district attorneys) when they promised I
could go home if I just said it all had happened. So I did.
"And I never did go home."
The testimony of Brian and his older brother Brandon
and the McCuans' two young daughters at the 1984 trial sent
the Kniffens and McCuans to prison for 1,000 years
collectively.
Brandon, now 23, also testified at the hearing
Thursday, saying he was never molested by his parents and
only agreed after many grueling interviews.
Attorneys for the Kniffens and McCuans hope the boys'
testimony as men will be a compelling piece of new evidence
for Stuebbe to consider. The judge is presiding over a
special hearing that is part of the appeal process.
Because the hearing was closed Brian told his story to
a reporter after the hearing.
He smiles a lot, and reveals his deepest hurts in
simple words.
He remembers his life before with nostalgia. There
were Sunday mornings, walking beside his father with a
plastic toy mower as the two trimmed the lawn. There were
soccer games and wrestling events and family get-togethers
where the adults played cards and the kids played pretend.
The night before the deputies came, he had a bad dream.
He crawled into bed with his parents and fell back to sleep.
"The next thing I remember she was leaning over me,
crying, and telling me I had to go with these people," Brian
said.
Now his life would become a bad dream, he said.
The man he remembers most is prosecutor Andrew Gindes,
a tall imposing attorney who scared Brian with his
questioning techniques.
"He would slam books down, yell when we wouldn't
cooperated. He was demanding and scared us and wouldn't
take no for an answer.
"I wish I could talk to him now and ask him... why, why
did he do that to me?"
Brian and Brandon were whisked away to foster homes and
their relatives kept away except for a few strictly
supervised meetings, according to court records. Brian
lived in 16 foster homes before hew was 13. Some were fine,
others made yet another scar on his fragile psyche.
"There was one foster home where they kicked me out,"
he said. "I slept walked, and they were really churchy
people. They thought I was possessed by the devil."
Brian's grandparents, Dick and Marilyn Kniffen, tried
to get custody of both boys but, for seven years, were
unsuccessful. At 13, Brian finally moved in with them.
Brandon remained in foster homes, kept away from relatives
for several more years, according to court records.
"For a long time I felt deserted by my family," Brian
said now. "I didn't know that all along they were trying to
see me, get custody. I just thought they had forgotten
about me."
Those feelings led to rage during his high school
years. He fought a lot, he was jittery with nerves, moody,
depressed. His grandparents, who spent hundreds of
thousands of dollars on appeals for Scott and Brenda
Kniffen, put Brian into counseling where he learned to deal
with the ancient hurts and angers.
"I've always felt different from everyone else," he
said, smiling and shrugged. "And I don't trust the law."
Today he lives in a Bakersfield apartment with his
girlfriend. They both work full-time and part-time jobs.
They just bought a brand new car, he says proudly.
He was proud of his testimony Thursday, as well, he
said. He was a man, and could take care of himself. No one
would ever make him say a lie again, he said.
"I just wish I was bigger then," in 1984, he said.
In 1993, both he and his brother recanted their
testimony. Earlier, at 15, Brian had tried to set things
right, he said, but a social worker told him his life in
Foothill High School would be over if he did. The endless
days in court would begin again, he would be questioned
again and again.
"So I just said I couldn't go through with it," he
said. "That's not the same as taking back my recanting.
It's just saying I couldn't deal with all that court stuff
again at 15."
A few years ago, he listened to the tape recording of
an interview with former [Assistant] District Attorney Don
McGillivray and himself. The moment he heard the words
spill out of the speakers, the old fear curled in his gut.
"They scared me, completely coerced me. I always knew
it never happened. But I was only 6, you know what I mean?
And they just kept on and on."
Today, his greatest wish is for his parents to come
home. He has visited them numerous times in prison, with
glass barriers and guards keeping the meetings distant.
He teases his mother into laughing when he comes to
visit.
"Wherever me and Brandon are is where they want to be
when they get out," he said. "Because of what's happened to
us, we'll be close the rest of our lives."
------------------------------
* Return to top of page
* Website under construction with more information on
these cases.
* Return to other alleged witchhunt cases
* Return to Witchhunt Links
bullet "A mere suspicion of witchcraft justifies the immediate arrest and torture of the suspected person. If the
prisoner mutters, looks on the ground, and does not shed any tears, all these are proofs positive of guilt." Jean Bodin, French
lawyer, judge and witchhunter, "The Demonomanie," published circa 1580.
bullet "A prisoner may be promised immunity
or reduced punishment if he accuses his accomplices." Jean Bodin
bullet "In the Little Rascals day-care-abuse case
in North Carolina, one mother told reporters that it took 10 months before her child was able to "reveal" the molestation.
No one at the time considered the idea that the child might have been remarkably courageous to persist in telling the truth
for so long." Carol Tavris 1
bullet The following quotations relate to the Fells Acre case, but apply to many others
as well:
bullet "We just suspended intellectual integrity. We believed the absurd when it came to child abuse cases."
Kimberly Hart 2
bullet "It has nothing to do with lying and everything to do with the implanting of false memories...Studies
have shown that children will vehemently defend the veracity of implanted memories. They recall reporting them, and those
reports produce mental images of the events that these individuals cannot distinguish from their real experiences. But the
kids are not responsible for that. The interviews are." Debra Poole 3
horizontal rule
We have studied over 40 Multi-Victim, Multi-Offender (MVMO) cases at 24 locations, mostly involving allegations of ritual
abuse, since 1995.
In other areas of this web site, we do not take sides. We do not reach conclusions. We merely report both or all sides
of each issue and let our readers make up their mind. However, with these ritual abuse cases, it seemed obvious to us that
grave injustices had been done. As Kimberly Hart of the National Child Abuse Defense Center said, the police and District
Attorneys' offices had suspended their "intellectual integrity." They readily "believed the absurd." We decided to write the
essays with the assumption that most of the defendants were innocent.
We believe that some sexual molestation did happen at Country Walk, in Miami FL, and perhaps in a few of the remaining
cases. But it is our opinion that:
bullet No ritual abuse occurred in any of the cases.
bullet Any criminal acts were non-ritual abuse by
a single perpetrator.
bullet Most or all of the crimes never happened.
Hundreds of adults were convicted of ritual abuse of children, mostly during the 1980s and early 1990s. Almost all have
had their cases revisited. Most convictions have been overturned because of what we now know about:
bullet How easy it was for investigators to get false disclosures of abuse from young children by simply asking
direct questions, repeatedly.
bullet How meaningless the past standards of evidence were for sexual abuse of girls.
bullet
How meaningless past STD lab tests were on children.
A few innocent people continue to rot in prison in the United States and elsewhere. A list of addresses of US prisoners
is available. 5
Child psychologists and police investigators now are generally aware of how to avoid improper questioning of young children.
New cases dried up in the early 1990s. However, one strange case did surface in Lewis Island, Scotland, in late 2003.
horizontal rule
US Cases:
Location People and Facility Involved
Bakersfield CA The McCuan and Kniffen Families (and 8 other cases)
Bucks
County, PA A Day School teacher, and others
Edenton, NC Robert "Bob" Kelly et al (Little Rascals)
Unknown
location, NC Michael Parker
Malden, MA The Amirault Family (Fells Acre)
Manhattan Beach, CA Peggy
& Ray Buckey and Virginia McMartin * (McMartin Preschool)
Maplewood NJ Kelly Michaels
Marty I.R., SD J
Rouse, D Rouse, G Feather, R Hubbeling, D Rouse
Miami, FL Francisco and Iliana Fuster (Country Walk)
Niles, MI
Allan Barkman
Olympia, WA Paul R. Ingram
Pittsfield, MA.
Bernard Baran
Robin Hood Hills AR Damien Echols and two others, "The West Memphis Three"
Roseburg,
OR The Gallup family
San Diego, CA Dale Akiki
Smithfield, NC Patrick Figuered & Sonja Hill
Wenatchee,
WA Rev. Robert Roberson & dozens of others
Westchester, NY Rev. Nathaniel Grady (and 4 others)
* See also: Magical tunnels under McMartin Preschool
The Justice Committee has examined many child sexual abuse convictions that were triggered throughout the United States
by the Bakersfield and McMartin cases. They believe that there are more than 1000 persons who are innocent of the crimes for
which they have been convicted. The Committee's main project is to persuade Congress to hold hearings to study the causes
of these prosecutions and initiate remedies for the unjustly convicted. They have obtained support from Congressmen Bill Archer,
Dick Armey, Sonny Bono, and others. 3
ABC-TV's Turning Point program of 1996-NOV-15 stated that: "Since 1980, in over 40 [US] communities, some 200 people
have been accused of these crimes... Today, 141 people, -- nearly three quarters of the accused in these cases -- have been
acquitted, had their convictions overturned or charges against them dropped.."
This menu continues below.
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Canadian cases:
Location People Involved
Cornwall, ON Allegations of sex-rings and ritual abuse
Martensville, SK The
Sterling Family (Martensville Nightmare)
Prescott, ON 120 adults! We call it the Prescott Nightmare
Richmond,
BC, Canada Michael Kliman
Red Deer, SK The Klassen family and 11 other adults
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Cases Outside North America
Location People accused
Sydney, Australia "Mr Bubbles"
Charleroi, Belgium Marc Dutroux
Muenster,
Germany Rainer Moellers
Ashhurst, NZ The Venus Case
Christchurch, NZ Peter Ellis and 4 other cases
Bishop
Auckland, UK 4 families
Lewis island, UK Group of 8 adults
Newcastle, UK Christopher Lillie and Dawn
Reed
Nottingham, UK Group of 9 adults (the one that started the UK Satanic panic)
Pembroke, UK Group of
6 adults
Rochdale, UK Group of 10 adults
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Three groundbreaking books that explain how the justice system failed both children and adults:
Stephen Ceci & Maggie Bruk, "Jeopardy in the Courtroom: A scientific analysis of children's testimony," American
Psychological Association, (2000). Read reviews or order this book This book was largely responsible for changing child interview
techniques across North America, and bringing an end to implanted false memories of child abuse.
Dorothy Rabinowitz, "No Crueler Tyrannies: Accusation, False Witness, and Other Terrors of Our Times," Wall Street Journal
Books, (2003). Read reviews or order this book "No Crueler Tyrannies recalls the hysteria that accompanied the child sex-abuse
witch-hunts of the 1980s and 1990s: how a single anonymous phone call could bring to bear an army of recovered-memory therapists,
venal and ambitious prosecutors, and hypocritical judges -- an army that jailed hundreds of innocent Americans." (Amazon.com
review)
Mary de Young, "The Day Care Ritual Abuse Panic," McFarland & Company, (2004). Read reviews or order this book "This
work is a sociologically based analysis of the day care ritual abuse panic in America. It introduces the concept of moral
panic and analyzes its relevance to the ritual abuse scare, explores the ideological, political, economic, and professional
forces that fomented the panic, discusses the McMartin Preschool case as the incident that brought attention to satanic menaces
and children, and examines the dialect between the various interest groups that stirred up and spread the moral panic and
the day care providers accused of ritual abuse. Also covered are the popular culture representations of day care ritual abuse,
the diffusion of the scare to areas overseas, the institutionally symbolic and ideologically contradictory social ends of
the panic, and the outcomes of the panic in various settings. The book ends with a discussion of moral panic theory and how
it needs to be changed for a complex, multi-mediated postmodern culture, and what lessons can be learned from the scare."
(Amazon.com review)
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References:
1. Carol Tavris: "Mind Games: Psychological Warfare Between Therapists and Scientists," The Chronicle of
Higher Education, Section: The Chronicle Review, Vol. 49, Issue 25, Page B7, 2003-FEB-28.
2. Kimberly Hart
is executive director of the National Child Abuse Defense Center in Ohio. The quote came from the National Post, 2001-JUL-10,
Page A10. The National Post is a conservative Canadian newspaper.
3. Debra Poole is a professor of psychology
at Central Michigan University. She is the author of the forensic interviewing protocol for children now mandated by Michigan
law.
4. Carol Hopkins, News Release, The Justice Committee, 625 Broadway, Suite 1111, San Diego, CA 92101.
Issued 1996-AUG-11
5. Bob Chatelle has a list of falsely accused inmates at:
http://www.ultranet.com/~kyp/prisaddr.html I put this page on here to show people how so many have been wrongly accused of molesting children. Our courts
are so corrupt and there are to many times where innocent people have been inprisoned. In Illinois alone there have
been to many people released off of death row because of this broken system.
