Abusive justice: the child-abuse craze has passed from the media spotlight. But many innocent people are still fighting for their lives

ON January 14, two hundred people gathered in Salem, Massachusetts, to com- memorate the three-hundredth anniversary of the Day of Contrition, a day of fasting and remorse proclaimed by the Massachusetts Bay Colony for the public hysteria and judicial misconduct that had led to "great hardship brought upon innocent persons" in what have come to be known as the Salem witch trials. Among those present were many of the chief participants in the struggle against their modern variant, the child-sex-abuse persecutions of the 1980s and 1990s, most of which have included charges of Satanic ritual.

In addition to the pioneering researchers on the suggestibility of children and a handful of journalists who had kept their heads while their colleagues wallowed in sensation, there were the victims themselves. Kelly Michaels was there, the young would-be actress who served 5 years of a 47-year sentence on patently ridiculous charges of sexually molesting virtually all the 3- to 5-year-olds at the Wee Care Day Nursery unnoticed by any of her fellow workers. A prize moment from the trial: a child describes being forced to push a sword into Miss Michaels's rectum and being politely told "thank you" when he pulls it out. Also present were Peggy Ann and Ray Buckey, accused in the McMartin case, the costliest criminal trial in U.S. history; Pastor Roberson and his wife, who supposedly turned their Baptist church in Wenatchee, Washington, into a site for mass sex orgies; Brenda and Scott Kniffen, who were each sentenced to 240 years in prison (and served 14 before their sentences were overturned) for participating in a nonexistent sex ring in Bakersfield, California; Violet and Cheryl Amirault, the mother and daughter who ran the Fells Acre nursery in Massachusetts, free after 7 years in prison, their sentences tossed out by an appeals-court judge.

While the presence in Salem of victims in some of the most high-profile cases suggested that the legal system was finally working, what their presence really pointed up was an anomaly: while appeals courts were throwing out the convictions of some of those unjustly imprisoned, they were arbitrarily deny- ing so much as a hearing to others. Indeed, many were sinking ever deeper into the legal quagmire of their multiple life sentences.

Take the case of police officer Grant Snowden, North Miami Officer of the Year in 1983, who has now served 11 years of his five life sentences. He is one of several victims of false prosecutions for child sexual abuse ruthlessly pressed by Janet Reno when she was Dade County District Attorney, prosecutions which catapulted her from obscurity into a national champion of children.

Snowden's ordeal began in the summer of 1984. His wife, Janice, had provided day care in their home for 15 years. She became concerned when 3-year-old Greg Wilkes, whom she had cared for since he was an infant, arrived at the house several times with welts that suggested he had been beaten. (Greg Wilkes and all the other names of children used here are the pseudonyms employed in the court records to protect the children's identity.) Snowden confronted the parents, telling them he would report them to the child-welfare authorities if Greg appeared like that again. Greg's vengeful father struck first, accusing Snowden of sexually molesting the child.

In the end, even Miss Reno did not have the stomach to press charges in this case. The father's manipulation of his son was so blatant that the psychiatrist who examined Greg warned his father to stop pressuring him to say things he did not want to say, and the case was dropped. But this only spurred the DA's office to greater efforts. With frantic parents now questioning children, a potential new complainant was found, 11-year-old Carol Banks, who claimed to have "recovered" memories of abuse at the Snowden home seven years earlier. Janet Reno brought in the heavy guns in the form of self-styled child-abuse experts Laurie and Joseph Braga (she had a PhD in speech, he in education). After a Braga interview had elicited a variety of charges from Carol, the prosecution felt ready to proceed to trial, but, as it turned out, miscalculated. Snowden was acquitted on all charges.

Undeterred, Miss Reno's office made good on a promise made to Snowden during the trial -- to try him one child at a time until there was a conviction. On round three, the prosecution scored. This time there were two alleged victims, 4-year-old Leslie Blands and her 6-month-old brother. The case rested on Les- lie's allegations. Yet New York attorney Robert Rosenthal points out in his brief seeking to overturn Snowden's conviction, "every single sexual comment and allegation made by Leslie was first suggested to her by Braga." This can be determined because the Bragas, like many of the early sex-abuse therapists proud of their techniques, videotaped their interviews.

The videotapes make plain that the Bragas used what analysts of these therapists' methods define as the standard techniques: repeated questioning in interview after interview when initial efforts receive the usual, "Nothing happened"; seeking only confirming evidence, avoiding paths that produce nega- tive or inconsistent statements; setting an emotional tone in which parents and therapists will be proud if the child "helps," i.e., "tells"; asking the child to "pretend," then tell "what really happened," and then to "pretend" again until the child is totally confused; telling a child of allegations made by "other" children; and using so-called anatomically detailed dolls.