Don’t miss Frontline's "The Confessions" airing Tuesday

The Norfolk Four sailors are out of prison, but they remain convicted sex offenders with all of the stigma and draconian restrictions that status entails. Now comes what some are calling the best program ever on the subject of why people falsely confess:

Why would four innocent men confess to a brutal crime they didn’t commit? FRONTLINE producer Ofra Bikel (Innocence Lost, An Ordinary Crime) investigates the conviction of four Navy sailors for the rape and murder of a Norfolk, Va., woman in 1997. In interviews with the sailors, Bikel learns of some of the high-pressure police interrogation techniques -- including the threat of the death penalty, sleep deprivation, and intimidation -- that led each of the “Norfolk Four” to confess, despite a lack of evidence linking them to the crime. All four sailors are now out of prison -- one served his sentence and the other three were granted conditional pardons last summer -- but the men were not exonerated as felons or sex offenders. The case raises disturbing questions about the actions of the police and prosecutors, who relied on the sailors’ often contradictory confessions for their convictions, and disregarded DNA evidence that pointed to a lone assailant who would later confess to the crime himself while serving prison time for another rape.

Airing this Tuesday night on PBS, The Confessions is incredibly timely. Two weeks ago, a federal jury convicted the lead homicide detective of extortion for taking bribes from criminals in exchange for favorable treatment in a series of unrelated cases.

But meanwhile, the four sailors from whom he extracted confessions continue to live "in a hellish limbo," writes Virginia journalist Margaret Edds, author of "An Expendable Man: The Near-Execution of Earl Washington Jr."

• In Michigan, Danial Williams wears an electronic ankle bracelet 24 hours a day. He cannot even work in the yard without permission.

• In Texas, Eric Wilson was denied admission to a school for electricians and cannot adopt his wife’s son because of his criminal record.

• In North Carolina, Derek Tice washes windows for a living, his dream of becoming a nurse forever barred.

• In Maryland, Joseph Dick fears taking his parents’ dogs for a walk because a school backs up to their property.

Having blogged about this case since 2007, I am excited to see this show finally airing. Hopefully, it will create enough public pressure to force Virginia's governor to at long last exonerate the four.

So, as a colleague said, "Tape it, burn it, TIVO it, watch it, have your family members watch it, have their friends watch it, have your students watch it, your teenage children watch it, tweet it, Facebook it, blog it."

Bottom line: Don't miss it.

Further resources:

PBS' website on The Confessions is HERE.

My reviews of The Wrong Guys by Tom Wells and Richard Leo are HERE (Amazon) and HERE (California Lawyer magazine).

Prior blog posts on the case:

• Another fascinating disputed confession case (Sept. 24, 2007)

• The Wrong Guys: New book explodes myth that innocent do not confess (Dec. 8, 2008)

Hat tip: Luis

Cheer for rapist or else, appellate court rules

First, she was raped.

Then, she was told she must cheer for her rapist.

Now, a federal appeals court ruling that she had no grounds to protest is putting the tiny town of Silsbee, Texas on the map.

It all started when a group of boys grabbed 16-year-old "H.S." at a post-football game party two years ago, dragged her into a room, locked the door, and proceeded to sexually assault her.

After the assault, H.S. went back to cheerleading at Silsbee High School. But when her rapist sauntered up to the foul line for a free throw, H.S. sat down and turned her back.

"I didn’t want to have to say his name, and I didn’t want to cheer for him," the girl said. "I didn't want to encourage anything he was doing."

The district superintendent, his assistant, and the school principal called her outside and demanded that she cheer for the star athlete, Rakheem Bolton. Either that, or go home. Fans, meanwhile, sat in the bleachers and mocked the crying girl.

As is frequently the case in gang rapes involving athletes and other cultural icons of masculinity, the high school and community rallied around the rapists. H.S. was forced off the squad. In the coming weeks, she and her family underwent a campaign of harassment in the small town of 6,300.

"They were the star athletes, and I was standing up to them," San Francisco Chronicle legal reporter Bob Egelko quotes her as saying.

A panel of three of the most conservatives judges on the Fifth U.S. Circuit of Appeals in New Orleans has denied her claim that her free speech rights were violated. As a "mouthpiece" for the school, she had no right to refuse to cheer for her rapist, they ruled. Indeed, it was she and not the school whose rights were violated:

As a cheerleader … H.S. was contractually required to cheer for the basketball team, whose roster included Bolton…. H.S. served as a mouthpiece through which [the school] could disseminate speech -- namely, support for its athletic teams…. [H.S.'s refusal to cheer] constituted substantial interference with the work of the school because, as a cheerleader, H.S. was at the basketball game for the purpose of cheering, a position she undertook voluntarily.

The girl's lawyer said he will petition for a rehearing in front of the full appeals court.

While the cheerleading aspect of this case is unusual, gang rapes by members of the masculine elite such as athletes, soldiers and fraternity members are common. As I discuss in my theoretical overview of gang rape in Sexuality Research and Social Policy, such assaults serve a variety of functions, including social bonding, the celebration of power, and the public display of heterosexual masculinity through the subordination of women. In other words, group rape of women is a form of cultural theater, in which the victim serves as a mere dramatic prop.

As in this case, the main weapon of these group rapists is alcohol. Also common is for police, prosecutors, judges, school officials and other representatives of the power structure to side with the assailants against the victim.

Here, it appears that H.S. was re-victimized at every stage in the process.

Although Bolton and two alleged co-participants were arrested almost immediately, an initial grand jury declined to indict. Meanwhile, H.S. and her family were told that the rape kit collected that night would not be processed for DNA evidence for more than a year, due to a backlog of cases. The boys were allowed to return to school, and Bolton was allowed back on the basketball team.

When H.S. complained to school officials that students were taunting her in the cafeteria, they told her to keep a low profile and stay out of the cafeteria, according to her court documents.

Eventually, a special prosecutor was appointed. Bolton pleaded guilty to a lesser assault charge and was expelled from the school. He has denied raping H.S., and said it was all a "misunderstanding." The case of codefendant Christian Rountree is still pending.

No matter what the 5th Circuit Court says, it seems outrageous to me that someone can essentially be fired from a job for refusing to cheer for her rapist. But, hey, that's just me.

Bob Egelko's excellent article, explaining the legal landscape of diminishing free speech rights on high school campuses, is HERE. The 5th Circuit ruling is HERE.

Photo: Ultra-conservative jurist Priscilla Owen,
one of three judges who issued the ruling against the cheerleader.

Residency restrictions illegal, Calif judge rules

"Court is not a potted plant"

Breaking news from the Los Angeles Times:

Saying sex offenders are being forced to choose between prison and homelessness, a Los Angeles judge issued an opinion this week blocking enforcement of provisions a state law restricting how close those offenders can live from parks or schools.

Superior Court Judge Peter Espinoza issued the 10-page ruling after four registered sex offenders petitioned the court, arguing that the legislation known as Jessica's Law was unconstitutional.

He said the court had received about 650 habeas corpus petitions raising similar legal issues, and that hundreds more were being prepared....

"The court is not a 'potted plant' and need not sit idly by in the face of immediate, ongoing and significant violations of parolee constitutional rights," Espinoza wrote.

Proposition 83, which is better known as Jessica's Law and was overwhelmingly passed by state voters in 2006, imposes strict residency requirements on sex offenders, including requirements forbidding them from residing within 2,000 feet of any public or private school or park where children regularly gather….

"Rather than protecting public safety, it appears that the sharp rise in homelessness rates in sex offenders on active parole in Los Angeles County actually undermines public safety," wrote Espinoza, who is the supervising judge of the Los Angeles County criminal courts. "The evidence presented suggests that despite lay belief, a sex offender parolee's residential proximity to a school or park where children regularly gather does not bear on the parolee's likelihood to commit a sexual offense against a child." …

New report on parolee recidivism

Meanwhile, California's Department of Corrections has released a new report on recidivism among parolees.

The state's recidivism rates remain among the highest in the United States, the report found, with more than two-thirds of paroled prisoners back behind bars within three years. Younger men and those with shorter sentences had the highest rates.

Almost three in four new imprisonments were for parole violations rather than new crimes, emphasizing the need for alternatives to incarceration for technical violations.

The bright lining is in the recidivism rates of sex offenders, such as those in Los Angeles who cannot find a place to live.

Parolees flagged as sex offenders had lower recidivism rates than other prisoners. And only about 5 percent of those who were sent back to prison had committed a new sex crime. The broad majority were returned for parole violations or non-sexual crimes.

These low sexual recidivism rates are consistent with correctional data from elsewhere in the United States. Unfortunately, as the Los Angeles judge alluded to, thanks to a few rare but highly publicized cases (remember the "black swans"?), the public has not gotten this message.

Judge denies defense expert in capital case

Death penalty cases are expensive.

I spoke with a condemned man on San Quentin Prison's death row who had done the math: The money spent on his trial and appeals could have paid for a year of public education for all of the children in his home town.

The high cost is causing many prosecutors around the United States to think twice before seeking the ultimate penalty. In the Midwestern state of Indiana, for example, capital prosecutions are down in the wake of a state study showing the cost is 10 times more than if the government seeks a sentence of life without parole.

But one crusading prosecutor in Indiana has a more novel solution: Prevent the accused from mounting a defense.

"I feel very strongly about defense death penalty costs," said prosecutor Stan Levco of Vanderburgh County in objecting to a defense request to hire a psychologist.

Astoundingly, the trial judge agreed, and declined the defense request for a psychologist to assist in the defense of Jeffrey Weisheit. The defendant faces trial for murder and arson in the death of his girlfriend's two young daughters. Judge Daniel Moore approved the limited use of a psychologist, just through November, in order to help decide whether Weisheit should plead insane, according to the Evansville (Indiana) Courier and Press.

This puts the defense attorneys in a bind. The standard of practice in capital cases is to hire a team of experts to explore the defendant's life for evidence of mitigating circumstances that can then be presented to the jury. In fact, not to do so may violate a defendant's Constitutional right to effective representation, according to the 2003 case of Wiggins v. Smith.

Expert assistance is even more critical in cases like this one, in which the defendant's mental state may be at issue.

But the financial burden of the trial has been on the public's mind in these cash-strapped times. When a defendant is indigent, as most are, the state public defender pays half of the trial costs, and the other half comes directly from county coffers. According to the state analysis, the average death case in Indiana costs about $450,000; defense attorneys in this case estimate costs may run almost twice that average.

In June, the local paper even ran an opinion poll:

As a taxpayer, are you OK with seeking the death penalty for Jeffrey Weisheit if the estimated cost of approximately $800,000 is used in his defense?

Of the 461 people who voted, 78 percent said "YES." Two-thirds of these thought "there should be a cap on what public defenders can spend on defense.”

Public opinion is hard to ignore.

The prosecutor, meanwhile, says he is so concerned about defense expenses in death penalty cases that he has formed a special prosecutorial committee to study the issue. With such deep concern, it is interesting that he decided to seek the death penalty in the first place. After all, most such efforts are a waste of money. They add years to the process and do not ultimately result in an execution. Between 1990 and 2000, according to the Indiana study, only about one out of six capital prosecutions resulted in a death sentence, and only four of those has led to an actual execution. Indiana currently has 15 prisoners on death row, and six other capital cases pending.

Levco may care about the cost, but I'll bet he cares even more about winning. And he has found an innovative way to improve his odds.

It will be like shooting ducks in a barrel.

Yet another year of (yawn) Halloween security theater

Evidence and common sense no match for hype

For many, Halloween is a blast. Trick-or-treating, giving out candy, dressing up, perhaps even throwing a party.

But for many convicted sex offenders, it is the most dreaded night of the year. Group roundups, dusk-to-dawn curfews with the lights out, mandatory "no candy" signs on their doors and spot checks for compliance are among the various techniques of control ostensibly designed to protect the public.

Contary to the sex offender hysteria on All Hallows Eve, however, sex offenders are not out snatching and molesting children on Halloween. And they never have been.

Last year, a published study proved what most experts already knew: There is no Halloween spike in sex crimes against children.

"The wide net cast by Halloween laws places some degree of burden on law enforcement officers whose time would otherwise be allocated to addressing more probably dangerous events," noted Jill Levenson of Lynn University in Florida, one of the study's authors. Her research, published in the journal Sexual Abuse, examined crime trends over a 9-year period.

The researchers used data from the National Incident-Base Reporting System to examine crime trends in 30 U.S. states over a 9-year period. They found no increased rate of sexual abuse during the Halloween season. Also, the number of reported incidences did not rise or fall after police implemented current procedures.

Unfortunately, empirical evidence seems incapable of bringing common sense to bear. Probation officers and others continue to implement ridiculous roundups and other once-a-year restrictions on sex offenders, instead of focusing on the real threat to children, which I'll get to in a moment.

Around the nation this Halloween, parole and probation officers will continue to order convicted sex offenders not to answer their doors, decorate their porches, or wear costumes on Halloween. Sex offenders are being ordered to post "NO CANDY HERE" signs on their doors. Others must attend special Halloween "counseling sessions" or "movie nights" where they will be monitored (and, incidentally, protected from false accusations). The restrictions are so widespread and so varied that I no longer have the time or energy to catalog them as I have done on my professional blog in past years. (If you are interested, just do a Google news search for "Halloween sex offender roundup.")

This despite at least one federal court ruling that the restrictions were overly broad, and ridicule from late-night TV pundits of some of the sillier Halloween restrictions.

The farcical crackdowns are a prime example of what Scott Henson at Grits for Breakfast calls "security theater," that is, "hyping (and pretending to solve) a threat that in reality is extremely remote, even to the point of diverting resources from policing activities like DWI enforcement that would protect more people and save more lives."

Why Halloween, we might ask? After all, most sex offenders target people they know, not children off the street. And the crackdowns on registered sex offenders miss the mark anyway, because the overwhelming majority of new sex offenses are committed by men who have never been caught for a past sex offense. Furthermore, registered sex offenders feel so branded and ostracized that most are ducking and hiding today.

But the scare feeds into a deep-rooted cultural fear of the bogeyman stranger. This fear is memorialized in the timeworn Halloween legend of tainted candy that has endured despite myriad attempts at correction. As Benjamin Radford of the Skeptical Enquirer pointed out about the persistence of that stranger-danger myth:

"Despite e-mail warnings, scary stories, and Ann Landers columns to the contrary, there have been only two confirmed cases of children being killed by poisoned Halloween candy, and in both cases the children were killed not in a random act by strangers but intentional murder by one of their parents."

The sad part of both myths is that children are taught a message of fear: Strangers, or even their own neighbors, might try to poison or molest them.

Oh, yes. What is the real danger facing children this Halloween?

It's one your mother always warned you about: Getting hit by a speeding car while crossing a dark street. Car accidents kill about 8,000 children every year in the United States. And children are more than twice as likely to be killed by a car while walking on Halloween night than at any other time of the year.

So this Halloween, show compassion toward a publicly identified sex offender. But please, children, don't get too friendly with cars.

Recommended reading:

Stranger danger and the decline of Halloween, Wall Street Journal opinion piece by Lenore Skenazy (author of Free Range Kids)

I can't believe that this is the fourth year in a row that I have posted a Halloween sex offender roundup. Prior posts:

2007: Beware the Halloween bogeyman!

2008: Pendulum swing on Halloween hype? (Oops! That one was just wishful thinking.)

2009: Halloween "security theater" endures

2010: Psychology Today blog post

Witness: My new blog at Psychology Today

has invited me to be a featured blogger at their website. The blog, "Witness," will feature posts oriented toward a more general readership. I hope you like the title; a friend came up with it for me. I've fired up the new blog with a couple of my most popular posts from this blog. One, "Delusional Campaign for a World without Risk," was selected for the "essential reading" section on the magazine's front page. Psychology Today offers a simple rss feed and other file-sharing software, so I am excited about the opportunity to increase my audience. I'll be adding more material as time allows, so feel free to check back there from time to time.