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The
Amirault tragedy Interview with Dorothy
Rabinowitz (active in Amirault case and writer who broke
Kelly Michaels' story)| Religious
Tolerance website: This site has thoroughly covered this
story for many years | Articles
on Fells Acres, Massachusets, ritual abuse scandal | Wenatchee | Bakersfield | Saskatoon
| Ongoing: New Hampshire trial
of Phil Bourgelais
- Gerald Amirault's
Freedom
- Today he leaves prison,
after serving 18 years on phony charges.
Wall Street Journal, April
30, 2004
At 10 o'clock this morning,
Gerald Amirault will walk out of his Massachusetts jail, a free
man.
It is a joyous day for this
prisoner, behind bars for 18 years after his 1986 conviction
on charges of child sex abuse based on fantastical testimony
dragged from pre-schoolers. Gerald's mother Violet and his sister
Cheryl served eight years before their convictions were overturned
in 1995.
It is also a happy day for
The Wall Street Journal. Readers of this page will be familiar
with Dorothy Rabinowitz's accounts of judicial abuse of the Amirault
family and others falsely convicted of child sex abuse during
a wave of irrational cases that swept the courts in the 1980s.
Our system isn't always immune
to destructive pressures, and the child-abuse prosecutions of
the 1980s were one such instance. Mr. Amirault's prosecution
was driven by the passions of the times--in this case, the belief
that child predators lurked everywhere and that the child "victims"
must be believed at all costs.
Along the way, the law was
stood on its head. The rules of evidence were changed to accommodate
the prosecution; the burden of proof was put on the accused.
Four- and five-year-olds were coached to say what adults wanted
to hear. All this was done in the name of virtue, with the result
being the kind of catastrophic miscarriage of justice we saw
in Mr. Amirault's case. There never was any truth to the charges
brought against him. Nor was there anything that would, in saner
times, have passed for evidence in an American courtroom.
One of the reasons behind the
district attorney's decision last week not to oppose Mr. Amirault's
release on parole was that in order to have him classified as
a "sexually dangerous person" there would have had
to be a virtual re-trial of the entire Amirault case. The DA
had to have been deterred by the prospect of parading into a
courtroom with the incredible fantasies extracted from Mr. Amirault's
alleged victims--about secret rooms, magic drinks, animal butchery,
assaults by a bad clown. Then-District Attorney Scott Harshbarger
had offered them as "proof" of the Amiraults' guilt.
It is worth remembering, especially
today, some of the players in this remarkable saga. They include
the independent-minded lower court Judges Robert Barton and Isaac
Borenstein, who waged their own small war against these cases
and ordered new trials for the Amirault women. They also include
the Amiraults' attorney, James Sultan, who like the judges was
convinced of the Amiraults' innocence.
On the other hand, there were
the prosecutors, determined to hold on to their convictions even
as those lost all credibility. The Supreme Judicial Court of
Massachusetts upheld the prosecutors despite voluminous evidence
that the Amiraults had been convicted on the basis of bogus testimony.
Who can forget the opinion
written by Associate Justice Charles Fried reinstating the convictions
of Violet and Cheryl? Yes, Justice Fried allowed, the children
had been subjected to leading questions and, yes, there had been
an atmosphere of hysteria that had affected the investigations.
And yes, certain of the defendants' constitutional rights had
been violated. Even so, none of this served to "waken doubts"
and was not a reason to "reopen what society has a right
to consider closed."
Politicians also share in the
blame, especially former Governor Jane Swift. In the midst of
a political race, her poll numbers sinking, she overruled the
Board of Pardons, which had issued a unanimous ruling in 2001
calling for commutation of Gerald Amirault's sentence. Her act
condemned Mr. Amirault to three more years in jail.
These memories of Gerald's--and
all the Amiraults'--long and bitter struggle can't cloud the
joy of a day that sees him returned to his family. Whatever may
lie ahead, it is, for the moment, enough.
Copyright © 2004 Dow
Jones & Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
Gerald
Amirault enjoys his first days of freedom in 18 years.
BY DOROTHY
RABINOWITZ, May 28, 2004 12:01 a.m.
On the morning of April 30,
the day Gerald Amirault was released from Bay State Correctional
Facility after 18 years of imprisonment on charges that he had
sexually assaulted and tortured children, Middlesex County District
Attorney Martha Coakley gave press interviews announcing
that the most important thing to keep in mind about this case
was that it had been valid, the convictions just; and that the
children had told the truth. Some days earlier, the district
attorney had also made known her decision not to file a petition
seeking to keep Gerald Amirault imprisoned on the grounds that
he was a sexually dangerous person. She had come to this decision,
she explained, because she had insufficient evidence of such
a charge.
Many a student of the Amirault
case must have been awed by the magnitude of that understatement.
Even if Ms. Coakley had been inclined--as she clearly was not--to
try to have Gerald Amirault classified as a sexually dangerous
person, she would have had to mount a rerun of the entire investigation
and trials of the Amiraults, before a jury. The prospect of entering
a Massachusetts courtroom today, with the testimony about magic
rooms, bad clowns, animal butchery and the rest, that the original
prosecutor, then-District Attorney Scott Harshbarger,
offered as evidence against Gerald and his sister and mother
in the 1980s, must have been blood-chilling. All things considered,
it wasn't surprising that Ms. Coakley should have decided it
would be best to tie things up with the standard professions
of faith--one last claim that the children had not lied, one
final assertion that the Amiraults had been justly convicted--and
let it all go.
Gerald Amirault's 18-year imprisonment
ended early on a sun-filled day. Under press helicopters hovering
in the bluest of skies, dozens of family members, and his attorney,
traveled in packed cars to claim him. Troopers managed to hold
the mass of reporters and camera crews well away from the prison
grounds, as his wife, Patricia Amirault, and the three now-adult
Amirault children, assorted in-laws and others made their unsteady
way across the grounds toward the building where the prisoner
would be delivered for release. Nothing in the long years they
had spent waiting for this moment had prepared them for it--for
this march under the bright sun, the pressure of their unshed
tears--as they struggled to move quietly, straight ahead.
Outside the building, a pleasant
officer quickly informed them, with evident regret, that regulations
forbade their entry. They would have to wait outside. Almost
as quickly, something changed and they were all ushered into
the building. The rule had been waived. Inside the small room,
a tanned and joyful Gerald came bounding out to meet his sobbing
family and friends.
The night before, members of
the prison staff had come down to say goodbye and shake his hand.
Inside the prison system, as outside, were people who had long
grasped that in the Fells Acres Day School case of the '80s,
three innocent Americans had been convicted on trumped-up charges
reflective of a hysterical time. School principal Violet Amirault
had been hounded virtually to her death, by then-District
Attorney Tom Reilly, (Mr. Harshbarger's successor), who was
determined that she and her daughter Cheryl be returned to prison
after lower-court judges had ordered new trials and reversed
their convictions. Everyone following the case had by now grasped
that the Commonwealth prosecutors would spare no effort to keep
Gerald in prison, and that in their unyielding struggle to preserve
their convictions in the Fells Acres case, the prosecutors could
count on the faithful support of the Supreme Judicial Court of
Massachusetts.
In the early afternoon of Gerald's
release day, a noisy assemblage of family and friends packed
the large room of a Boston restaurant--a celebration that brought
together many of those who had remained at the Amiraults' side:
relatives, neighbors and others who had offered their friendship,
and who had, over the years, lived through every turn of the
case, every dashed hope and denied appeal, along with the family.
The day had begun early for
the Amiraults, particularly Patricia, who found one of her neighbors
at the door at 5 in the morning--a well-wisher anxious to begin
the festivities. In one car headed back to Boston from the prison
that morning, Gerald's brother-in-law Al, a trucker, took incessant
cell phone calls of congratulation from his fellow drivers. At
Cheryl's office the afternoon before, her colleagues had thrown
a small celebration with champagne.
Among the restaurant celebrants
was Patricia's father, Phil McGonagle, a man who had prayed,
after the trial and conviction back in the '80s, that he be allowed
to live long enough to see his son-in-law freed. At his side
sat his wife, Mary McGonagle, who had made it her business to
wait for a phone call from the prison every night in all the
years of Gerald's imprisonment. After he had finished talking
to his wife and children, she was the one Gerald called. Such
conversations could not have been easy--what had she found to
talk about, all those nights? Every little thing, she said, as
though describing a routine service everyone might have been
expected to perform. The conversations lifted his spirit, that
she could see. During the day she would often prepare for them
by watching hockey or basketball or other games--none of this
normally of any interest to her--in order to give him tidbits
of sports news.
Scattered around the restaurant
tables as well sat Gerald's numerous nieces and nephews. Young
adults now, they had as children been familiar faces at every
courtroom proceeding involving the Amiraults.
They had grown up with the
tragedy of Violet, Gerald and Cheryl. All have been a part of
the intransigently hopeful band of relatives who sat through
all the hearings and waited for the outcome of appeals to the
state's highest court--invariably denied. The most notorious
of the denials had been authored by Associate Justice Charles
Fried--a decision that held that the court should not reopen
a case "society has the right to consider closed."
The justice allowed, remarkably enough, that hysteria had indeed
affected the child-abuse investigations in the Fells Acres case;
that children fed leading questions made charges that might otherwise
never have occurred to them; that, indeed, the defendants had
been denied a basic constitutional right. But none of this was
enough, Justice Fried argued, to "waken doubts" about
whether justice had been done.
However often defeated, the Amirault family and their supporters
could always manage to find a ray of hope, thin though it might
be. Some had actually found cause for cheer, however brief, when
they learned that Harvard's Margaret Marshall, reputed
to be a strong advocate for social justice, would be joining
the Supreme Judicial Court. Justice Marshall in short order proved
herself a reliable supporter of the majority that upheld the
Amiraults' prosecutors, as one of the justices who signed onto
Justice Fried's decision extolling the value of "finality."
There had been but one dissenter--Justice Francis P. O'Connor--who
pointed out that the desire for finality "should not eclipse
our concern that in our courts justice not miscarry." The
court's regular denials of the Amiraults' appeals moved the Massachusetts
Lawyers Weekly to an unprecedented editorial pointing out that
the Supreme Judicial Court seemed determined to defend the prosecutors
and keep the defendants behind bars.
From time to time, the inveterate
optimists in the Amiraults' circle found cause for hope in state
leaders. Republican Paul Cellucci, who defeated the Democratic
candidate and Amirault prosecutor, Scott Harshbarger, in 2000,
had indicated in public his belief that justice had not been
done in the Amirault case. Unfortunately, Mr. Cellucci--whose
Board of Pardons and Paroles unanimously called for commutation
of Gerald Amirault's sentence--moved on to a post in the new
Bush administration. That left in charge his lieutenant governor,
Jane Swift, who overruled the Board of Pardons decision in
the hope that she might scrape up enough votes as a crusader
against child sex abuse to salvage her hopeless run for the Republican
gubernatorial nomination. Even now, the door seemingly closed
to Gerald's freedom for no one knew how many years more, his
supporters found cause to hope that the new Republican governor,
Mitt Romney, might take up what Gov. Cellucci had begun,
and look at the case. A wholly unfounded hope as it turned out:
Gov. Romney's office proved more studiously indifferent to all
queries related to the case than any previous governor.
All this seems a long way off
now to Gerald, still accustoming himself to cell phones and shopping
in malls. Wherever he goes, he finds a warm welcome. Everyone
is more than kind, including the local police chief, who sent
a letter to Mrs. Amirault explaining that he had had nothing
to do with the original case--and that he hoped she knew that
if she saw a police car near the house it was intended as support
for the family.
On the street, strangers flock
around Gerald, well-wishers want to shake his hand. He had had
no doubts that life would be good, that he would relish every
minute of his homecoming, but there is no mistaking a faint note
of wonder in his tone, a month after his release, at the depth
of his happiness. He is looking around for a job, and in the
meantime busying himself fixing things around the house that
fell into disrepair while he was gone--one of the things he dreamed
of doing while in prison.
Mother's Day came early
for Violet Amirault,
may she rest in peace
© by Barbara Anderson,
The Salem News, May 6, 2004
On the first of May, the day
after Violet's son Gerald was released from prison, I received
this e-mail from his sister Cheryl.
"Barbara", it said,
"today we went to my mother's grave and we actually enjoyed
the visit. Decorated the stone together, with beautiful flowers
and butterflies. Patti and the kids came and we really were happy
knowing that my mother would be, too!"
That same day a volunteer advocate
for the unjustly imprisoned, Bob Chapelle, wrote to tell those
on his "friends of justice" list that he was about
to leave on his annual Mother's Day visit to Minnesota.
"I think I owe my concern
about justice to my mother, who will be 84 in September."
he wrote. "She taught me early in life that there is such
a thing as a moral obligation and that one must fight for what
is right ... even if the odds are against you. Mom is keenly
interested in my work for justice and always wants updates when
I go to see her. I so seldom have good news to give ...."
The day before, Bob and his
partner, Jim, had been in the crowd of well-wishers who gathered
at Maggiano's restaurant in Boston to greet Gerry after his release.
My partner, Chip Ford, and I were there, along with our co-worker,
Chip Faulkner, who had drawn us both into the Amirault case after
reading columns in the Wall Street Journal. Their author, Dorothy
Rabinowitz, who won a Pulitzer Prize for her coverage of the
day-care hysteria that swept the country in the 1980s, was at
the party, too, as was Gerry's never-give-up lawyer, Jamie Sultan.
Gerry and Patti's son, in his
military school uniform, was greeting people at the door. Their
two daughters were bouncing joyfully around the room from table
to table, as were Patti's always-supportive parents. Someone
had brought a tape of Barry Manilow's "Welcome Home,"
and there were few dry eyes watching Gerry and Patti dance to
it.
There was more Italian food
than any crowd could eat - paid for by another supporter of the
Amiraults, and champagne for a toast.
"To freedom" we all
cried, because we could not say "to justice."
There is no justice for Gerry,
for Cheryl, or for Violet, who were simple day-care providers
when the nation went temporarily mad, and whose prosecutors in
this state still will not admit to having made a terrible mistake.
Nothing can make up for false imprisonment, for the premature
death of Violet from a stress-related cancer or, as Gerry says,
"from a broken heart."
Nothing can give Gerry back
the 18 years he spent behind bars.
People who had never met him
had a chance to see him, with Patti, on New England Cable News'
"Newsnight" last Monday night. He told about his years
in protective custody, and then his transfer to the BayState
Correctional Institution.
"The last five years were
great," he said, noting that in the open population he could
participate in sports, take college classes, and picnic with
his family outdoors.
What kind of person can refer
to his last five years in prison as "great"? Only one
of those rare human beings, of whom Rudyard Kipling wrote: "If
you can force your heart and nerve and sinew to serve your turn
long after they are gone, and so hold on when there is nothing
in you except the will which says to them 'Hold on!...'"
This time of year, Kipling's
words often appear on graduation cards. Gerry just got his bachelor's
degree with second highest honors from Boston University. His
sister Cheryl has a job she loves.
They have both "filled
the unforgiving minute with 60 seconds' worth of distance run."
Which is not to say that anyone
is forgiving the wrong that has been done. At his post-release
press conference, and again on NECN Monday night, Gerry managed
to be angry without sounding bitter.
"I'm going to move on
with my life, enjoying my family... I'm not going to let my pursuit
of this case get in the way of that. But we're going to do whatever
we can to prove my innocence and clear my family's name,"
he said.
His wife and children agree
with this goal. Their elder daughter, who is planning a career
in special education, might someday write a book to help children
deal with events like those she and her siblings survived.
Ironically, Gerry's final liberal
arts class at BU had a chapter called "Moral Panics,"
which addressed his Fells Acres case and similar day-care hysterias
in California and elsewhere. He passed the course. In fact, he
and his family passed his entire ordeal with honors.
Those of us who supported them
are proud to have been even a small part of something bigger
than ourselves.
My mother, like Bob's, had
a strong sense of justice, and always asked about the Amiraults.
This Mother's Day I'll think of her, and Violet, too.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Barbara Anderson is executive
director of Citizens for Limited Taxation. Her syndicated columns
appear weekly in the Salem News and Lowell Sun; bi-weekly in
the Tinytown Gazette; and occasionally in the Providence Journal
and other newspapers.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
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 Truth can never be
told so as to be understood, and not be believ'd. William Blake, The Proverbs of Hell
Truth suppress'd, whether
by courts or crooks, will find an avenue to be told. Sheila Steele, injusticebusters.com
If you hold the mouth
of Truth, It will burst out its rib-cage. Somali proverb
Publisher : Sheila
Steele
Got something
to say about this or any other stories on this site? Go to injusticebustersblog Participate!
- injusticebusters
court advice :
- How to walk yourself through the justice system
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- Why you should dump your preliminary hearing (written July 1998 and still valid)
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- Sermonette:
The
Naked Truth -- (You
will find links to many more sermonettes in the sidebar on this
page
Another target
of Dueck's malice: : Wilf Hathway
Our activism
contributed greatly to the good vibes which happened around the
civil trial.
Index
to the stories on this website
This is not
regularly updated so if you are looking for a particular story
and you have a name or keyword, please use the site search engine(at
the bottom of the page) which IS regularly updated
Index to Saskatoon Police stories
This is a pretty good scrapbook
for the 1998-2002 period.
Inquiry into the malicious prosecution of David
Milgaard untanling 36 years of Saskatchewan police and Crown
misconduct: : Opening day 1 | 2
| 3 | 4
| 5 | 6
| 7 |
- Stephen Williams:
Canadian writer subject to Stasi-like treatment by Canadian police
- Terry
Arnold: : Snitch a
suicide?
- RCMP
scenario stings: Brian
Hutchinson starts digging
- Gary
wells: Faulty eye-witness
testimony
- Tulia,
Texas
- Gilmer,
Texas
- Willie
Upshaw
- Wrongfully convicted in Canada
- Foster Parent false accusations
- Martensville
- Don
Smith obscenity trial: an obscene conviction
- James
Lockyer
- Hurricane
Carter
- Johnny Cochran speaks up for
Bill Sampson
- Vopnis
- Abdulai
Mohamed
The Terrible Story behind the Atif Rafay and
Sebastian Burns convictions
Trial
set for June 15
We
know part of this disclosure is a forged statement and perjured
affidavit from a Winnipeg cop
-
-
-
-
The
Crown is still fighting Fred Poirier -- and they are losing.
Secret Commissions Case from Northern B.C.
-
-
- 2005: In
the United States the proven wrongful convictions just keep coming
at us!
-
- Brandon Morin:
- Convicted in Oregon
- of rapes which did not happen
- This website has good information
about Measure 11 -- Oregon's Mandatory Sentencing requirements
which have been in place since 1994. In this case we see how
the combination of a flawed grand jury system and prosecutors
who seek not justice but convictions is a recipe for wrongful
convictions.
-
Canadians who
have been wrongfully convicted because of improper investigations
combined with zealous Crown
A
round-up of wrongful convictions in Canada
- Robert
Baltovich
- Michael Burns
- Sebastian Burns
- Rodney
Cain
- Wilbert
Coffin
(hanged, 1953)
- Jason
Dix
- Jim
Driskell
- Jody
Druken
- Randy
Druken
- Hugues
Duguay
- Michel Dumont
- Peter
Frumusa
- Walter
Gillespie and Robert Mailman
- Clayton Johnson
- Yvonne Johnson
- Herman
Kaglik
- Darren
Koehn
- Kulaveeringsam
"Kulam" Karthiresu
- Stephen Leadbeater
- Donald Marshall
- Chris McCullough
- Michael
McTaggart
- Felix
Michaud
- David Milgaard
- Guy
Paul Morin
- Shannon
Murrin
- Jamie
Nelson
- Greg
Parsons
- Benoit Proulx
- Atif Rafay
- Louise
Reynolds
- Thomas
Sophonow
- Gary
Staples
- Billy
Taillefer
- Steven
Truscott
- Joe
Warren
- Leon
Walchuk
-
- AIDWYC
- Innocence Project (Canada)
- Innocence Project (U.S.)
- Northwest Law Center on Wrongful Convictions
-
- Kirstin Lobato
- Jeffrey
Scott Hornoff
- Willie
Upshaw
- Hurricane
Carter
- Guildford
4
- Birmingham
6
- Amirault
- Houston
- U.S. wrongful convictions:
Exonerateed
- Kirk
Bloodsworth
- Laurence
Adams
- Ludrate
Burton
- Stephen
Cowans
- Wilton
Dedge
- Albert
Johnson
- Kenneth
Marsh
- Dwayne
McKinney
- James
Bernard Parker
- Peter
Reilly
- Peter
Rose
- Sylvester
Smith
- Clifford
St. Joseph
- John
Stoll
- Marty
Tankleff
- Wilton
Dedge
- Ray
Krone
-
- Still working on it:
- Dennis Deschaine
- Dennis
Perry
- Tim
Sandfort
-
Blogging
Blogging has been in the news.
It is the new, trendy thing with 40,000 new blogs being created
each day. I established a blog for this website last September
and it is now "taking off." These are a few of the
pages with ongoing discussions.
- Tasering Mary Lutz
- Saskatchewan Centenary
- Quint Blog discussion
- Rotten apples in the Saskatoon Police
- Blogging for choice
- Michael Cardamone witch hunt
- Implement recommendations of public
inquiries
- Stealing from the poor
- Vancouver's killer cops
- Tisdale rapists appeal
- Winnipeg police misdeeds
- Milgaard Inquiry
- Chief Sabo: can he be trusted?
- The Old Boys' Club Must Go!
- Vancouver activists
- John Hudak: Falsely accused mountie
- City of intolerance
- Constable Larry Lockwood: Exciteable!
- Eric Cline
This is a great way for like-minded
people to communicate and share our views. It is easier than
making a website and marginally more difficult than a forum.
People who want to contribute
simply have to punch the "comment" link and they will
be taken to a page with a box which allows them to write their
comment, preview and post it. It takes a while for the comment
to show up and some people get impatient and repost. That's fine,
I trash the duplicate posts and no harm done.
Please, please give it a try.
The internet is distinguished from other media in that it is
really and truly interactive. Blogging makes it possible to express
your viewpoint even if you don't have a computer. You can go
to the library or a friend's place or an internet cafe. Once
you've mastered the basics (and believe me, if I can do it, you
can do it) you will be participating in one of the most democratic
-- and potentially powerful -- media the world as we know it
has ever seen.
Come on. Don't be shy. Join
the Weblog World! -- Sheila Steele, March 20, 2005
Toronto Police paid out $30M in secretly resolved
claims over last five years
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