Lest anyone think that Mike Nifong is the only state prosecutor in North Carolina to abuse his power, even Nifong (as evil as he is) does not match the prosecutorial abuse that characterized the infamous “child molestation” trials in Edenton, North Carolina, in the early 1990s. Ambrose Evans-Pritchard wrote a wonderful and informative article on it a decade ago.

In this case, involving seven accused individuals, state officials — via government “social workers” — alleged that there was a massive sex ring in Edenton revolving around a daycare center. Writes Evans-Pritchard:

“… the ordeal continues for the owners and staff of the Little Rascals day-care centre in the genteel colonial town of Edenton. It does not seem to matter that the appeals court has ruled the first two trials in the whole saga invalid, reprimanding the prosecution for “grossly improper” conduct. The case of the “Edenton Seven”, the longest and most expensive in the history of North Carolina, has become a preposterous caricature, a latterday Salem witch-hunt in which the judicial authorities have lost their sanity.

“It all began in 1988 when a four-year-old boy came home from Little Rascals saying he had been slapped by the owner, Robert Kelly. The boy’s mother started calling other parents looking for signs that something was amiss. Rumours began to circulate. One child alleged that Kelly had been “playing doctor”, and then, whoosh!, a firestorm of allegations engulfed the nursery. By the time Kelly finally went to trial in 1992, children were testifying that he had baked babies in microwave ovens, fed them to sharks, taken toddlers on spaceships and inserted scissors and other sharp instruments into their anuses and vaginas.

“What is so striking about this case is the willingness of a group of parents to believe the stories, even though there was no physical evidence of abuse. It was the wealthiest who succumbed to the panic. They were members of the Edenton elite, the snobby families with 18th-century mansions on King Street. Many of the mothers did not work. “They put their kids in Little Rascals for the social connections, or so they could do their civic-minded things, and then they got consumed by this tremendous guilt,” said Betsy Kelly, the co-owner of the day-care business.

“Constantly phoning each other to recount the latest wild story, these mothers created an atmosphere of escalating hysteria. What gave it the patina of credibility were the four therapists who treated the children, using “anatomically correct dolls” to replay the scenes of abuse.

“All the notes of the first interviews were lost or destroyed. The only surviving transcript of the earliest therapy sessions is full of suggestive questions: “Did he put your hand on his ding-dong? What else did he do with his ding-dong? Did he put it in your mouth?” To make matters worse, the mothers engaged in psychological coercion, hugging their children when they confessed. It is a classic pattern of behaviour described by the FBI’s child-abuse unit, which has concluded that children often make up stories to accommodate the delusions of their parents.

“These mothers were a force in Edenton. One was married to a key prosecutor in the case. Most belonged to the Episcopalian Church, the axis of power in the town. The local priest helped to ostracise anybody who dared question the allegations. Once the fire was lit, the children kept adding new suspects to the conspiracy. Only when they named the chief of police as a member of the sex ring did the authorities balk – another reminder of the Salem witch-hunt, halted abruptly in 1692 after the governor’s wife was accused of witchcraft.”

So, you see, Nifong has much to live up to if he wishes to meet the standard of jurisprudence in North Carolina. Keep in mind, Nifong and the Edenton prosecution were democracy at work.