Trial by Public Opinion

Cases in which the media has largely decided the outcome, public opinion knows who is guilty and who is innocent. When the charges are vile enough, the charge is taken as proof of guilt by a guilty public.


Published October 22, 1997

In our culture today, there are several glaring examples of how justice is miscarried due to prejudging the defendant based upon circumstantial evidence and personal bias.

Some of these cases involve tardy accusations of misdeeds after several years have gone by. Others are recent cases but involve issues of cultural bias which affect issues of guilt or innocence. All the cases involve media hype, titilating or lurid details, and public outcry for revenge.

The cases we will examine:

  1. Clarence Thomas v Anita Hill
    We all listened to this emotionally charged high drama played out on the television screens of America. At stake was who would sit as judge in the most powerful court in the land. We all have an opinion about the outcome and the proceedings. No one knows except those involved what really happened there.

    One can determine the probabilites based upon the possible payoffs of the players involved. Could Mr. Thomas have spoken to Anita Hill in the crude way she described? Possibly. Yet one does not see this in his manner or speech. Yet anything is possible between the sexes. The important question to ask is who was telling the lurid stories of abuse and who was using the descriptive words needed to tell the tale. Not Clarence Thomas. The words were coming out of Anita Hill's mouth.

    Another point. Why were these charges so late in being made public? Was the timing not an eleventh hour attempt to head off the certainty of his nomination being accepted?

    Why would Anita Hill follow the man from job to job if he had treated her in so vile and harrassing a manner. Was it not rather her who was harrassing him? She called him repeatedly according to telephone logs and even asked him to recommend her for the position she obtained with Oral Roberts Law School. Why would someone want to work for a sexual harrasser with all the jobs available in the federal government? It doesn't make any sense and her explanations do not wash. She claimed she had to follow him and work for him or else wander the job market aimlessly. No one has to work in any specific job nor for any specific boss. Not in America.

    Biblically, charges cannot be brought against an elder such as Clarence Thomas except they be brought before two or more witnesses. Anita Hill's supporters included the pro-choice crowd and N.O.W. They would stop at nothing to prevent a pro-life conservative judge from being appointed who could drastically halt America's turn from traditional values towards hedonism.

    Clarence Thomas was trained by Catholic nuns and was a graduate of Holy Cross. As far as one can determine he is a man of principle and a man of faith. Married to a white woman, this added fuel for hate to rednecks and hatemongers of both races.

    Although much was made of Anita Hill being raised by a devout Baptist Family one might ask where is the outwards signs of Anita Hill's personal walk with Christ, if any? By looking at agendas and associations one might begin to suspect allignment with the prince of darkness rather than the prince of peace. False accusations are a favorite tool of the accuser of the brethren.

    How was Anita Hill able to tell so convincing a story and to be believed by so many? How about Mesmerism. It is the same thing being seen in millions of cases of recovered memory due to therapist suggestion. A guilty person is given the suggestion that their problems in coping with life are due to someone else's neglect or outright misdeeds. Then through the process of confabulation or blame-shifting the scapegoat is accused and made to carry the former guilt of the one telling the tale. This is how America, the land of the free, became America, the land of the phony survivor of child abuse.

  2. The State of California v O J Simpson
    We all know O J is guilty don't we? If we don't we have Marcia Clark and Christopher Darden touring the country and writing books to remind us of this fact. They seem oblivious to how incompetent this makes them if they could not convict a man who everyone in the country knows is guilty of two horrible murders. I believe O J Simpson is innocent of those two murders. He was acquitted by a jury of his peers and all evidence to the contrary was circumstanial.

    Those with guilty consciences cannot accept setting people free who are falsely accused of vile crimes which cause emotional upset just to think of them. There is a personal cry for punishment inside all guilty persons. This often is why they will point the finger at someone for the very thing which they themselves are most guilty of and which fills them with shame.

    Even though there was a mountain of circumstantial evidence indicating O J's guilt, the jury decided there was a preponderance of doubt and thus set him free. Hosts on talk shows continue to mock their verdict and encourage their audiences to spit in the face of our justice system via their laughter. Is such a topic for laughter, with a mother slain most viciously, two little children orphaned, and a father falsely accused and imprisoned just as he needs to mourn?

    If O J is innocent as the jury said he is, do not the people of California owe him at least an apology? Should people who rush to market their books of condemnation be rewarded for doing so? Should we believe the testimony of Faye Resnick, admitted Lesbian and drug user as to this former football hero's guilt? And should be believe author Susan Forward who is obviously a man hater and destroyer of marriages due to her bitterness and inner rage at manly men without limp risks? Many made fun of O J's book, I want to tell you. It didn't strike me as the work of a guilty man. But time will tell. One thing is for sure. O J's life will never be the same. He has joined the ranks of the persecuted because of the vileness of the accusation.

  3. The State of California v Menendez Brothers
    The brothers admitted belatedly in court that they killed their parents while they ate ice cream in their den. They claimed self defense. Incredible but the first jury could not reach a verdict and was dismissed. The brothers are both obviously greedy and spoiled rich kids. Most assume money was their motive and this explains everything which happened, but does it?

    I believe this to be a case of recovered memory. One in which the recovered memory of abuse resulted in the patient murdering his mother and father. Through repeating the mantra of imagined abuse over and over, the brothers came to believe against all logic that their parents were a threat to their well being and did murder them in self defense, albeit while in a delusion.

    Do I think they should be let off? Not on your life. Simply stating what I believe really happened. The claims of bizzare abuse with toothbrushes etc. seem to make their defense less believable and is a characteristic of all false memories of abuse. One sees the same unbelievable accounts in the many nursery school cases where abuse has been alleged and in which the courts are now overturning multiple convictions. The same is true of alien abductee reports such as those of Whitley Strieber which are too fantastical to even consider, yet he has four or five non-fiction books published on the subject of this personal visitations with men in flying saucers at last count.

    It is known that at least one of the brothers was in therapy with a hypnotist just before the murders. This was the result of a burgulary of about $100,000. Perhaps it was an attempt to escape culpability or at the behest of desparate parents to achieve some change in behavior of delinquent children. Dr. Jerome Oziel was the therapist and it is known that he is a hypnotist since he was sued by his girlfriend Judalon Smyth for hypnotizing her and taking sexual advantage of her.

    Sounds like a clear case of hypnosis induced false memory with contagion between siblings due to repeated tellings of the abuse memories.
    Leslie Abrams, want to discuss this?

  4. The State of Texas v. Darlie Routier
    Darlie Routier sits on death row convicted of the murder of her two young sons while her babe in arms lay sleeping upstairs with his father. Her husband and family have all steadily maintained that she is innocent of the killings. A case was brought by the Collin County prosecutor's office based upon circumstantial evidence. Because Darlie Routier celebrated the children's birthday at their grave she appeared nonchalant and this condemned her in the eyes of many as being a monster.

    Since her husband stood with her and believed her incapable of hurting her children, the cps took their youngest child away from the family. At least they gave custody to another family member so the father can still visit him. This is a family which not only suffered the tragedy of losing two beautiful children to a horrible and violent crime, but has been smashed by subsequent events involving the justice system.

    Is Darlie Routier guilty? I do not know. However, there is some question. The biblical standard for two or more witnesses was not met. The prosecutor seems to have some vendetta against the family and thus a personal agenda to convict. At the trial the prosecutor went out of his way to curse the family. He called Darlie's mother "trailer trash" with the cameras running and this appeared on the evening news. Rather appalling conduct by a public official and unduly rough behavior by one with so much power to destroy a family already suffering.

    God must determine the fate of Darlie Routier at this point. Will subsequent events show that the justice system rushed to judgment to appease public outcry against a horrendous crime against children. Will the truth be revealed that a mother in shock over the untimely death of the two boys to which she gave birth, was made a scapegoat by arrogant and uncaring bureaucrats with political ambition?

    God alone knows. One thing is certain. Many are being falsely accused today and falsely imprisoned. Also, it is certain that there is a public hysteria over child abuse driving many of these cases. The more vile the crime and the charges the more likely error is to be involved because of stong emotions clouding the judgment of many.

  5. The State of California v George Franklin
    George Franklin was convicted of murder based upon the recovered memory testimony of his daughter Eileen. She came forward to police with her accusations and eyewitness testimony twenty years after the alleged crime. Franklin was sentenced to life in prison. After serving almost seven years of that sentence, an appeals court overturned his conviction and he was set free. The court found that the trial court had erred by not allowing into evidence the facts that Eileen would have had access to all of the factual matter concerning the Nason murder from the daily newspapers covering the case. A rather significant oversight on the part of the trial court. Also, the court permitted Mr. Franklin's non-denial of guilt during Eileen's visit with him in prison to be entered into evidence as an admission of guilt. Whether or not he denied the charges he would have been considered to have admitted his guilt since today's psychololgy has it that all men are in denial and that denying guilt is an admission in and of itself. Maddening logic? Absolutely!

    The prosecutor's office decided not to retry the case against Franklin although they still pose for the camera to say they are convinced of his guilt. Why do they not do their sworn duty to protect the public from a murderer so vile?

    It shows that they are politians first and public servants after, if at all. Janice Franklin came forward to expose Eileen's lie about not having been hypnotized prior to recovering her memories of witnessing her father murder little Susan Nason twenty years before. I suppose it just slipped Eileen's mind. Surely, she wouldn't lie. And one would think that a grown woman would know whether or not she had been hypnotized. Alas, not!

    On Sixty Minutes, a telephone recording indicated that Eileen's sister came forward because she was angry with her and not because she no longer believed in her recovered memories of abuse. Franklin's ex-wife, Leah also would not testify against him as before since she had become aware of the many lies entered into evidence in the first trial which convicted him. There may be little love lost between them but Leah is a lawyer and now knows that he was convicted on rather flimsy evidence which did not reflect the truth of their lives together as a family.

    To anyone who saw the sisters and their mother on televison talk shows seven or eight years ago telling their stories about George Franklin and basking in the glory of it all, one would have had no doubt but that the father was a swine and the rest of the family much-abused saints.

    Except that the case seemed too pat. I listened at the time and determined that they were lying. It seemed a frame-up to me. The stories agreed too well to be real. And the concept of Eileen having no recall for decades and then coming out of amnesia with perfect recall to testify against her father was patently absurd. It still is in many thousands of similar cases of recovered memory around the globe.

    The Therapy industry wants us to believe otherwise. Its adherrants constantly rail against those who speak of false memory syndrome and disdain their pet theories concerning how all children handle horrible trauma, repressing it rather than having it indelibly etched in their memories.

    People like Susan Forward and Gloria Allred can not accept that recovered memory of patriarchy abuse might be just a therapy driven myth. It pulls the rug out from under their agenda.

    There can be little doubt at this point in time that the mental health and therapy industries have been asleep at the switch. And many of those involved in these professions still are bogged down in the quagmire of trying to prop up theories which belong in the cemetary. The death knell has been sounded for RMT.

    Those with too much to lose by admitting the truth just act as if they have not heard the bell toll. The delusion for them is preferable to facing the reality of how far they have strayed from sanity and decorum.

    George Franklin is now suing his daughter Eileen, expert witness and author Lenore Terr, Eileen's therapist Kirk Barrett, and the San Mateo County prosecutor for manufacturing evidence used to convict him. His daughter Eileen still maintains he is guilty. So do the prosecutors and so does Terr. Perhaps a wake-up call will be given to all of them when the tables are turned in a court of law.

    Perjury charges seem appropriate for Eileen. As this is a civil trial, her father is only suing her for $1 dollar. He only wants an apology from her apparently. And there can be little doubt that she owes him one.

    Eileen admits in her book Sins of the Father that she was a prostitute and used to hang out in gay bars. She also said she could not find a connection with God or go to church since God had allowed her to be abused. When I read this I recognized that a guilty person was writing the book. One with a very good reason to find a scapegoat to unload some of their guilt upon. The recovered abuse memory concept is supplying just what the doctor ordered for such guilty rebels who feel cut off from God.

    The most convenient scapegoat today are parents who our society has come to believe are child abusers in disguise. Only a spark is needed to set off an inferno when the fuel is so abundant and the reason so dry as it has become in this age of political correctness. No one seems to think for himself anymore and when so many think alike but their beliefs are molded by pseudoscience and popular psychology, error abounds.

  6. The State of Washington v Paul Ingram
    This case has been adequately dealt with in the book by Lawrence Wright Remembering Satan. The made-for-tv movie which starred William Devaney as Dr. Richard Ofshe put a human face on this tragedy of how a christian family can be smashed by our culture's false belief in recovered memory. Not only do therapists get in on the act of suggested Satanic Ritual Abuse but so do police, self-appointed prophets, and ministers.

    Is Paul Ingram guilty? Read the book and make your own determination. Then take action based upon your knowledge in the direction your conscience guides you. He did confess to all the crimes charged plus a few he was never charged with. So what if he admitted to some things he hadn't done. Justice was still served wasn't it?

    Apparently not. Notwithstanding the testimony of his family members who are obviously messed up. They have had too much suggestive therapy and misinformation about recovered memory theory and Satanic cult programing.

    Paul's son Chad appeared at his pardon hearing in June, 1996 to request that his Dad not be released since he is a dangerous man and a crafty and sinister abuser of children, wives, and animals.

    Paul's wife Sandy at first tried to get him to stop admitting to abuse which wasn't true. He declined to listen to her, caught up in the need to play the game of confessing the imagined guilt to free the soul. Why did he do it? Somehow he appears to have become convinced that if his girls testified to such a horrible thing, then it must have happened in spite of his being unable to recall any such abuse. Someone must be having a problem with their memory, so he decided it must be him and not his daugthters. He was helped to accept this view by both the police and his own minister.

    Later, at the prodding of her own minister, Sandy came up with memories of her own, including scenes involving the family dog. Incredible.

    Paul Ingram has served eight years in prison now for something he apparently did not do. His daughters have a history of making abuse charges. Those accused by his daughters along with him as being part of the cult of abusers were not prosecuted. Only Ingram was imprisoned and this because of his own confession.

    Should a confession stand when it becomes obvious that it was given under duress of brainwashing and hypnotic techniques of memory recall? You decide!

  7. The State of Colorado v unknown killer of Jon Benet Ramsay
    What is going on with this case? Has anyone ever seen such a heineous crime gone unsolved in modern times and without any seeming direction by the local authorities? There is the case of Amber Hagerman who was abducted while riding her bike and later found murdered in Arlington, TX. This case is still unsolved, two years later.

    But the case of Jon Benet is much different. The murder victim was in her own home with limited access by potential suspects. And a rather stupid ransom note was found penned within the home. Who takes time to sit down and write a ransom note while at the murder scene and while the parents are still in the home. No one except a family member. So the finger points to an inside job and yet no arrests have been make nor any charges filed.

    Psychics have been called and former FBI profilers hired by the parents of the child. Are they there to help find the murderers or throw investigators off the track of the most logical suspects? A former New York homicide detective has said that arrests should have already been made. He further says psychics only lead police down false trails and to pursue phony leads and cause the real trail to grow cold. He maintains no psychic has ever helped to solve any case, but only get in the way of real investigation.

    Are the parents guilty of the murder of Jon Benet Ramsay? God only knows. There is something definitely wrong about the way the child was made up as an adult and displayed to the world like some minature starlet or kewpie doll.

    As the mother is a former beauty queen it appears an attempt by her to live through her daughter and continue competition which now eludes her. This would cause one to look to the mother as one with insecurities which might lead to violence. Did the child refuse to continue to be involved in beauty pageants? No one know this and such would only be speculation. Still, it is time for police to bring in some suspects and begin to prosecute the case. Or else announce they do not have a clue who did it and resign their office.

    December 20, 1997-It has now been one year since the death of this defenseless child forced to be a miniture beauty queen when she should have been playing with dolls and under her daddy's protection. No one has been charged with the murder to date. The Ramsey family has moved back to Atlanta from Boulder, Colorado, where the murder occured. Today there is report that a stun gun was used in the murder of the Joan Benet and since the parents have never owned one, this fact supposedly clears them. Such stories seem to be put out by lawyers or profilers hired by the family to deflect suspicion from them.

    How do we know that a stun gun was used? And how do we know that the child was raped? And how do we know that the parents never had access to a stun gun for that matter.

    The ten year old brother and the mother appear to be suspects at this point. Probably the murder was a mistake and the ransom note and other evidence an attempt to cover up the true identity of the killer.

    Update March 15, 1998--Boulder Colorado Police have asked a Grand Jury to review the evidence and come up with possible indictments in the murder of Jon Benet Ramsay.

    email me with your comments at sumpickens@yahoo.com



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