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After decades of groupthink “believe the victim” movements, a fair trial is practically impossible, especially on sex crime charges.
Hello, I’m Innocence Legal Team Founder and Chief strategist Patrick Clancy. And I have dedicated my entire career to restoring the balance of justice which has practically been destroyed by the “Believe the Victim” movements.
These began in the 1960’s with the “Women’s Movement,” continued with the so-called “child protection” movement, and include modern phenomena such as the “Me Too” movement. All are based on groupthink and have led to the overwhelming prejudice now faced by all criminal defendants.
Groupthink is a phenomenon where a group of people comes to a conclusion without considering alternative ideas or viewpoints, due to pressure to conform or maintain unanimity within the group.
Examples of groupthink movements include the witch hunt which led to the 1692 Salem witch trials resulting in the hanging execution of 20 people, mostly women, and the imprisonment of many others on charges of practicing witchcraft.
The Nazi movement, history’s darkest group hysteria, resulted in the genocide of six million European Jews.
While Winston Churchill’s predecessor, Neville Chamberlain declared “Peace in our times” with the Nazi’s, Winston Churchill sagely warned, “Those that fail to learn from history are doomed to repeat it.” And so we have.
Starting in the 1970’s, the “Recovered Memory” movement falsely convinced thousands that, as children, they had suffered molestation by friends and relatives and then suppressed those memories as a way to deal with the supposed trauma.
The 1980’s saw the “satanic ritual” child sexual abuse hysteria typified by the infamous Bakersfield Sex Ring cases in which sixty children falsely claimed to be victims of “satanic ritual abuse.” At least 36 people were falsely convicted and most of them spent years in prison. Thirty-four convictions were overturned on appeal. Two of the convicted individuals died in prison before their cases could be heard.
The infamous McMartin Preschool Case was the largest false allegation case in U.S. History. Seven workers at a daycare center were charged with molesting over 200 children. In the end, there were no guilty verdicts on any of the charges. Police uncritically accepted all accusations as true utterly failing to perform even the most rudimentary critical analysis of the accusations.
False groupthink movements all have their “bibles.” Publications that claim to be factual but are actually junk science or, worse, outright lies. From time immemorial these propaganda pieces have been used to proselytize these evil, self-righteous, holier than thou movements. These publications include:
- Massachusetts minister Cotton Mather’s On Witchcraft;
- Hilter’s “Mein Kompf,”
- The “recovered Memory” movement’s, “The Courage to Heal” by Ellen Bass and Laura Davis,
- The totally discredited “rape trauma syndrome” by Ann Burgess and Lynn Holstrom,
- The equally disgraced “Child Sexual Abuse Syndrome” by Dr. David Corwin.
- And worst of all, the Child Sexual Abuse Accommodation Syndrome by Dr. Roland Summit, who told us: “It has become a maxim among child sexual abuse intervention counselors and investigators that children never fabricate the kinds of explicit sexual manipulations they divulge in complaints or interrogations.”
Despite lacking any scientific basis and never being accepted as a diagnosis by the DSM 5 manual, courts have nevertheless allowed the introduction of the Child Sexual Abuse Accommodation Syndrome in trials to “dispel myths” regarding the behavior of child molestation victims. Prosecutors have obtained untold false convictions by hiring junk science experts to testify that any and all behaviors are consistent with having been molested. Whether a child reported it right away or waited years. Whether the child loves or hates the accused. Whether the child was consistent in telling the story or whether he or she recanted. The Child sexual abuse accommodation syndrome explains that it’s all consistent with having been molested. In my opinion, allowing such junk science theories to determine guilt is reckless, unconscionable and unscientific.
Prosecutors, police, psychologists, physicians and politicians have joined the media in a decades-long campaign of groupthink in favor of victims and against the accused. This has resulted in the erosion of the constitutional rights of the accused through the easy passage of laws that have progressively made convictions easier to obtain and sentences longer to the point where prison overcrowding has become a serious issue in recent years. Indeed, while the United States has just 5% of the world’s population, it has a remarkable 25% of the world’s prisoners.
It is human nature to accept facts and evidence consistent with one’s beliefs and reject facts and evidence which is inconsistent with those beliefs. This is known as confirmation bias. Confirmation bias keeps the ironclad bonds of groupthink in place as the group rejects all contrary evidence no matter how compelling or factual the information may be.
I founded the Innocence Legal Team to help those falsely accused of crimes stand up to these groupthink movements. We look critically at all of the evidence.
We are not afraid of attempts to silence or cancel us. Throughout my career, I have taught attorneys how to overcome these prejudices.
Obviously, we cannot represent all of those who face false accusations.
However, we help everyone within our means. That is why we created the Innocence Legal Team Help Center where we share our strategy and work product.
The Innocence Legal Team cannot change the Child Protection Movement because of its funding by a never-ending stream of federal dollars from the Mondale Act and the laws that have been passed to allow the people involved to escape responsibility and accountability.
Nevertheless, it is our goal to save one falsely accused person at a time.
