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Posted on 07/12/2009 6:09:43 PM PDT by Stoat
Former Vancouver police officer Clyde Ray Spencer spent nearly 20 years in prison after he was convicted of sexually molesting his son and daughter. Now, the children say it never happened.
Matthew Spencer and Kathryn Tetz, who live in Sacramento, Calif., each took the stand Friday in Clark County Superior Court to clear their father's name, The Columbian newspaper reported.
Matthew, now 33, was 9 years old at the time. He told a judge he made the allegation after months of insistent questioning by now-retired Clark County sheriff's detective Sharon Krause just so she would leave him alone.
Tetz, 30, said she doesn't remember what she told Krause back in 1985, but she remembers Krause buying her ice cream. She said that when she finally read the police reports she was "absolutely sure" the abuse never happened.
"I would have remembered something that graphic, that violent," Tetz said.
Spencer's sentence was commuted by then-Gov. Gary Locke in 2004 after questions arose about his conviction. Among other problems, prosecutors withheld medical exams that showed no evidence of abuse, even though Krause claimed the abuse was repeated and violent.
Despite the commutation, Spencer remains a convicted sex offender. He is hoping to have the convictions overturned.
(Excerpt) Read more at foxnews.com ...
He wasn’t the only one. There was a wave of this kind of thing at that time, dozens, maybe hundreds, of innocent people got railroaded.
This kind of stuff happened all over in that time frame. It’s how Janet Reno got her start, for cryin’ out loud.
Their ideological heirs today are people like Nifong, the prosecutor in the Duke Lacrosse case. Anything to get ahead politically, even if it sends the innocent to jail and ruins them.
And let’s be honest-—it’s a bit odd that survivors of Communist murder, the Holocaust, ethnic wars that involved rape and murder, dislocation, former sudanese slaves-—none of these people forget those traumas...why would being touched, even by your parents all of a sudden render you an amnesiac?
IOW - lessons on how to alienate your parents ... sad ....
And according to the article, this matter may not be over yet for Mr. Spencer:
Prosecutors aren't yet conceding that Spencer was wrongly convicted.
Senior deputy prosecutor Kim Farr grilled the children about why they are so certain they weren't abused, and chief criminal deputy prosecutor Dennis Hunter said that if the convictions are tossed, his office might appeal to the state Supreme Court.
Because its a cottage industry for experts, shrinks, social workers, and the such.
parsy, who is disgusted
And the guilty ones go free even more.
Usually there is a vicious divorce involved.
If you go to any AA or narcotics anonymous hall in the nation you will hear from dozens of people on both sides of that spectrum.
Moms are real good at dumping the dad for a pervert.
And the kids, and the dad, both pay.
Read later.
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2009456102_recantabuse11m.html
Judge Lewis is likely the only honest Judge in Clark County; and that is based on personal knowledge. I think he will recommend that the convictions be vacated if he can withstand the pressure to not do so. Prior to be appointed to the bench, he was a very successful criminal appellate attorney who won far more than his share of appeals.
Once the conviction is tossed, This guy will have a huge civil rights action against the county and the state. The withholding of evidence is very similar to what happened to t he three guys in MA who were framed by the FBI and US Attorney and pretty much each got $1 million for each year in prison.
I know a lot of the players for the prosecutor's office, the sheriff's office and the courts. Must be one of the most corrupt counties in the United States.
It still happens. Best way in the world for an out of control teen to fast track parents trying to regain control out of their lives and into a jail cell.
Kids in self destruct mode can now destroy their entire family.
From the Seattle Times article:
and the fact that his mother had had an affair with Krause's supervisor.
Some parts of this story are just mind-boggling....
wasn’t there a case involving quite a few children and adults over in eastern wa. a while back? if so, any idea of that outcome?
You are thinking of the Wenatchee sex abuse trials. All the convictions were tossed and the state/county paid out a lot of money. Unfortunately, the legislature changed the statutes on the admissability of child hearsay evidence and unjust convictions for false child sex abuse charges continue in the state of Washington.
They were very young children at the time and badgered into accusing their father by the sheriff’s department that was more interested in a conviction than justice. Krauses supervisor was screwing Spencer’s wife while all this was going on, and of course that was hidden at the time.
A close friend of mine was married to this lady who had three wild cats for daughters. He literally had to nail the screens onto the windows to keep them from running off. One night the youngest, 14 at the time, got out. She was caught by the cops in the back seat of a car with a 30 year old man in a parking lot of a closed supermarket. She told the cops she ran away from home because her step dad was forcing her to have sex with him. He spent three days in jail (protective custody) until the cops sorted the whole mess out. Filed for divorce as soon as he could get to a lawyer.
Remember McMartin pre school?
I knew someone who became catatonic for a period, following a moletation, but when she came out of it, she remembered the molestation, but not the time in the mental hospital.
Let’s be honest. Memory is a funny thing, and it has been shown that these questioners created “memories” in young, impressionable children.
I’m not saying kids never got molested. I’m saying that in that time period, there were a number of really questionable drummed up cases. And that it looks like this was likely one of them.
Look up the McMartin case. Look up the Wenatchee cases. Here, look at all these:
Day care sex abuse hysteria
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Day_care_sex_abuse_hysteria
Don’t miss post #10 in this thread while you’re at it.
Oh, yes, that was a great HBO movie (Indictment) too. I mean, it’s awful what happened to the McMartins and that was the era of paranoia about Satanic cults abusing children.
While there ARE truly evil people in this world (and there probably was some massive conspiracy in Belgium and parts of Europe) the laws of justice and presumption of innocence was suspended during the 80s thirst for vengeance against an imagined foe.
It’s also the time in our history where we actually believed in the nonsense of repressed memories, which were almost exclusively invoked in THESE cases but never in cases of savage brutality and trauma (other than those involving obvious blood loss or head injuries that might cause memory loss or distortions.)
Reminds me of Janet Reno. Prosecutors are very often the scum of the earth. They stop at nothing to destroy the lives of defendants. If the evidence exists, so be it. But to lie, cheat and suppress countervailing proof should be punished severely. Sharon Krause should now spend the 20 years the man she railroaded served.
Based on personal knowledge, I can assure you that the prosecutors in Clark County, WA, make even the scummiest defense attorneys look like paragons of virtue.
Here in MA, Gerald Amirault, his mother and his sister, were sent to jail for sexually abusing children at their Fells Acres Day Care. Gerald was in jail for over 17 years, several of those after his mother and sister were released, and his Mom died waiting for him to be released. One reason he wasn't released, even when it was CLEAR that he was innocent of the charges was that the prosecutor who tried the case, Scott Harshbarger, was, at the time, in a higher office which he'd gained largely on the weight of having won the Amirault case. He didn't want to admit that he was wrong, so the Amirault family suffered.
This case in WA was even MORE disturbing because of the ultimate betrayal; the mother egging the kids on against their father. It also points up the ability of psychologists to manipulate children to get the testimony that the prosecutor wants.
Want to know just how corrupt the courts are in the State of Washington? Look at this link:
http://www.astonisher.com/archives/gary_little.html
http://www.doug4justice.org/Shielding/Little/Gering.ABAjournal.htm
Check this link for a good look at judicial corruption in Washington state.
http://www.doug4justice.org/Shielding/LaundryList.html
This is why I keep telling people when accusations like these are made that we should reserve judgement. We have public trials with the right to cross-examine witnesses for a reason.
On a somewhat related note, that sort of thing is why everyone who hasn’t should watch this:
Don’t Talk to Cops, Part 1
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i8z7NC5sgik
You certainly can’t count on the judges being fair, so you had best CYA every way you can!
I’ve seen it many times. Every HS civics class should show it.
There was also a rash of hysteria about "Satanism" and rock and roll at the same time.
Thanks for the link.
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