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Bernard Baran served 22 years on dubious child molestation charges
http://reason.com/archives/2009/11/20/how-to-get-ahead-in-law ^

Posted on 11/22/2009 12:31:10 AM PST by 4rcane

Last June, District Attorney David Capeless of Berkshire County, Massachusetts, announced that he was dropping all charges against 44-year-old Bernard Baran, a man who has spent half his life behind bars on child molestation charges that the state no longer has the confidence to retry.

Baran was convicted in January 1985 of molesting six children at a pre-kindergarten day care facility in Pittsfield, Massachusetts. He was released on bond in 2006 after an appeals court determined that his trial attorney had been incompetent and that the prosecution may have withheld key exculpatory evidence. Baran says that during his jail term he was raped and beaten more than 30 times, necessitating six different transfers to new correctional institutions. Such is the cost the prison system exacts on an openly gay man convicted of molesting children.


TOPICS: News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: homosexualagenda; homosexuals; sourcetitlenoturl
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1 posted on 11/22/2009 12:31:12 AM PST by 4rcane
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To: 4rcane

I’ve been disgusted with the US legal system for a long time. Judges, lawyers, prosecutors can be pretty corrupt and they’re never punished. They’re like Wall Street banksters


2 posted on 11/22/2009 12:32:15 AM PST by 4rcane
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To: 4rcane

Unless of course those they prey upon have a lot of money like the Duke Lacrosse players.


3 posted on 11/22/2009 1:24:36 AM PST by Pontiac
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To: 4rcane

If the Prosecutors did withhold key evidence that could have proved him innocent then they need to spend 22 years behind bars, period!

I’ve had it with our criminal injustice system, its a pathetic joke!!!


4 posted on 11/22/2009 1:29:50 AM PST by The Magical Mischief Tour
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To: The Magical Mischief Tour
Baran was one of the first people in the country to be prosecuted in the day care sex abuse panic of the 1980s, a bizarre nationwide hysteria fed by homophobia, fears of Satanism, and a wing of child psychology that used unproven interrogation techniques that critics say caused children to recount sexual incidents that never took place.
5 posted on 11/22/2009 1:32:24 AM PST by The Magical Mischief Tour
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To: The Magical Mischief Tour
According to court documents, the video shows several kids alleging that Baran had sexually abused them. Edited out was footage in which some of the children denied any abuse by Baran, interviewees accused other members of the day care faculty of abuse or of witnessing abuse, and, most important, interrogators asked the same questions over and over—even after repeated denials—until a child gave them an affirmative answer. Some children were even given rewards for their answers.
6 posted on 11/22/2009 1:33:54 AM PST by The Magical Mischief Tour
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To: The Magical Mischief Tour
So while Bernard Baran is free after 22 years of incarceration, there are no plans to look into the actions of the prosecutor, now a sitting judge, responsible for his conviction.

If this don't chafe your rear nothing will!

7 posted on 11/22/2009 1:38:56 AM PST by The Magical Mischief Tour
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To: The Magical Mischief Tour
Prosecutors: A Protected Criminal Class

http://www.lewrockwell.com/blog/lewrw/archives/042076.html

8 posted on 11/22/2009 1:42:24 AM PST by The Magical Mischief Tour
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To: The Magical Mischief Tour

Rule one: Ask to see all recordings unedited. I believe most particulars include all evidence to be reviewed by the defense.


9 posted on 11/22/2009 1:42:37 AM PST by healy61
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To: 4rcane
the prosecution may have withheld key exculpatory evidence.

it is the prosecutions duty to share that information..

if true he is owed millions and the DA if alive should be given his own medicine

10 posted on 11/22/2009 1:43:59 AM PST by wardaddy (The movie Valkyrie was excellent...I was surprised. What a cast.)
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To: wardaddy

If the prosecution knowingly withheld “key exculpatory evidence” the party(s)responsible should be executed. There is no place for that sort of conduct.


11 posted on 11/22/2009 3:18:12 AM PST by Scotsman will be Free (11C - Indirect fire, infantry - High angle hell - We will bring you, FIRE)
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To: Scotsman will be Free

I agree. This level of prosecutorial misconduct should be a capital offense.


12 posted on 11/22/2009 3:30:07 AM PST by samtheman
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To: The Magical Mischief Tour

Wasn’t it Scott Harsbarger, now the inside investigator of ACORN antics, who was the Mass. Prosecutor in these child molestation cases. Notorious for hiding exculpatory evidence. Gerald Amirault comes to mind.

Built a career on perves to become Atty Gen. of Mass.


13 posted on 11/22/2009 5:07:37 AM PST by plangent
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To: 4rcane

The chance of a child sex abuse case being valid is in inverse proportion to the number of alleged victims.


14 posted on 11/22/2009 5:30:57 AM PST by libstripper
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To: wardaddy
...DA if alive should be given his own medicine

The prosecutor is now a judge.

15 posted on 11/22/2009 6:00:22 AM PST by decimon
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To: 4rcane

What gets overlooked in these cases is that some guilty party or parties went free. And free to duplicate the crime.


16 posted on 11/22/2009 6:02:18 AM PST by decimon
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To: 4rcane; All
The above article is but an excerpt. The full article is here.
17 posted on 11/22/2009 6:05:16 AM PST by decimon
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To: decimon
What gets overlooked in these cases is that some guilty party or parties went free. And free to duplicate the crime.

Assuming there was a crime. A lot of these mass child sex abuse cases seem to have been created out of the whole cloth by unscrupulous and ambitious prosecutors.

18 posted on 11/22/2009 6:47:30 AM PST by Grut
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To: Grut
Assuming there was a crime. A lot of these mass child sex abuse cases seem to have been created out of the whole cloth by unscrupulous and ambitious prosecutors.

Agreed. But in this case there was at least one kid with...have you finished breakfast?...gonorrhea of the throat.

I remember seeing on television some woman pointing to areas on a doll while asking a three-year-old girl if some guy had touched her there or there or there. I was creeped out in thinking of how my nieces might have replied.

19 posted on 11/22/2009 6:57:39 AM PST by decimon
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To: 4rcane
Whenever I read about these cases I am reminded that hysteria and mob psychology are an ever present danger in all of us. This same beast that was almost certainly behind the Salem Witch Trials and other such 'old history' reappeared in the 1980s with the "Preschool Child Abuse Trials", a spate of accusations and trials that centered upon accusations of child daycare centers abusing their charges sexually and satanically.

Central to these prosecutions were several concepts; 1) Young children do not lie, 2) Repressed memories can be factually retrieved and 3) Children must be protected from being questioned in court. Almost certainly not all of the defendants in these many cases were innocent BUT equally certain was the fact that innocent people ended in prison in these cases. In hindsight each of the above prosecutorial concepts has been disproven or modified but it took a long time for the victims (adults AND children) to recover.

An interesting footnote to this spate of prosecutions exists in our even more recent history. President Clinton's search for a FEMALE Attorney General yielded 2 duds, Zoe Baird and Kimba Wood, before finding a successful candidate in Janet Reno from Miami Florida. Part of her claim to fame was her efforts in prosecuting such a case for "Grant Snowden / Satanic ritual abuse" that apparently brought her name to the Clinton's attention.

20 posted on 11/22/2009 6:57:45 AM PST by SES1066 (Cycling to conserve, Conservative to save, Saving to Retire, will Retire to Cycle.)
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