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You've Been Accused of Child Abuse -- Now What?
By Jessica Brooke-Buskirk

It began innocently. Nine-year-old Jane was a tomboy and opted to ride her foster brother's ten-speed mountain bike rather than her own much smaller pink bike. She didn't care that she had never ridden a bike with hand brakes, how hard could it be?

Jane laughed out loud as she sailed past her foster parents' house. Soon her foster parents, the only parents she could remember, would simply be her parents. They planned to adopt Jane, who had been in their care for five years, as soon as her biological parents' rights were terminated. This was expected in as little as six months.

The thought of her adoption filled Jane's mind as she turned her face up toward the sun, the wind blowing her hair as the bike picked up speed. Too late, Jane noticed a large rock in her path. She desperately pedaled backward. Unlike her bike, which would brake when she applied backward pressure on the pedals, her foster brother's ten-speed continued to hurl toward the rock.

Jane panicked and tried to jump off the bike. The cross bar of the frame caught her pubic bone as she fell, and she howled in pain.

Sue and Steve Smith sat anxiously in the hospital's emergency room. They had rushed outside at the sound of their foster daughter's scream. They found her near their house, lying in the middle of the street. Jane was curled into the fetal position, crying so hard she couldn't catch her breath. When they pried her hands from her groin, they saw blood seeping through her white athletic shorts.

Sue glanced nervously at her watch. Jane had been in the examining room for more than an hour, and the physicians refused to allow Sue and Steve in the room with her. Sue looked up at the sound of footsteps and saw two physicians and a police officer approaching her.

The police officer informed Sue and Steve that Jane had severe genital lacerations. Jane would be removed from their custody and Steve and their son would be investigated for sexual abuse of a minor. Sue would face charges of failure to protect. Child Protective Services would contact them in the next 24 hours.

Although this particular story is fictional, it is representative of the nightmare foster and biological parents face when they are charged with a false allegation.

"All health care professionals are required by law to report cases where there is a 'reasonable suspicion' that the child might have been abused," said Dr. Joyce Adams, a forensic pediatrician who often consults on child abuse cases.

In the case of Jane, her injury to the groin is suspicious. Health care professionals can be prosecuted for neglecting to report cases of abuse, however, if the report is found to be false, the reporter can only be sued if the report was made maliciously or not in good faith, Adams said.

"It is the fear of not reporting a situation where abuse is a possibility that motivates pediatricians and other health care providers to make the report. No one wants to miss a case of child abuse and have the child continue to be abused because it wasn't reported," Adams said.

Parents who find themselves accused of child abuse are in for the fight of their lives, said Dean Tong, a forensic trial consultant, who found himself falsely accused of sexually abusing his 3-year-old daughter by his ex-wife. Tong was eventually acquitted of all charges, but it took 10 years of litigation and $120,000 to receive unsupervised visits with his children. He now makes a career out of defending others who have been falsely accused.

Tong strongly advises hiring a consultant to retain counsel and find witnesses. It is critical to find an attorney who specializes in allegation cases.

"Lawyers are not trained for this in law school. It's on-the-job training," Tong said.

According to Tong, the first step a foster parent should take after being accused is to construct a timeline, noting any time spent with the child alone. The timeline can be a helpful preventative tool and should be started as soon as the child enters the home, but if the foster parents neglect to record events, then the timeline's construction should be the first priority.

As a trial consultant, it is Tong's responsibility to locate counsel for the foster parents. Each parent should retain his or her own lawyer to avoid a conflict of interest. If the foster parents are unable to hire a consultant, they should only hire lawyers who are skilled in trying juvenile dependency cases against Child Protective Services as well as criminal cases. Tong suggests searching www.lawyers.com.

After counsel is hired, Tong arranges a conference among himself, the accused and the attorneys. This conference is an opportunity for brainstorming strategies. In the case of Jane, Tong would reconstruct the bicycle accident to determine if the incident is plausible. Steve Smith and his son would be asked to undergo a battery of tests, which may be submitted as evidence at some point.

These tests include: polygraphs asking specific questions about the alleged abuse, the Abel Assessment for Sexual Interest (www.abelscreen.com) and personality tests such as the MS-II, SAI and SVR-20, among others. A board certified abuse psychologist analyzes the tests. At this point, Tong and his attorneys may hire a private investigator to conduct interviews with Steve and Sue's neighbors, Jane's schoolmates and teachers to determine if there was any suspicion of abuse.

In the case of injuries, two expert defense witnesses should be retained: a forensic pediatrician, such as Adams, to analyze the medical findings, and a cognitive child psychologist. The psychologist will review any interviews with the child to analyze the outcomes.

The attorneys should also take depositions of the health care professionals who initially treated the child. These depositions can be examined for consistency, and it is important to ask the physician if he or she can think of any other causes for the type of injury and if he or she has ever treated a similar injury.

Adams recommends to doctors and nurses to always get a second opinion before filing an abuse report and to take several photographs for later review. Parents should insist upon this.

Tong also suggests filing a Motion for Protective Order, which will require the abuse be proven beyond the allegation before any actions are taken by the court. This will prevent extensive interviewing of the child or using unscientific tests such as anatomically correct doll play or drawing before a confirmed diagnosis of child abuse.

Noted in "Elusive Innocence" authored by Tong, is a study in which both children who had been sexually abused and those who had not played with anatomically correct dolls. There was no difference between how the two groups played with the dolls, although these taped "play" sessions are often admissible in court as evidence of abuse.

The Motion for Protective Order will also prevent the child from receiving therapy before abuse is confirmed. According to an article by Drs. Julia A. Hickman and Cecil R. Reynolds, therapy may convince a child who has not been abused that abuse has taken place.

As with a criminal case, foster parents should not submit to any interviews without their attorneys present, even if the interview is with a trusted agency.

The best way to fight an allegation is to begin fighting before an accusation is ever made. Foster parents should learn as much about allegations as possible. They should account for any time spent with the child, including timelines and small video surveillance cameras in the home.

"You've got to get a little educated," Tong said. "You can't wait until the day comes when you're accused." To receive help, go to www.abuse-excuse.com or www.lawyers.com.

Whittier Daily Times
November 6, 2005

MAKING COURTS KID-SAFE
By Rodney Tanaka, Staff Writer

LA PUENTE - A fledgling organization in La Puente wants to change the court system to keep children away from their alleged abusers.

The Family Court Reform Coalition formed about three months ago.

"We wanted the organization to reflect the large number of professionals who want to help protect children," said Executive Board Member Tasha Amador.

The coalition has about 45 members on its advisory board, with more lining up to volunteer, she said.

The organization is starting up in an office in La Puente and is applying for nonprofit status, Amador said.

The coalition was formed by members of the San Gabriel Valley chapter of the National Organization for Women but is not affiliated with that group, Amador said.

The advisory board includes professionals and advocates from around the country.

"We have been fighting the courts that are doing outrageous things to women and children," said Dr. Paul Fink, coalition advisory board member and president of the Leadership Council on Child Abuse and Interpersonal Violence.

Some courts use a controversial theory called "parental alienation syndrome" that puts children with an abusive parent, he said.

"We'd like to find a way to get courts to learn about science - what is valid and what is not," Fink said. "Our goal is to get reform into the court system." he coalition will provide a responsible parent with a knowledgable attorney and psychiatrists who could serve as expert witnesses to counter the system, he said.

The group also wants to educate the public about this issue, formulate reform and advocacy strategies and push for legislation to effectively address these problems to better protect children and families, Amador said.

One educational tool is a documentary titled "Breaking the Silence: Children's Stories," which explores custody cases involving domestic violence.

The coalition did not produce the documentary, but some of its advisory members appear in it, Amador said.

But the group may face an uphill battle. These types of organizations don't have a lot of power and influence, said Dean Tong, a family rights and forensic consultant on child abuse, domestic violence and custody cases.

He had not heard about his specific group, but he said in general such a grass-roots organization might generate some media attention but they won't necessarily influence public policy.

rodney.tanaka@sgvn.com
(626) 962-8811, Ext. 2230

http://deseretnews.com/dn/view/0,1249,600141540,00.html

JACKSON'S CASE UNIQUE, EXPERTS SAY
VERDICT WONT AFFECT FUTURE ABUSE REPORTS, UTAH ATTORNEY SAYS

By Linda Thomson
Deseret Morning News

Deseret Morning News Utah legal experts said Tuesday they believe the Michael Jackson verdict won't have a chilling effect on future child sex abuse victims and prosecutions, but that's in sharp contrast to at least one national expert's view.

Dean Tong, author of the book "Elusive Innocence" and a consultant on child sex abuse cases, said he fears this high-profile verdict "sends a chilling message to future child complainants that you may not be believed, either."

Prosecutors lost the Jackson case through errors of omission and commission, Tong said in a telephone interview. Prosecutors did not produce a "smoking gun" witness as far as prior bad acts by Jackson, and they did not use any experts testifying about delayed memory recall, he said. Tong also believes the accuser's mother in this case gave the impression she had motive, method and opportunity to get Jackson.

"This verdict could have a negative effect on abuse victims and wounded innocents (those falsely accused of child sex abuse)," Tong said.

However, that view is not shared by some experts in Utah's legal community.

"I don't think that's true at all," responded veteran Salt Lake City defense attorney Ed Brass. "This case was an anomaly, it is a unique case."

Brass said child sex abuse victims come forward every day, despite what happens in a highly publicized case such as this. "I don't think what happened with Michael Jackson will have anything to do with anything that happens in the future."

Salt Lake County District Attorney David Yocom doesn't think the Jackson verdict will have a widespread effect, either.

"As with all well-publicized cases from O.J. Simpson on down, everybody looks at celebrity cases as not the run-of-the-mill prosecution that we see every day. I don't think there's going to be any dramatic effect on reporting or prosecution from the Jackson case," Yocom said. "I don't think O.J. getting acquitted stopped us from prosecuting homicides."

Michael Jackson's trial was unusual from several perspectives: It involved a big-name celebrity with tremendous wealth, massive media coverage, a parade of celebrity witnesses and a possibly unsympathetic victim.

It also took place in a state known for long-running, media-magnet criminal prosecutions.

What happens in California is unlike what happens elsewhere, Yocom said.

"The rest of the nation kind of looks and says, 'What, a seven-month trial?' It's just unheard of in this jurisdiction. To have a two-week trial (in Utah) is unusual."

The Jackson case was simply "an abnormal situation," Yocom said.

As depicted by defense attorneys, the accuser in the Jackson case could be seen as greedy or at least coached by his mother to shake Jackson down for a settlement. Yocom said that is unusual, too.

In cases of child sex abuse that are tried here, the young victims are viewed positively by juries, he said.

"They're usually very sympathetic and generate emotions from the jury in the cases that we see," Yocom said.

Susanne Mitchell, director of the Salt Lake County Children's Justice Center, also doesn't think the Jackson verdict will influence future victims.

Among other things, child sex abuse cases are treated differently now than in the past.

"There are organizations set up right now that are victim advocate-focused and they're looking out for what's best for the victim, and sometimes that means not pursuing a case because you're not going to win," she said. "It's all based on witnesses and evidence and corroboration and your ability to convince a jury, not a judge."

The courts also have changed, she said.

"The system has really improved over the last 10 years. We have many more successes than we used to," Mitchell said. "I feel good about the justice process. It's just complicated."

E-Mail: lindat@desnews.com

On Monday April 11, at the request of the media, Dean Tong embarks for Santa Maria, California to the scene of the Michael Jackson Trial. Watch for his comments on Court-TV and other stations such as Fox News Live and in newspapers, internationally. In addition, Tong will join Dr. Phil in studio at Paramount on Wednesday April 13 during the taping of his segment on "custody battles."

Dean Tong helps Arizona father, who spends 14 months in jail, regain his freedom: To read about this major victory: CLICK HERE.

SOME SEE TODAY AS 'FATHERLESS DAY'

By Paula Sheil

Record Staff Writer
Published Sunday, June 20, 2004

Some dads will unwrap gifts of The Perfect Club and George Foreman grills today. Others will march in Washington, D.C., and reflect on a three-day meeting in Michigan on the state of fatherhood in the United States because they can't be with their children and wish they could.

"It's not a Hallmark card day. A lot of guys are not going to see their kids because of no-contact orders," said Dean Tong, 47, a Florida family rights consultant.

Tong is among the many men, feeling unfairly estranged from their children, who attended the first National Men's Rights Congress on Friday and Saturday in Washington, D.C., lobbying legislators and exchanging presentations and testimonies.

"My presence in DC is to articulate to aggrieved fathers and this nation the troubled state of the family, which includes the booming business of fatherlessness. Many people see June 20th as 'Fatherless Day' because to many dads that's what it is," said Tong, in advance of the event at which he was one of the principals. In the past two decades, no-fault divorce, anonymous child-abuse reporting procedures and other laws designed to protect women and children have swept many decent fathers into perdition along with real abusers, men's rights advocates say.

Now more than 43 percent of the children in America live apart from their fathers, but efforts are increasing to keep dads involved even if they don't share a home with their kids. Study after study indicates that children experience fewer academic, emotional and social problems when fathers participate in their lives and help to support them.

"Some moms battle to get custody and make Dad look bad and then turn around and complain that he didn't get involved," said Sharryl Fowler-Trinchera, an attorney who has practiced family law in Stockton since 1978. Children don't have problems because they are being raised by their mothers and not their fathers, but because single mothers — more often than single fathers — live in poverty, she said.

Another men's rights event last week, the three-day International Fatherhood Conference in Detroit, focused on issues confronting low-income fathers, African American families and the barriers faced by fathers in assuming their parenting role.

"This conference celebrates the role of fathers in the lives of children and families," said Dr. Jeffery M. Johnson, president National Partnership for Community Leadership, the Washington, D.C.-based think tank, which sponsors the conference.

Two years ago, the capital city's mayor, Anthony A. Williams, launched a fatherhood initiative with a pledge of $1 million dollars to help absent fathers play a more active role in their children's lives.

Today, thousands of fathers will assemble near the White House for a series of speeches and rallies sponsored by dozens of men's advocacy groups. FathersDayDC is a coordinating group that sponsors an annual Fatherís Day rally in to promote public awareness of fatherlessness in America. The organization acts as an umbrella for various father's and children's rights organizations nationwide attempting to increase public awareness of inequities in family law, among other concerns.

Only 10 percent of divorced fathers are awarded full custody of their children, according to the Center for Children's Justice. Nearly 40 percent have no visitation rights.

Tong knows first hand what it means to fight an uphill battle in family court.

In 1985, his ex-wife accused him of molesting the couple's 3-year-old daughter.

It cost him $150,000 — seven attorneys, seven psychologists, six hostile courts, two weeks in jail and 10 years of litigation — to prove his innocence.

His experiences launched his career as a forensic trial consultant on child abuse, domestic violence, and child custody cases, including the abduction of Elian Gonzalez.

"Most of my clients are fathers who want to be involved," Tong said. "They believe the paternal attachment is just as important as the maternal attachment."

To reach reporter Paula Sheil, phone (209) 546-8257 or e-mail psheil@recordnet.com

ORLANDO SENTINEL
December 21, 2003

SCHOOLS JAM DCF HOTLINE

By Willoughby Mariano,
Sentinel Staff Writer

Child-abuse and neglect reports phoned by school employees to a statewide hotline have jumped 20 percent in Central Florida in the aftermath of high-profile arrests of three Osceola County school officials accused of failing to report a teacher's suspected molestation of his second-grade students.

The first arrests in memory of educators for failing to notify authorities when they suspect abuse sent a sobering message to school-district employees across the region: report, or face arrest.

"I'm sure the events in Osceola County had a chilling effect on teachers, and they redoubled efforts to turn in suspected child abusers," said David DeMond, president of the Classroom Teachers Association in Orange County.

In Osceola, where deputies booked a principal, the district human-resources director and a school investigator into jail near the end of the 2002-03 school year, abuse and neglect reports about district children more than doubled after school resumed in August. From Aug. 1 to Nov. 3, school employees made 242 reports of abuse to the Department of Children & Families hotline concerning Osceola children, a 172 percent increase from the 89 recorded during the same period last year.

Other Central Florida counties posted significant jumps as well, with calls up nearly 49 percent in Seminole, 29 percent in Lake, 23 percent in Brevard and 16 percent in Orange. Now teachers accustomed to playing the role of nurturer wonder whether they have the investigative skills to identify suspected abuse, while local agencies struggle to handle growing abuse caseloads.

The numbers do not mean more children are being abused. By state law, it can take up to 60 days to investigate a report. In many cases it is too early to say whether abuse took place.

Teachers vs. parents?

Still, Osceola school employees are anxious about being pulled into battles with parents while they're supposed to be teaching their kids, said Sandy Leach, Osceola Classroom Teachers Association president.

"I worry about retaliation against any employee who has made a report," Leach said. "Teachers are scared, but they also know if they don't follow procedures they can lose their jobs."

And school employees' increased willingness to call the DCF hotline prompted concerns from Dean Tong, a Tampa Bay-area expert on false reports of child abuse. Tong said he fears already-overworked caseworkers are flooded with erroneous claims, and teachers are often poorly trained to respond.

"That's what happens in these cases. There's a dearth of education on abuse, in my opinion," Tong said.

Teacher arrested in May

The controversy began with the May 21 arrest of Kissimmee Elementary School teacher Matthew Rossillo, 26, on charges he molested second-grade students in his classroom. He faces four felony counts of lewd or lascivious molestation and is awaiting trial. That same day, police also took into custody Kissimmee Elementary Principal Kenneth Meyers, school-district investigator Sonia Drudge and district human-resources director Lissa Bobet on accusations they conducted their own investigation before calling police.

A father complained May 12 to Meyers that Rossillo used a bizarre method to teach his child to count. According to an affidavit, the teacher took the girls aside and asked them to play the "finger game" while they waited to be picked up from school.

School officials contacted Kissimmee police May 15, arguing they did not immediately realize sexual molestation might have taken place. But a student told Meyers that Rossillo had molested her on the day of the first complaint, Meyers' arrest affidavit states.

Charges filed

Bobet, Drudge and Meyers were charged with one misdemeanor count each of failure to report known or suspected child abuse. Prosecutors dropped Bobet's charges after she entered a county diversion program. Meyers and Drudge are awaiting trial.

State law requires that teachers report known or suspected child abuse, but at the time, district policy did not detail what procedures to follow.

In late July, School Board members passed a policy stating everyone from bus drivers to school administrators who suspect abuse must immediately call the DCF abuse hotline. They must also document when the report was made and how DCF plans to proceed with the case, Deputy Superintendent Jim DiGiacomo said.

"Once they hear about it, they have to report it. Our position is there to protect teachers and to protect the entire school," DiGiacomo said. "When in doubt, make the phone call. If they would have said, 'Let me think about it first' -- that's all by the wayside now."

Although DiGiacomo downplayed the effects of the growing number of abuse reports coming from the schools, Leach said she knows the effects run deep. Teachers are spending more time away from their classrooms handling abuse reports -- and worrying about the consequences.

Kids hurt themselves all the time, so it's hard to tell if cuts or bruises are reasons to suspect abuse. Teachers tell Leach they are uncertain whether a few hours of training gives them the skills to handle such potentially explosive allegations.

Breach of rules

Already, teachers union officials are aware of one case in which a school employee told a person accused of child abuse which school employee made the report to authorities -- a breach of district confidentiality rules. That led to an ugly confrontation. Leach said the rules forbid her to describe the incident in detail.

"We realize this is a policy that needs to be made, yes, we agree we should report suspected child abuse to DCF," Leach said. "But if someone would hurt a child, would they hurt an adult? I believe they would."

The deluge of reports in Osceola loaded a child-welfare system already scrambling to meet the needs of troubled children. Osceola currently has so few foster families that 82 percent of children in the foster-care system must be placed outside of the county, according to the most recent statistics from child-advocacy organizations.

Victims of most severe cases end up in a few small rooms off U.S. Highway 192, in the office of the Child Protection Team, a nonprofit group created by state law to interview and give medical examinations to abused children. In a room decorated in cartoon colors, children color with crayons and tell Minelly Ayala, 28, how they were beaten or molested.

Sad stories

The cases are heart-wrenching: tales of children burned, beaten or molested. Since the beginning of the school year, there are more of them, said Ayala, a case coordinator for the county's child-protection team.

From Aug. 1 to Oct. 31, the team has handled 249 cases, up 60 percent from the same period last year. The child-protection team added staffers in October to shoulder the growing caseload, which can top 30 or more for a single worker.

"Now schools are making sure they report everything," Ayala said.

"The numbers just continue to increase."

Willoughby Mariano can be reached at wmariano@orlandosentinel.com or 407-931-5944. Copyright © 2003, Orlando Sentinel - CLICK HERE TO LEARN MORE...

Jackson Timeline Smacks Of Impropriety, But By Whom?

Dean Tong
12/18/03

Tampa Bay, Fla. (December 11, 2003) – During this holiday season I don’t know which one will be more difficult to digest, turkey or Michael Jackson. And, as if we haven’t seen enough twists and turns to this second set of sexual child abuse accusations leveled against the King of Pop, another one surfaced yesterday.

Published December 9 at the smokinggun.com website is a document dated November 26 from the Department of Children and Family Services out of Los Angeles. Their nine month investigation of Jackson’s alleged abuse of a young boy stricken with cancer culminated in the finding of “unfounded both by the LAPD-Wilshire Division and the Department.” In other words, there was no merit to the allegations.

On November 20, Michael Jackson was arrested and booked in Santa Barbara, California for probable cause that he violated California Penal Code 288(a) and committed lewd and lascivious acts upon his now 14 year-old complainant. But, how could the authorities have reasonable suspicions Jackson committed a crime when child protective services claims nothing happened? Why did social services take nine months to release their unfounded finding and did so after the police arrested Jackson? There’s more.

Ostensibly, the accusing child’s younger brother contradicted an accusation that Jackson abused his brother and the complainant’s older sister denied abuse on the part of Jackson. While Jackson is no doubt an odd bird who is guilty of poor judgment, allowing minors over for slumber parties after being accused of similar acts upon a child in 1993, the most important player in this chess game and puzzle may be the accusing boy’s mother. You be the judge.

The complaining boy’s mother talked highly of Jackson, calling him an “angel,” and praised him for reaching out to her son. Admitting she allowed her child to stay overnight at Jackson’s Neverland Ranch, the boy’s mother stated Jackson did not abuse her son. Later she changed her tune that Jackson did abuse her son, and opted to query an attorney with her concerns, not the police or child protective services.

The attorney referred her to Larry Feldman, the same lawyer who represented Jordan Chandler, the boy who accused Jackson of abuse back in 1993. Curiously, Jackson’s current accuser disclosed molestation to a phantom psychiatrist, who of course is required by state and federal law to report his or her concerns to the authorities. The rest is history. Or, is it?

Media reports indicate that the boy’s family won a judgment for over one hundred thousand dollars against J.C.Penneys and Tower Records for an incident stemming from 1999 whereby the boy’s mother was allegedly sexually assaulted and her son, Jackson’s accuser, was beaten by police. Does the accusing boy’s mother smell a get rich quick scheme? After all, it’s public knowledge that Jackson settled out of court with the current Mr. Chandler and his parents for about fifteen to twenty million dollars back in 1993.

Make no mistake. Child abuse is a problem in America. According to the National Center on Child Abuse and Neglect, this year alone will depict about 3 million reports of alleged child abuse and neglect in America, of which about a million cases will be confirmed. Social services and the police are charged with the lofty task of protecting our most precious resource – our children. On the flip side, some of us know someone who has been wrongly accused of child abuse, perhaps within the heat of battle in court over divorce and custody.

Michael Jackson is a lot of things. He’s eccentric. He’s bizarre. He’s different. He’s a 45 year-old child living in the body of a man, according to him. He wants to reclaim his childhood by hanging out with kids. In these politically correct times where the government sometimes acts “in loco parentis” in alleged child abuse cases, Jackson should know better than to keep the company of strange children. Is that child abuse? Only time will tell.

Dean Tong is the author of Elusive Innocence (Alpha Publishing, 2002). A forensic legal consultant who has been hired by parents and attorneys from 40 states in abuse-related cases, Tong can be contacted through his website abuse-excuse.com or at 1-800-854-0735.

From ABCNEWS.COM, 10/17/03, online article in follow-up to national broadcast on Primetime Live, Thursday, October 16, 2003 on ABC Television

Thursday, Oct. 16

Bruce McLaughlin was first convicted, then exonerated, of sexually abusing his children. But such allegations are hard to live down, and to clear his name for the record, he's volunteered to undergo a unique test in front of a national audience.

Seeking to Clear His Name Accused of Child Abuse, Dad Takes Controversial Test for Primetime

By Jim DuBreuil

Oct. 16 -- Bruce McLaughlin was once known as a successful attorney, loving husband and dedicated father of four adoring children.

Now, his reaction to a strange test a kind of penile sensor that's meant to be a kind of a sexual lie detector may mean the difference between freedom and jail.

McLaughlin's problems began when he and wife, Robyn, broke up after 16 years of marriage. And things only got worse Bruce McLaughlin ended up in prison on charges of sexually abusing three of his four children.

By the time ABCNEWS' Primetime met Bruce last November, he had already spent 4 ? years behind bars for a crime he insists he didn't commit.

"I wouldn't wish this on anybody who has had to go through what I've gone through," he said.

Damning Testimony

One night, almost seven years ago, Bruce and Robyn McLaughlin had a fight at home.

Robyn said there had been domestic violence before but this particular night was "the last straw."

She complained of a twisted arm and was taken to the hospital. Bruce was arrested, charged with assault and barred from the family home. The charges were later dropped and Bruce claimed any physical abuse was mutual.

But Robyn filed for divorce and custody of the children immediately became an issue. Saying he wanted to be a better, more honest husband, Bruce wrote a letter to Robyn revealing he had cheated on her.

The confession of infidelity ended any chance of reconciliation. Then, almost two years after the couple separated, Bruce was arrested and charged with 26 counts of child sexual abuse.

From the very start, Bruce maintained he was wrongly accused. But there was dramatic, convincing testimony against him from his own children.

Bruce McLaughlin was convicted of child sexual abuse against three of his four children and sentenced to 13 years in prison.

New Lawyer, New Evidence

In prison, Bruce hired a new lawyer, Alex Levay, to help him win a new trial. Reviewing the case, Levay noticed inconsistencies evidence never presented at Bruce's first trial.

For example, Levay discovered handwritten notes the McLaughlin children had in their possession during police questioning. The notes were prepared with the help of their mother, he said.

Robyn denied she concocted her children's stories of sexual abuse by her estranged husband, but said the girls were so young at the time that she had to write the notes for them.

There was also another strange twist in the story. Throughout the ordeal, Robyn McLaughlin was getting advice from Martin Sayer, an evangelical pastor.

Primetime obtained a series of faxes between the two. In one, Sayer offered Robyn suggestions on how to persuade her children to talk about their father's alleged abuse. In another, Sayer proposed that Robyn show her husband's "infidelity letter" to the couple's oldest son.

One fax from Robyn said: "Of course Satan's voice is trying to tell me that I have put the children up to this. But thank God that the Holy Spirit has a louder voice."

Asked if she made her children's allegations up, Robyn said, "I would never do that."

Levay also questioned Stanton Samenow, the court-appointed psychologist who had evaluated the McLaughlin children.

Samenow said while he believes Bruce has control issues, he says this case simply does not fit the pattern of abuse cases involving family members.

"I have never encountered a case in which a parent has abused both male and female offspring, much less all the kids in his family," he said. "I just haven't encountered it. So it would be, to say the least, highly unusual."

Desperate Measures

Levay convinced a judge to order a new trial with a new jury, and last December, Bruce McLaughlin was acquitted of the charges for which he had already after served more than four years.

After his acquittal, he was granted limited visitation with his children on weekends, and only with adult supervision.

But in March of this year, his wife sought a child protection order after Bruce took the kids snowboarding in the mountains.

Robyn accused Bruce of fondling one of the girls while she sat on her father's lap during the drive home. Bruce denied the allegation "absolutely," saying the car was packed with his three other children, their grandmother and two family friends.

Desperate to prove his innocence, Bruce volunteered to undergo a battery of controversial psychosexual tests. He said he hoped the tests would clear his name once and for all -- and he said he wanted the tests publicly witnessed. He agreed to undergo the tests in front of Primetime's cameras.

Meet the PPG

Forensic legal consultant and father's advocate Dean Tong, who set up the tests, said they "have about a 95 to 98 percent degree of specificity and sensitivity, so they're, they're about as reliable as a science as we have out there."

Joseph Plaud, a clinical psychologist who has interviewed hundreds of alleged sexual offenders in and out of prison, conducted the tests on Bruce, which were designed to measure his sexual interests.

First, Bruce was asked to answer hundreds of personal questions about his sexual history and personal life. The interview lasted seven hours.

Then came the most private--and most controversial--part. A gauge called the penile plethysmograph, or PPG, was attached to his penis. The devices measures the change its circumference in the penis when a man hears and sees sexually explicit material.

The PPG has been used in the courts before, as evidence of guilt and to determine a course of treatment for convicts. But some experts say it isn't full-proof.

Ted McIlvenna, president of the Institute for Advanced Study of Human Sexuality in San Francisco, which has one of the machines, said he has stopped using it entirely because the results it gave were inconsistent.

Dr. Fred Berlin, a psychiatrist with the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, said positive results could be pretty good evidence, but negative results could mean nothing.

"It's far less powerful evidence than other things such as victim testimony, DNA evidence. It's just one bit of information to take into consideration," he said. "I wouldn't weigh it very heavily."

Disturbing Experiences

For 90 minutes, Bruce wore virtual reality goggles that showed him different kinds of suggestive images and allowed him to hear audio of sexually explicit activity.

He was shown an image of a young girl. "So far so good," Plaud said. Bruce was still at or near the base line and it showed no arousal.

He was shown an image of a young boy titled "Coercing a Young Boy to Submit."

"He looks like he's disgusted by what he's hearing," Plaud said. "He's below base line."

Bruce was next shown an image depicting the rape of a young girl. "Sick!" Bruce said, flinching and appearing to become emotionally distressed.

Plaud noted the child would be in the 8- to 10-year-old range roughly the same age as Bruce's own twin daughters.

Asked if it Bruce could be willing himself to remain unaroused, Plaud said he was also looking at his relative patterns of arousal.

"For human males, we are hard-wired to react sexually. We're not even aware, a lot of times, of just the limits to which we're reacting sexually," he said.

During the entire time Bruce McLaughlin was observed by Primetime, the only time he was ever aroused was during male-female encounters between adults.

Ten hours after the test have begun, Plaud told Bruce: "I do have the data, and they are uniformly positive and very strong, supporting the fact that you have exclusive sexual arousal to adult females in consenting sexual activity. That's just the best way to say it."

The Cycle Starts Again

This past month, Maryland's Child Protective Services ruled out the allegations Bruce's daughter made in March.

Bruce says he is glad he took the test. He considers them a pre-emptive strike, and plans to use them in his defense if new allegations arise.

He also plans to use them during divorce proceeding and hearings involving custody of the children.

Last week, Robyn McLaughlin told Primetime one of her daughters told her therapist her father inappropriately touched her during a game of touch football with her two brothers.

Bruce McLaughlin says, once again, he's been falsely accused.

ABCNEWS' Andrew Chang contributed to this report.

WILL FAME WORK AGAINST KOBE BRYANT?

By Dean Tong, Forensic Consultant
September 15, 2003
NewsWithViews.com

If Kobe Bryant were an accused man by any other name, there would be no question of his right to face his accuser at his Oct. 9 preliminary hearing in Eagle, Colo.

But Bryant is not a nameless John Doe; he is a basketball superstar, and his legal travails are anything but ordinary. His Sixth Amendment rights allow him the right to call his accuser to testify at his preliminary hearing. At the hearing, the judge determines if there is enough evidence for a trial.

Bryant's attorneys have subpoenaed his 19-year-old accuser to appear at the hearing, a move fought vigorously by the Eagle County District Attorney who instead proposes having the woman appear by videotape.

Throughout his legal proceedings, Bryant has seen evidence that he will not be treated with the same consideration given to an unknown defendant. To date, he has been required to personally appear before the court at his arraignment, a formality that the district attorney would have foregone in a lesser-known out-of-state defendant charged with the same offense. The latest move by District Attorney Mark Hurlbert to tread on Bryant's Sixth Amendment rights does not bode well for the basketball star's rights to a fair trial. For all of his money and fame, Bryant will not get a fair adjudication of the charges he now faces, and he has ever reason to be afraid.

The timing of Bryant's legal troubles could not come at a worse time: The Colorado Springs U.S. Air Force Academy has been embroiled in its own sex abuse allegations, and all eyes are on Bryant to see whether the D.A. will take a tough line against sexual assault allegations. The U.S. Constitution affords defendants the right to face their accusers and to due process so that the court can size up their testimony, their personal credibility and any forensic tests that may be available. Bryant's case rests largely on the testimony of his teenage accuser, and allowing her to forego a personal appearance at the hearing will deny Bryant's attorneys a chance to question her, and for the judge to assess whether her testimony is believable, which is infinitely more difficult to discern in a videotaped testimony. Instead, the D.A. proposes offering live testimony of the Sexual Abuse Nurse Examiner - a victim's advocate - as to the alleged victim's state of mind and physical injuries. As a victim's advocate, the nurse cannot be expected to give an unbiased accounting of facts and details. Her job is to support and believe the victim. "Innocent until proven guilty" is simply not in her job description.

Ironically, accused killer Scott Peterson has a better chance at justice than Bryant. Peterson's case rests largely on forensic evidence, meaning that he can bring in his own legal experts to examine the evidence and testify as to their own conclusions about its meaning and relevance. Bryant has admitted to committing adultery with his accuser, leaving the D.A. to prove the rape largely through the woman's own words, a so-called "he said, she said."

Bryant will be forced to prove a negative - that he did not rape his accuser - which puts him at a huge disadvantage at trial. The D.A.'s experts will undoubtedly provide emphatic support of the charge against Bryant, as the prosecution has a built in confirmatory bias, where it seeks to identify evidence and information that supports its allegations rather that provide an independent investigations of the facts and personalities involved.

If Bryant is to have a fair trial, it will be up to him to cut the D.A.'s biased experts off at the pass: Bryant must commission his own experts to conduct an examination of the facts. Having guided thousands of clients facing sex-abuse allegations over the past 10 years, I have found that the only way to ensure freedom for those innocent of sex-abuse allegations is to undergo a specific battery of testing , including a penile plethysmograph - a test that measures an individual's propensity toward sexual offenses - administered by an independent examiner, in addition to psychological and other forensic testing by independent experts not beholden to the prosecutor's agenda.

Unfortunately for Bryant, fame has only brought him greater and unfair legal challenges. Proving his innocence will cost Bryant a great deal of money, his privacy and, most likely, his reputation.

Fame may have its perks. Too bad for Kobe Bryant, justice is not one of them.

© 2003 - Dean Tong - All Rights Reserved

Dean Tong is a nationally known forensic consultant and author of the critically acclaimed book Elusive Innocence (Alpha Publishing, 2002). He may be reached at 1-800-854-0735 or via his website www.abuse-excuse.com E-Mail: DeanTong@aol.com

Salon.com

May 22, 2002

"The Ultimate Weapon"

by Chris Colin

Child abuse consultant to visit area, discuss system that falsely accuses parents

Thursday, April 11, 2002

By RACHEL WEBB, rawebb@naplesnews.com

A proponent of changes to Florida's child welfare system will travel to Lee and Collier counties this week, hoping to raise awareness for what he says is a failing system that allows parents to be falsely accused of abuse.

Dean Tong, a Tampa-based consultant in child abuse cases, will visit two Southwest Florida bookstores this week to sign "Elusive Innocence: Survival Guide for the Falsely Accused."

Tong estimates that two-thirds of all abuse allegations are false and feels that a non-anonymous reportingsystem and better training by the state Department of Children and Families would be an improvement.

"We just always seem to react after the fact," Tong said. "We need to change the laws up front."

Tong got his start nearly two decades ago when his ex-wife accused him of sexually abusing their young daughter. He fought the charges and was exonerated.

Since then, he has made his living writing about false abuse reports and counseling those he believes have been falsely accused. Legal teams can retain Tong to act as a defense strategist in child abuse cases. He calls his role the "quarterback" of the dream defense team.

Tong would not reveal how much his services cost, but his Web site stated he can also give advice over the phone for $1 per minute. There's a 10-minute minimum.

"Elusive Innocence" offers studies of several false abuse cases as well as practical advice for those who find themselves accused. Though he has made his living working against DCF, Tong said he understands that child abuse does happen, but insists the child welfare system needs an overhaul.

He would like to see an end to anonymous hotlines for reporting child abuse, more training for DCF social workers. He also wants to end the practice of children going into foster care until a parent has been found guilty of something.

Tong and his supporters say anonymous reporting of child abuse cases allows anyone with a grudge to ruin someone's life.

"If they had to give their name, address and Social Security number, I guarantee there would be no calls because someone is (angry)," said Wendy Isherwood, a Bonita Springs woman who spent years fighting allegations her husband abused her son. "If they want to ruin someone's life, all they have to do is call and sit back and watch."

After winning their case, Wendy Isherwood and her husband, Allen, founded a Southwest Florida chapter of VOCAL, or Victims of Child Abuse Laws. The organization offers support and refers people to information that may help them in their case.

Wendy Isherwood and Tong agree DCF should be abolished and their responsibilities taken up by law enforcement.

"If it were back in the hands of law enforcement, we wouldn't have overcrowding in foster care," said Leslie Daeda, a south Fort Myers woman who hopes to propose a bill lifting DCF's confidential reporting laws to the state Legislature later this year.

Renetta Williams, DCF program administrator for family safety, said her agency screens calls to determine whether they are malicious and believes that child abuse investigations should stay within DCF's realm.

Williams said DCF screens calls to child abuse hotlines and anyone caught making a bad faith report can be prosecuted for a third-degree felony. Williams said people who make multiple calls or report ex-spouses or lovers immediately raise suspicion.

Williams said she has never heard of Tong, but disagrees with the argument that DCF workers are poorly trained and that the agency should be abolished. Social workers must have a bachelor's degree and undergo screening to determine whether they will be able to handle the work. They are also assigned a mentor who is a "seasoned" investigator.

She says DCF workers are trained to investigate child abuse, unlike law enforcement officers.

"I think it would be twice as traumatic to have a situation where you have police knocking on the door," she said.

Trisha Williams, operations manager for the American Professional Society on the Abuse of Children, also said she has not heard of Tong, but she believes that people should be able to report child abuse anonymously. Williams said national statistics estimate that between 2 and 8 percent of child abuse reports are made in bad faith.

"I would rather do an investigation where it all turns out to be false and the child is safe than not know about it and have a child in trouble," Trisha Williams said.

Tong will sign "Elusive Innocence" from 7 p.m. to 9 p.m. today at the Fort Myers Books-A-Million, on U.S. 41 in Page Field Commons, and from 4 p.m. to 6 p.m. Friday at the Naples Books-A-Million.

MASSACHUSSETTS LAWYERS WEEKLY

The Fine Print

The New Scarlet Letter
By John O. Cunningham

"Elusive Innocence"
By Dean Tong
Huntington House Publishers, 278 pages
$15.99

The opening chapter of "Elusive Innocence" reads like a Kafka novel, but it is part of the real-life story of Brookline native Dean Tong.

Tong's book is not just his story though. It is a survival guide for parents falsely accused of child abuse.

The book may be of particular interest to practicing lawyers. It provides a perspective on the legal system from a client's point of view, and it also provides information and strategies for defending allegations of abuse.

Tong, who is now an expert witness and consultant in abuse cases, offers a blueprint for defending those cases.

He makes specific suggestions regarding: interrogatories and discovery; working with experts; psychological and physiological testing; the psychological issues of sexual allegations in divorce; and dealing with "junk" science issues under Frye v. Daubert.

Scrutinizing practitioners may wish the book was footnoted, but will find the list of Internet resources and four-page list of references helpful.

Readers should know that the book raises more questions than it answers about the legal system, and it does not transition smoothly from the personal to the practical.

But it is still useful enough to have earned the accolade of Roy Black, defense attorney for William Kennedy Smith, who said, "This book should be required reading for any parent, lawyer or social worker involved in divorce and child custody disputes."

Tong's Story

Tong graduated from Hull High School and Northeastern University before taking a job as a lab technician at a Boston hospital, where he met his first wife.

His personal tragedy began unfolding after the couple moved to Florida. His daughter was 3 years old, and his wife filed for divorce.

She accused Tong of sexually abusing their daughter, and he spent the next 10 years in litigation in six different courts in an effort to prove his innocence and get custody of his child.

Ultimately, his spouse and her live-in boyfriend were awarded custody, and Tong was forced to defend felony charges for child molestation.

The author was held on $25,000 bail while cellmates threatened him as a "baby raper."

After more than a year, the state dropped the charges, and after six years of legal wrangling, Tong obtained unsupervised visits with his daughter.

He says he now has a positive relationship with his grown child while his ex-spouse has suffered through five failed marriages and a declaration that she was an "unfit mother."

But Tong adds: "The mere accusation of 'child abuse' is a scarlet letter emblazoned upon a person's name. Somebody will always wonder about me, 'Did he do it?'"

Tong's book explains how lawyers and social workers need to understand the psychological dynamics beneath false or erroneous allegations of child abuse.

It also provides assessments of psychological and physiological tests available for the determination of possible guilt or innocence.

Tong describes in some detail the way that anatomically exaggerated dolls and suggestive questioning are routinely used not only for investigation but also for proof of abuse cases.

A Mission

The book reflects a clear sense of Tong's personal mission as a forensic consultant for the accused, but he says he only assists clients he believes are innocent.

Tong describes the penile plethysmograph and other tools he uses to screen clients, and he tells Lawyers Weekly that more than 90 percent of his clients are successful in persuading fact-finders of their innocence.

He notes that child abuse reports have mushroomed since statutes have made it mandatory for doctors, police and other public service providers to report any "reasonable suspicion" of abuse.

The book cites 160,000 cases of abuse filed nationwide in 1963, 1.7 million reports filed in 1985, and 3.5 million reports recorded in 1998.

Tong argues that a broad dragnet that traps innocent defendants in an effort to save all victims of abuse results in greater harm to all members of some families.

He points to the conclusions of one therapist who was a social worker, saying, "We have learned that an adult child of a parent falsely accused is just as traumatized as an abused child, and may have problems trusting people and developing normal relationships."

Tong's work also warns attorneys about the tangled implications of representing an accused in probate, juvenile and criminal courts regarding the same matter of alleged abuse.

But the book offers no systemic remedies. While it renders a broad array of suggestions for defending cases of abuse, each chapter leaves room for further exploration, as each chapter could be the subject of a separate book.

Still, Tong does provide a moving personal account and a navigational overview of a unique and sometimes confusing part of the legal system.

© 2002 Lawyers Weekly Inc., All Rights Reserved.

THE WOMEN'S QUATERLY

Fall 2001

When the Bough Breaks

Child protective services took little Candace Elmore from her mother. A few years later the little girl died in a bizarre "rebirthing" ritual. Kathleen Parker reports on the Kafkaesque experiences of two families.

At first glance, Angela Elmore and Mary Ann Stumbo have little in common except that they both live in North Carolina. Elmore is a poor, marginally educated single mother with a history of bad relationships and hand-to-mouth jobs. Stumbo is a middle-class, well-educated, married mother whose architect-husband provides for his family while she home schools their four children.

It's hard to imagine any two people whose lives would be less likely to intersect, yet Elmore and Stumbo have more in common than most of us do. Both have had life altering encounters with North Carolina's child protective services.

In Elmore's case, the encounter is best described as life-shattering, as her child, Candace, ended up dead after social workers removed her from Elmore's care and handed her over for adoption and a "better" life to an eccentric heiress, who in turn sent the child to New Age therapists. Candace, who was ten, died rolled up in a blanket and suffocated by adults who were "rebirthing" her in a bizarre attempt to make her love her adoptive mother more, and, imagine this, stop missing her real mom.

Stumbo's encounter, thanks probably to her relative affluence, greater sophistication, and the kind of support system of which Elmore could only dream, seems headed for a saner ending. She and her husband, James, have taken their case to the N.C. Supreme Court, defending themselves against charges that they interfered with a state investigation of alleged child abuse or neglect. The evidence against them? Their two-year-old daughter ran into the front yard naked for a couple of minutes in the early morning as she went looking for her kitten.

Both cases, though representing extremes in the debate regarding child protection versus parental rights, are frightening to citizens mindful of the increasingly draconian measures state agents are willing and entitled by law to take in response to concerns about child abuse. Between a laissez-faire policy that turns a blind eye to abuse by parents and the nightmare that was little Candace's life and horrific death, or the legal quagmire that characterizes the Stumbos' struggle for constitutional protections, is a commonsense middle ground that desperately needs discovering.

Candace Elmore apologized before dying. "I'm sorry," she said to her adult tormentors before she finally drew her last breath. She was sorry that she wasn't able to provide for her therapists whatever reward they sought. We know this because her therapists-recently convicted of reckless child abuse resulting in death and each sentenced to sixteen years in prison—filmed their sessions with Candace.

The death scene followed two weeks of abuse during which Candace was to be deconstructed and "re-educated." Sort of like the Marine Corps, except that Candace was just ten years old and she didn't sign up. Her adoptive mother, Jeane Newmaker, an unmarried Durham, North Carolina, woman, volunteered her to this duty and paid $7,000 for an unlicensed therapist to "rebirth" Candace so that the child would stop her annoying pining for El-more and form a stronger attachment to Newmaker, who was present during the fatal session.

Some of the clever techniques involved in this so-called therapy, all designed to make the victim feel vulnerable and therefore emotionally pliable, include shouting, insulting, touching in intimate ways, and "holding." In one 160-minute session, she reportedly had her face grabbed 90 times, was shaken or bounced 309 times, threatened 49 times, and shouted at 65 times. Having tortured the child emotionally, the women then commenced a series of physical punishments that, if administered to an animal, would get a human arrested or shot by a decent neighbor.

First came "compression therapy," during which Candace's adoptive mother lay on top of Candace and licked her face. Anyone still puzzled at this child's failure to bond? Next came the "rebirthing," designed to recreate the physical experience of being born.

The therapists wrapped Candace in a navy, flannel blanket and sat on her, bounced, and pushed to simulate contractions and birthing.

Mind you, these therapists—Connell Watkins and Julie Ponder—weren't precisely poster girls for anorexia. Their weights, combined with the weight of two other helpers called in for Candace's final torture, came to about 670 pounds. Candace weighed seventy pounds, which accounts for her vomiting and losing bowel control.

Despite her persistent pleas for air, the adults continued bouncing and pushing. After sixteen minutes of this, Candace told the women that she was going to die, to which they replied: "Go ahead and die." Candace's next words were: "You mean, like you want me to die for real?" The answer was: "Yes, go ahead and die right now."

Unfortunately, Candace couldn't die just yet. She had another twenty-five minutes to go before she uttered her last word, "No," whereupon Ponder mocked her: "Quitter, quitter, quitter, quitter! Quit, quit, quit, quit. She's a quitter!"

When Watkins and Ponder finally unwrapped the child thirty minutes later, Candace was of course dead. By the time she died, she hadn't seen her real mother, Angela Elmore, since she was six years old.

Angela Elmore doesn't claim to have been a perfect parent. She and her husband, Candace's father, weren't able to provide a stable home. Maybe it was because Angela herself had been a foster child throughout her childhood, giving birth to Candace when she was just eighteen. Maybe it was because Angela's mother, Mary, had been a foster child, abandoned on a West Virginia street corner by her own mother before she was school age.

Candace's father couldn't hold down a job and pawned everything from his wife's wedding ring to Candace's high chair to make ends meet. Candace's parents also had a history of domestic trouble. Sheriff 's deputies in Lincoln County, where the Elmores lived, had responded to several calls from the Elmore home.

We don't know what kind of parents they were—child protective records are sealed—but extended family members made no mention of abuse during interviews following Candace's death. Candace's step-grandfather, a mechanic with the N.C. Department of Transportation, said there were instances of neglect, but the children were always fed, clothed, and housed. Candace's grandmother, Mary, said the children were loved.

In any event, we can at least safely wager that, had she remained with her mother, Candace would not have been stuck in a blanket and pounced on by four adults until she threw up and died. Yet, few would have objected to state intervention in Candace's case. Her life seemed doomed to the same cycles as her mother and grandmother. They were poor besides. What better than a fresh start in a nice house with all the comforts of a rising-yuppie childhood?

Here's a radical thought: How about the love of one's own mother? Although poor and imperfect, with limited resources, Angela Elmore loved her children and wanted to do better by them. When she was pregnant with Candace, Angela played classical music and read aloud because she'd heard that her child would be smarter that way. When social workers finally took Candace and her siblings from Angela, the two girls had to be wrenched from their mother's arms. (No one will say where the other two children ended up.)

Such horror stories lend justification to the Stumbos' reaction during their relatively minor skirmish two years ago with another North Carolina social worker. No one died. The social worker who came to their house, Tasha Lowery, was just trying to follow up on an anonymous tip that a toddler was naked alone in the front yard.

What good citizen wouldn't inquire or, lacking the fortitude to make a personal call, pick up the phone and notify authorities? Minding one's own business is a rule best ignored when a child's life may be in danger. How was anyone to know that the naked child unattended in a front yard of a house on a dead-end street wasn't in peril?

Once a call is made, the department of social services has no choice but to follow up with an inquiry, which is what Tasha Lowery did. She knocked on the Stumbos' door, spoke to Mrs. Stumbo, saw all four children and, by her subsequent testimony, found them to be safe and well-cared for. At this point, it seems that anyone with a thimbleful of common sense would have said, "Sorry to bother you; have a good day."

But Lowery persisted in asking for private interviews with each of the children, a request Mrs. Stumbo declined. Instead, she called an attorney with the Home School Legal Defense Association, which offers legal advice to its members. The attorney, Scott Som-erville, called a halt to Lowery's inquiry, whereupon the Stumbos were charged with obstructing an investigation.

In the ensuing two years, Somerville has been working with the Stumbos to challenge what he believes is the state's violation of the Fourth Amendment, which protects citizens against unreasonable search and seizure. Somerville has argued that Lowery, in requesting private interviews with the Stumbo children, in effect would have been "seizing" the children against the par-ents' will and without sufficient cause.

While the Stumbos and Somerville look forward to a state supreme court hearing sometime in the next few months, none want an outcome that could be misused to protect child abusers, they say. Their hope is that social workers will be recognized as "state agents" and be bound, as police are, by constitutional guidelines. As currently forged, child protective laws endow social workers—who may be ill-trained, inexperienced, or bereft of common sense-with inordinate power over private citizens. In all states, social workers can call the police to have children removed from their homes on the spot. They're only supposed to do this in an emergency, but who decides what constitutes an emergency?

Imagine if Tasha Lowery had come to your door and wanted to take your two-year-old aside and question her about home life. Lowery may be a delightful person, but she's not a psychologist. She has a bachelor's degree in social work, and her training for the job that brought her to the Stumbos' house consisted of a couple of dozen hours by the state's Department of Child Protective Services.

She might have decided that Mrs. Stumbo's reluctance to let her interview her children suggested guilt of some fantastical injury—an "emergency"—and insisted on removing the children.

Meanwhile, parents know that improperly framed questions can impart or suggest information that is both inappropriate for children and may qualify as a form of abuse in itself. But where do you draw the line? You don't ignore a naked toddler alone in a yard; you don't ignore children who may be suffering from neglect amid poverty. But you also don't unnecessarily invade a family's privacy, or remove a child based on assumptions that material wealth has more value than mere maternal love.

Fear of cruelty was the impetus behind the well-intended child protection movement that picked up steam in 1973 with passage of the Mondale Act, or the Child Abuse Prevention and Treatment Act, which provides federal funding for child abuse investigations. In exchange for some part of $4.5 billion in federal Medicaid dollars, states are required to install a hotline system to accept anonymous tips that also re-quire mandatory investigation. Cozily, once a child is removed from a home, more federal dollars start flowing.

"As soon as I take a kid out of a home, I begin to earn federal money for the cost of caring for that child," Gary Stangler, former director of Missouri's Department of Social Services, told journalist Bill Moyers a few years back. "All of the federal incentives are on the institutional side.

While tipsters can anonymously create havoc in a family's life, there are no checks and balances on the callers themselves. Sometimes those tips may save a life; other times they can destroy a life. Abuse of the system in hostile divorces over child custody issues has become widespread.

Since 1985, meanwhile, the foster care population has more than doubled, a figure that belies the contention that child protective agents work hard to keep families together. The contrary would seem to be true. Richard Wexler, executive director of the National Coalition for Child Protection Reform, sums up the problem this way:

"The ethos guiding child welfare from its very inception boils down to 'take the child and run.' Once taken, they languish in foster care not because agencies do too much for parents, but because they do almost nothing. The children are filed away and forgotten as overwhelmed workers rush on to the next case. And all of this makes children less safe."

The more workers are overwhelmed—and wasting time and resources on cases like the Stumbos'—the less time those workers have to find children in real danger, says Wexler.

Often children—perhaps even Candace—are removed from homes in cases of poverty rather than when justified by abuse or serious neglect. Research has shown that children who might be viewed by more affluent, stable individuals as endangered do better with their own parents than in foster care for the very peculiar reason that they love and need their own moms and dads.

Wexler cites a University of Florida study of "crack babies." One group of newborns was placed in foster care, another with birth mothers able to care for them. After one year, the babies were tested for infant development—rolling over, sitting up, and reaching out. Consistently, the babies who were with their mothers performed better.

No one's suggesting that newborns be handed over to crack-addicted mothers who can't care for them, but the study does suggest that we may be undervaluing the power of parental love. Again, we don't know the circumstances of Candace's removal from her home, but clearly the child's heart was broken by the loss of her family. What could be crueler than wrenching a six-year-old child from her mother and giving her away to a stranger? Oh, yeah, killing her.

The Stumbo case has the potential to set an important precedent, giving parents more power to protect their families from state intrusion. Somerville insists that social workers are state agents and as such must be bound by constitutional restraints. Among other things, except in cases of emergency, social workers should have to demonstrate probable cause before insisting on private interviews with children or home searches.

Other observers of the child abuse-neglect debacle point to practical, commonsense solutions. In his new book on false allegations of child abuse, Elusive Innocence, Dean Tong outlines strategies for private citizens. Though he doesn't recommend that people like the Stumbos deny social workers access, he does insist on electronic recording of interviews and copious note-taking by parents. He also suggests a change from anonymous to confidential tips in re-porting suspected abuse or neglect.

Wexler is working for a system-wide overhaul that refocuses the emphasis on family preservation rather than child removal and foster care. In too many cases, he says, children are removed when the family's immediate problem might be solved with education, counseling, or a cash advance.

He cites a case in Orange County, California, in which an impoverished mother of three had no one to watch her children while she worked at night. When she left her eight-, six-, and four-year-old children alone in a motel—the only housing she could afford—someone called child protective services, and the children were seized on the spot. A little child-care help might have been a less traumatic—and ultimately less costly—solution.

In states where family preservation is the model for child welfare—Michigan, Washington, and Alabama lead the way—the foster care population has been radically reduced and children are reportedly safer. Most successful among these is Alabama, which has been rebuilding its child welfare system with an emphasis on keeping families together. In the twenty-one counties that have completed the conversion, the foster care population has been reduced by 33 percent and a court-ordered study found that children are safer than before the system changes.

Judging from recent events—and this may be the first time the following words have been written about anything other than football—North Carolina could take a lesson from Alabama. This much is owed to the memory of Candace Tiara Elmore.

Kathleen Parker is a syndicated columnist and lives in South Carolina.

Children's sex case testimony debated

http://web.timeseader.com/content/leader/2001/11/23/news/23TAINT1A.htm

Wilkes-Barre, PA
Friday, November 23, 2001

Ex-Luzerne County man says he's innocent of molestation charges that landed him in jail. He says kids were persuaded to testify. By TERRIE MORGAN-BESECKER  <mailto:tmorgan@leader.net>tmorgan@leader.net

The man had touched her "tee-tee". The statement, allegedly blurted out by a 6-year-old girl as she rode with her mother, started a criminal investigation that landed Gerald John Delbridge in prison for six to 14 years for molesting the girl and her 4-year-old brother, who were related to him.In the more than three years since he was convicted in Luzerne County Court, Delbridge, formerly of Eagle Rock, near Hazleton, has adamantly maintained his innocence. The children's testimony was not a product of reality, he says, but of overly suggestive questioning techniques by investigators that led the children to make false allegations.

Known as "taint", the issue has come to the national forefront in the past decade as convictions in several high profile child molestation cases in New Jersey and other states were overturned after it was determined invest! igators had influenced the children's responses.But county judges in Pennsylvania have differed on whether defendants are entitled to "taint hearings" - a legal proceeding in which the defense can probe how a child was questioned.

Now the state Supreme Court has agreed to hear Delbridge's appeal in what attorneys say will be a precedent-setting ruling that will determine if the hearings will be allowed here. The high court is not expected to issue a ruling for at least a year, said attorney Tom Pavlinic of Annapolis, Md., who defended Delbridge along with Kingston attorney Mark Mack.

In the meantime, debate continues to rage over the emotionally charged issue.Defense attorneys and advocates for people who claim they have been falsely accused say they simply want to level the playing field, especially in cases where a parent or guardian is accused. It is of particular interest in child custody cases, where false allegations can be made to gain a tactical advantage.

The children! are interviewed by police in closed sessions, often after the accused parent has left the home. The defendant and their attorney don't get a sense of the questioning that went on until charges have already been filed.Taint hearings, they say, provide a neutral forum to ensure a child's testimony was properly elicited. "I'm not here to protect perverts", said Dean Tong of Tampa, Fla., a forensic consultant and author of the book "Elusive Innocence: Survival Guide for the Falsely Accused". "We're not trying to discourage children from coming forward and saying they were molested. What we're trying to do is arrive at what's right and what's wrong, the truth and justice".

Experts agree taint is an issue only when victims are very young, typically under 10. Research has shown that older children are no more susceptible to suggestion than adults, Pavlinic and child sexual abuse experts said.A favorable defense ruling in the Delbridge case would not mean taint hearings would occur! in every child sexual assault case, Pavlinic said. The defense would have to present evidence supporting its contention of problems with the questioning before a hearing would even be considered.But organizations representing prosecutors raise concerns that the real motive behind the hearings is to try to discredit children.

"What a taint hearing does is subvert the process by trying to put experts on to say the child is not telling the truth and because they are not telling the truth they should not testify", said Chris Fisanich of the Pennsylvania District Attorney's Association. Fisanich said issues concerning the questioning can be raised at trial for jurors, who will use common sense to determine if a memory was implanted.But, Tong said such a determination is beyond the common knowledge of a juror. Experts are essential to explain the complex nature of child psychology.

"The mind-set here is children don't lie. But, this is not a matter of children lying", Tong said. It! is more a case of investigators - in most cases unwittingly - influencing the children with their own biases, he said. "What often comes into the equation is a confirmatory bias - the interviewer has a preconceived notion the abuse occurred and they tailor their questions on the presumption of guilt", Tong said. "The way they do that is by asking closed-ended questions instead of open-ended questions".

Delbridge maintains that is what happened in his case. Pavlinic said the 6-year-old girl was taken to a psychologist eight times between February and May 1998 and never made any mention of sexual abuse until the day in the car when she allegedly said her "tee-tee" was touched, meaning her genitals. The psychologist saw the child that day, and told her to "tell her what she told her mom in the car". In the coming months the girl and the 4-year-old boy were interviewed by nine different people, Pavlinic said. At Delbridge's trial, the girl called the state trooper who questioned her "guardian angel", and said she was kidding when she said the trooper "gave her a star so she could put" Delbridge in jail, according to excerpts from the trial transcript included in court documents.

Delbridge sought to raise taint at a pre-trial hearing in May, 1999 before Judge Ann Lokuta. Pavlinic argued the children were influenced by their mother, who he said was a victim of child sexual abuse herself, and by investigators and psychologists who asked leading questions. Pavlinic planned to present an expert who would question the interviewing techniques used, and asked Lokuta to consider those factors when determining if the children were competent to testify. But Lokuta refused to allow the expert to testify at the competency hearing or at trial.

In her ruling, Lokuta said she believed the expert's role was solely to question the credibility of the children. She cited Pennsylvania law, which does not permit expert testimony to question the credibility of a witness ! in any type of case, in denying Delbridge's request.Advocates for both sides agree there have been cases where improper questioning led to false allegations. "It is absolutely accurate that people who are not good at doing interviews can, over a period of time, confuse the children as to what has and has not happened", said Dr. Sherryll Kraizer of the Coalition for Children, a Colorado based nonprofit group that acts a clearing house of information regarding child safety issues.Kraizer cited research by Dr. Stephen Ceci of Cornell University that showed children could be led to believe they had witnessed an incident - which did not actually happen - simply by having others continually reinforce the idea that it did occur.

"There can be confusion created. It's created when acting like something happened that the child missed", Kraizer said. That was the issue in case of Kelly Michaels, a New Jersey day care worker convicted of molesting dozens of children. Michaels spent five years in prison before an appellate court overturned the conviction, finding investigators had improperly influenced the children. Victor Vieth, a former prosecutor who heads the National Center for the Prosecution of Child Abuse in Alexandria, Va., acknowledged many investigators don't know how to properly question children.

That can lead to false allegations, he said, but he stressed the contamination runs both ways. Investigators who don't know how to properly question children can also shut down true victims, making it so they don't reveal the abuse.

In the Michaels case, Vieth said the children were essentially coerced and bribed into making allegations, being told things like they were "little detectives" if they helped keep her in jail. "No one claimed the questioning was meant to be anything but well meaning, but clearly they did things they, too, will concede were wrong", Vieth said.

The key to avoiding such problems is education, Vieth said. That's why his organization created an in-depth training program for prosecutors. The course covers all the available literature, shows videotape of proper and improper techniques and allows for role playing. The program is offered now only in South Carolina, but he hopes to expand it to other states.

Until then, Vieth encourages prosecutors nationwide to contact his office for advice in the proper questioning of children in sexual assault cases. Kraizer, of the Coalition for Children, encourages police to videotape their interviews with children so that if a question arises about the techniques used, there's an undisputed record. "If the first time you have no revelation and the child is not forthcoming, that doesn't mean nothing happened. It just means the child isn't ready to talk to you yet", Kraizer said. "If you're an honest professional doing your job, there is nothing to fear from the truth".

The truth in Delbridge's case is he's innocent, Pavlinic said.Pavlinic specializes in representing people he be! lieves have been falsely accused of sexually abusing children. He is adamant in his defense of Delbridge. "Gerald Delbridge has been rotting in prison for three years for something he did not do. If there had been a fair approach to the issue in the first place, justice would have been served". Pavlinic said he doesn't expect the Supreme Court to make a ruling in the case until next fall. By then, Delbridge will have served more than half his minimum sentence. Pavlinic said he recently visited Delbridge, who remains confident he will someday be cleared. "When I called him at the prison to tell the Supreme Court agreed to hear the case, he began to cry", Pavlinic said. "He never lost faith in us".

Terrie Morgan-Besecker, a Times Leader reporter, may be reached at 570-829-7179.

Suspension off, teacher still wary

BY CALVIN R. TRICE
TIMES-DISPATCH STAFF WRITER Dec 10, 2000

STAUNTON - To keep his teaching position, Don Barnett successfully fought child-abuse allegations in a criminal case, in a lawsuit filed against him and in Virginia Department of Social Services findings. But after a confrontational 18-month suspension, keeping the caring touch that made Barnett one of the most popular teachers at Thomas W. Dixon Elementary School promises to be another struggle. Barnett, a 58-year-old divorced father of three, wonders whether his newfound caution in handling children will preclude the rapport he has enjoyed with students.

"My concern is not with how I can be the best teacher", he said. "My main concern now is how do I protect myself from this ever being laid on me again". The criminal charges were misdemeanors, never accusations that he molested the children. The Social Services ruling accused him of the lowest possible level of abuse required to have his name on its statewide registry of abusers. However, the court battle was withering and the registry listing threatened to keep him from ever teaching in state public schools.

At lunch last week, Barnett ordered a vegetarian dish. He needs to keep off the weight he gained after going into depression months ago over his ordeal, he said. After about a year of battling the highly publicized allegations, his cause became lonely. The effusions of outward support from parents, teachers and students began to dry up, he said.

"I just got low this fall, and I started eating", Barnett said. Randy Simmons, the school's principal, said Barnett's colleagues respect him and have welcomed his return. His fourth-grade class was one of the most requested at Dixon Elementary, Simmons said. "He had an excellent reputation here", Simmons said. "He's been very successful motivating kids and helping lower-achieving kids feel better about themselves".

Barnett described his teaching style as active and playful. He regularly joined in kickball and basketball games during recess and took over physical-education classes for worn-out teachers. He had pupils perform yoga and Indian stretching exercises during instruction breaks, threw a Koosh Ball around to keep his pupils alert and usually ate lunch with the kids rather than with his colleagues.

Melinda Bright, who taught fourth grade with Barnett for nine years before moving to a local middle school, called Barnett warm and conscientious. "The kids loved him", Bright said. "At times, I was even a little jealous because I thought he had better relationships with students than I did". Ron Herr, a former Barnett student who's now in college, said Barnett went out of his way for his pupils.

"He cares about all the kids", said Herr, a sophomore at James Madison University. "He came to a bunch of my [sports] games. He did that for everyone - it didn't matter who they were". Barnett liked to hug, too, and gave all his pupils fair warning about it, he said. "Every year, I announced to the class that I'm a hugger, and if anybody's uncomfortable with that, just let me know", Barnett said. "And nobody ever did".

Shannon Armstrong, another JMU sophomore who took Barnett's fourth-grade class at Dixon, said she never felt uncomfortable with Barnett's affection. "I wouldn't say he was affectionate like touchy-feely", Armstrong said. "He would always give us pats on the back and things like that. He's a really personable guy".

In May 1999, Dixon administrators told Barnett that an investigation had been launched against him involving two girls alleging improper contact and that it was getting serious, Barnett said.

The Department of Social Services joined the investigation, and Staunton police arrested him May 11, 1999, after the Standards of Learning exams. After the charges became public, another girl who had been in his fourth-grade class that year came forward with similar accusations. "I couldn't believe it", Barnett said, pausing to sigh and stare off into space during his account of the events. "I was absolutely floored". Staunton's commonwealth's attorney would not bring charges against Barnett but agreed to prosecute charges that the girls or their parents obtained from a magistrate. The parents of two of the girls obtained warrants charging Barnett with misdemeanor assault and battery.

In June, the Department of Social Services ruled that allegations against the teacher were founded, meaning the agency believed abuse had occurred. The determination placed Barnett's name on the department's Central Registry for Founded Investigations, a listing that is not public but one that state school systems use to screen for employment.

Barnett said he considered suicide to keep his two daughters, who attend Augusta County public schools, from enduring a protracted legal battle and publicity, he said. His 28-year-old son lives out of the area. Barnett lost in the first stage of his criminal case in September 1999 when a Staunton Juvenile and Domestic Relations judge convicted him on both charges.

Barnett appealed, however, and a city circuit judge found him innocent in February. In March, Social Services upheld its earlier determination that the allegations were "founded", keeping his name on the Central Registry and preventing Barnett from returning to the classroom. The agency bases its findings on a "preponderance of evidence", a lower standard than the strict standard of proof "beyond a reasonable doubt" needed for a criminal conviction.

Social Services workers would not discuss Barnett's case. Marian Johnson, a department spokeswoman in Richmond, said the agency maintains its findings independently of court rulings.

"Once a person is on the registry, they're on the registry", Johnson said. "If a situation is investigated and an allegation is determined to be founded, the person is placed on it for a specific amount of time depending on the level of abuse".

Meanwhile, Barnett fought off a lawsuit that one of the girl's parents filed this year against him and the School Board. After an unfavorable pretrial ruling, the family dropped the suit in July.

In August, Barnett appealed his case in a hearing before a deputy commissioner in Richmond. The officer informed Barnett last month that it had reversed its finding and would remove his name from the registry, Barnett said. The Staunton School Board lifted its suspension and scheduled Barnett to take over his fourth-grade class on Jan. 16.

He has been on paid leave during his hiatus and lost no income because of the fights but accumulated $15,000 in outstanding legal bills, he said. Daughters Summer, 18, and Bethany, 12, never wavered in their support for him, he said. "They never questioned my innocence for a second", he said. "They handled it better than I thought they would. I'm glad I didn't kill myself", Barnett said with a laugh.

When he returns to the classroom, he realizes he'll have to protect himself from future accusations. He's searching for insurance coverage. He's mulled over a contact permission form, requesting from parents the authorization to touch their children on the head, face, arm and shoulders. "If it's not okay, let me know", he posits for the wording. "But if it is okay, let me know that, too. There'd be a place to sign at the bottom".

Dean Tong, a forensic consultant who works with child-abuse claims he believes are false, suggested people who think they could be targeted for false child-abuse claims record events diligently. Such a person should organize a timeline and keep a diary of events to discredit witnesses should an allegation make its way to court, Tong said. He believes the system tends to favor the testimony of children. "If it comes down to he-said, she-said, the system is going to come down on the side of the child", Tong said.

Barnett returned to hugs from pupils at Dixon Elementary last week. He said he was too "gun-shy" to respond as he normally would. There are rewards from teaching besides building the personal relationships that have become important in his life. He doesn't know if there are enough to make the job worth it, though. "It remains to be seen whether I can still build those types of relationships", he said. "If I can't build those relationships, it remains to be seen whether I can stay in teaching".

Contact Calvin R. Trice at (540) 574-9977 or ctrice@timesdispatch.com

The Separation of Parents Children Without Investigation

Dean Tong presents "The Separation of Parents Children Without Investigation" during the afternoon on Saturday, September 23rd at the Council Chambers of the "New" City Hall in Toronto, Canada. For more information call or e-mail Brian Jenkins at 905-271-1473 or bjenkins@axxent.ca, or visit http://fact.on.ca

Dean Tong presented as the Keynote Speaker at the Fathers Day 2000 Rally in Washington, DC.

Reprint from the Christian Science Monitor

USA SPANKING DEBATE

The case of a father's refusal to spare the rod
Yvonne Zipp
Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor

The Rev. Donald Cobble believes in parenting according to his reading of the Bible. When his son does something wrong, the Woburn, Mass., dad gives him a couple of smacks on the behind with a belt.

"The rod is a necessary part - not the whole - of training a child", says the pastor at the Christian Teaching and Worship Center, quoting Proverbs. 'The rod and reproof bring wisdom.' There are some things rebuke won't take care of.

But what he calls necessary discipline, the Massachusetts Department of Social Services called child abuse. While the spankings weren't against the law, the DSS says, they put Mr. Cobble's son at risk of future injury - a finding a Superior Court judge upheld.

Cobble appealed that ruling to the state's high court this week, saying the decision infringes on his right to discipline his son according to his religious convictions.

The case comes at a time when many Americans are pondering what constitutes appropriate discipline for a child - and questioning who should make that call, the parent or the state. While government has enlarged its oversight of families in recent decades, some parents are now challenging that role.

"There's a generally healthy reassertion of parental rights and responsibilities", says Father Richard John Neuhaus, editor in chief of First Things First in New York. "We're witnessing today a growing suspicion of specialists, especially government bureaucratic specialists to know what's good for a child".

That is one of the arguments used in Cobble's appeal. "I'm saying, keep away from the family unit", says Chester Darling, Cobble's attorney. The state should intervene in legitimate cases of abuse, but when it comes to corporal punishment, "it's none of the state's business what kind of discipline is used".

The Massachusetts case is an example of how divisive an issue spanking is in the US - with some considering it a necessary tool to create upstanding adults and others regarding corporal punishment as next to human rights abuse.

"Opinion polls in the country are pretty much divided 50-50 about the use of corporal punishment", says Martha Minow, a professor at Harvard Law School in Cambridge, Mass. "The climate is one of great disagreement".

US divided on spanking

For one, people's views on spanking divide along regional lines, she says. The South, for example, is more inclined to follow the philosophy of "spare the rod, spoil the child", while the Northeast is more likely to spare the rod.

For another, laws about spanking vary widely from state to state. For example, corporal punishment in schools is legal in 23 states, many of them in the South. And a quest earlier this year to turn Oakland, Calif., into the first no-spanking zone in the United States was quickly swatted down.

In many ways, Massachusetts illustrates just how radically views have changed. In Colonial Massachusetts, says parenting expert Murray Straus, a parent could legally kill a child for being rebellious. Not that there are many - if any - reported cases of a parent availing himself of the Rebellious Child Law, he adds quickly, "but it shows you the sentiment of the times".

The informal standard of defining abuse has traditionally been: "If a child is injured, then it's abuse", says Mr. Straus, co- director of the Family Research Laboratory at the University of New Hampshire in Durham. He cites an example of a New Hampshire mother who hit her child with a belt. She was cleared of abuse charges because the child didn't require any medical treatment. But Straus adds, "We're in a state of flux on this issue in this country. The culture is changing; standards are changing".

Now, for example, he says Americans are more likely to define hitting a child with an object as excessive punishment. Just 27 percent of respondents had struck their child with an object - such as a belt or hairbrush - during the past year, according to a 1995 study by the Family Research Laboratory. The number of parents who used corporal punishment on their teens was halved - from 66 percent in the late 1960s to 33 percent in 1995.

A slim majority of parents, 55 percent, believed it was "sometimes necessary" to spank a child, down from 94 percent in 1968. But 94 percent of respondents with children aged 2 to 5 said they had spanked their children within the year.

"The beliefs and attitudes are changing faster than behavior, but both are changing", says Straus. "You can now find lots of people who weren't spanked as a child".

Defining abuse

If people are divided over corporal punishment, the law in many cases is even murkier, experts say.

In Massachusetts, there is no specific list of actions that constitute abuse. Moreover, a parent doesn't have to injure a child to be reported - as long "as the substantial risk of harm" is there, as DSS argues was the case with Cobble and his son.

"The legislature has balanced opposing societal viewpoints", says Juliana Rice, an assistant attorney general representing the commissioner of the DSS.

Recognizing that "what may be harmful for one child may not be harmful for another", the law does not define abuse in terms of parental conduct, but rather on the degree of harm to the child.

That can be confusing - and not just for parents. At the court hearing Sept. 13, the Massachusetts justices repeatedly asked lawyers what kind of corporal punishment would be acceptable, in their view.

"How is a parent to know?" asked Justice Roderick Ireland.

"The law needs to give us a clear and lucid definition of when spanking becomes abuse", says Mr. Neuhaus.

Professor Minow, who personally opposes spanking, agrees, saying that when the definition of abuse is decided on a case-by-case basis, there's the threat of selective punishment - with immigrant families and religious minorities being subjected to closer scrutiny.

"We need to send a message to the legislature that there are several red flags", says Dean Tong, author of "Ashes to Ashes, Families to Dust" and a forensic consultant on abuse cases in Tampa, Fla. "When the laws are very vague, it's open season for victimization".

The URL for this page is: here

Contact Mr. Tong via e-mail at DeanTong@aol.com