Legal arguments in the nine-month trial of a day-care teacher accused of sexually abusing 20 children at a center in Maplewood ended here today.An appellate court ruled that several features of the original trial had produced an unjust ruling and the conviction was reversed.The case was studied by several psychologists who were concerned about the interrogation methods used and the quality of the childrens testimony in the case.
Margaret Kelly Michaels Today Thirty Years Later Trial Of AThis resulted in research concerning the topic of childrens memory and suggestibility, resulting in new recommendations for performing interviews with child victims and witnesses. The comment was reported to the local authorities, and all the children at the Wee Care Nursery School were questioned. Social workers and therapists collected testimony from 51 children from the day care center. During the interviews, children made accusations such as that Michaels forced them to lick peanut butter off of her genitals, that she penetrated their rectums and vaginas with knives, forks and other objects, that she forced them to eat cakes made from human excrement and that she made them play duck, duck, goose while naked. Michaels was indicted for 235 counts of sexual offenses with children and youths. She denied the charges. The witnesses said the children became afraid to be left alone or to stay in the dark. They also testified that the children exhibited knowledge of sexual behavior far beyond their years. Some of the other teachers testified against her. The defense argued that Michaels had not had the opportunity to take the children to a location where all of the alleged activities could have taken place without being noticed. The jury was not shown the transcripts of the interrogations of the children that produced the accusations. At that time, 131 counts remained, including charges of aggravated sexual assault, sexual assault, endangering the welfare of children, and making terroristic threats. The jury deliberated for 12 days before Michaels was convicted of 115 counts of sexual offenses involving 20 children. In June 1993, the State Supreme Court refused to hear the prosecutors appeal of the decision. Some of the issues that were addressed were the role of interviewer bias, repeated questions, peer pressure, and the use of anatomically correct dolls in contaminating the childrens testimony. These interview techniques could have led to memory errors or false memories. Compared with a set of interviews from Child Protective Services, the interviews from the two trials were significantly more likely to (a) introduce new suggestive information into the interview, (b) provide praise, promises, and positive reinforcement, (c) express disapproval, disbelief, or disagreement with children, (d) exert conformity pressure, and (e) invite children to pretend or speculate about supposed events. Margaret Kelly Michaels Today Thirty Years Later How To Prevent FantasyJust how to prevent fantasy from being presented as fact in sex-abuse cases is facing the New Jersey Supreme Court in the wake of one of the most sensational of the spate of cases involving day-care workers during the 1980s. The court heard arguments today about the admissibility of evidence in the case of Margaret Kelly Michaels, who was convicted of sexually molesting 19 children, many of them 3- and 4-year-olds, during her seven-month employment at Wee Care Nursery in Maplewood. She served 5 years of a 47-year sentence before her conviction was overturned early last year. Margaret Kelly Michaels (1993). N.J. Super. 579; 625 A.2d 489. Michaels presented by committee of concerned social scientists. Psychology, Public Policy, and Law. Child Abuse and Neglect. PMC 2180422. PMID 18023872. Former Day-Care Teacher Denies Sexually Abusing Schoolchildren. The Sacrosanct Accusation: No questions, they told me about phony sex-abuse charges.
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