THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Saturday, September 9, 1995 TAG: 9509090280
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B1 EDITION: NORTH CAROLINA
SOURCE: BY MASON PETERS, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: ELIZABETH CITY LENGTH: Long : 103 lines
It may take a month of sleepless nights and coffee-drinking days before District Attorney Frank Roland Parrish decides if society deserves or needs another round of Little Rascals pain and passion.
``It's not in the public interest to drag this out,'' Parrish said Friday. ``I think we can decide within four weeks whether we go to trial again.''
The North Carolina Supreme Court and state Attorney General Mike Easley passed the buck to Parrish on Thursday, leaving it up to him to decide whether to retry Robert F. Kelly Jr., 47, and Kathryn Dawn Wilson, 29, or dismiss charges that they abused children at the Little Rascals day care center in Edenton.
``We have to do what's right, and that can involve subjective as well as objective feelings,'' said Parrish, 46, a rumpled legal scholar whose ears are buried in untrimmed hair and who was elected 1st Judicial District prosecutor in a 1994 upset.
By early Friday morning, enormous pressure was building on Parrish to let it all slide; to forget new trials; to let the hideous Little Rascals memories simply fade away.
``This is about fairness and human hearts as well as the law,'' said Parrish, who may be one of the few District Attorney's ever to be honored by a national legal organization as ``the best and most compassionate murder trial prosecutor'' in two judicial districts.
Parrish candidly discussed how he will search his soul as well as the rules of law to determine whether the Little Rascals evidence that included explicit sex testimony of children should again be told in court.
Some of the children are close to being teenagers now; it has been six years since the Little Rascals investigation first shocked Edenton, a community where gentility is high among the virtues.
Attorney General Easley, whose office prosecuted Kelly and Wilson when they were convicted and given life terms, gave jurisdiction to Parrish after the court ruling Thursday that their first trials were flawed and they were entitled to new trials.
``Frank Parrish earlier advised this office that he would handle any retrials and decide whether to dismiss these cases,'' said Easley a few hours after the Supreme Court said Kelley and Wilson were entitled to new trials.
Then, in an ambiguous comment that could hardly have encouraged Parrish, the attorney general said:
``All prosecutors know that cases involving children weaken with age. A retrial in this matter will be extremely difficult.
``These children were 3 years old when these acts occurred, 5 years old when they testified, and some are 11 years old now. Their memories have faded. Some parents will understandably discourage their children from participating in another nine-month trial. The trauma of another trial will be impossible for some children to endure.
``A new trial will have different rules; including recent cases that allow more access to the children's personal therapy records . . .''
Parrish said he and Nancy Lamb, an assistant district attorney who was a special prosecutor for the attorney general during the prosecution of Kelly and Wilson, would immediately begin reviewing the earlier trials in which Lamb won convictions.
``We have to consider the impact new court appearances would have now that the children are older,'' Parrish said. ``They would have to testify again and that could be very difficult for them now.''
Parrish said he would consult with all of the parents whose children were named as victims in the Little Rascals child molestations.
In Kelly's case, 12 children were involved at trial as victims; in Wilson's case, 4 children were involved. ``We have to respect their wishes, too,'' Parrish continued. ``If they don't want their children to testify again, we must respect that.''
Parrish said he would apply rigid tests to the evidence available to determine whether it was likely to again win convictions.
``There are degrees of evidence. We'll look at all of it and then decide what is right and what is in the public interest,'' said Parrish.
Meanwhile, in Edenton gray skies reflected the mood of many citizens who lived through the pain of the earlier Little Rascals investigation and trials that turned neighbor against neighbor.
``The television people are back and they're going up and down the street trying to get people to say something,'' said a secretary in the office of a county official.
``Nobody's saying much. We don't need that mess again.'' MEMO: PARENTS' STATEMENT
Parents of children who testified in the Little Rascals case issued a
statement Friday:
``The real tragedy in the Supreme Court's decision is that the true
victims, the children, whose great suffering has been overlooked and all
but forgotten, must continue to fight for the most basic of human
rights, the right to be safe,'' the parents said in a statement under
the letterhead of a Windsor law office.
The statement, released by parent Susan Small, also said:
``Trial of these cases has never been easy. From the beginning, we
have been characterized as hysterical witch-hunters. We have never had
an outpouring of public support, no special interest group or
`committee' to take up our cause . . . Yet amid all the ridicule and
adversity, we have quietly remained steadfast in our pursuit of
justice.''
The Associated Press contributed to this story.
KEYWORDS: CHILD MOLESTER by CNB