Hello Allen, 
In the last message I put my foot in my mouth and then crammed it down my
throat when I said....
 VF>I've been hearing a lot about the DAUBERT decision lately.  It must be a
 VF>pretty good one.  I'll have to look into that one.  It doesn't apply in
 VF>our case, but I know of others where it may.
Right!  It may very well apply now!  As I said before, in my "friends" 
case, the little girl is now saying that certain things happened, when in
fact, they did not.  For example:  the little girl now says that she had
actual intercourse with her brothers - when medical tests PROVE otherwise,
along with that *disclosure* is talk of "sexual games" that were played.
This is very strange because 2 investigations (1 by police, 1 by a child 
abuse investigator my friend hired) revealed that the incident(s) involved 
only mutual touching between the girl and one boy, and the girl attempted  
to touch the other boy.  These facts have been consistant for over a year, 
and now *all of the sudden* this *new* information surfaces.  Yes, DAUBERT 
may very well apply to my friends case now.
 AC> I commented earlier about DAUBERT, but as I understand it, DAUBERT
 AC> basically turned expert testimony upside down and personally, I think
 AC> it's the best ruling to appear in a while.  Think about it.  A person
 AC> is accused of sexually molesting a child.  The state has a psychologist
 AC> as does the defense.  One says the child was molested and the other
 AC> says, not.  Where is the scientific proof?  There is noe and it becomes
 AC> a question of "Who the jury likes best."  Something wrong with that
 AC> system!
No kidding!  There is something very wrong with the system.  I find it
hard to believe that a person can steal something worth $40 and get a
trial by jury, but a parent accused of "abuse" or "failure to protect"
can lose their child forever and not even be entitled to a trial by a
jury of their peers.  They get a judge that the county pays for, an
attorney that the county pays for, a social worker that the county pays
for, a counselor that the county pays for, a CASR worker that the county
pays for, and so on.  How can that possibly be fair?  How can anyone in
their right mind ever call it justice?  How could I have been so naive?
 VF> Get this, my "friends" case supposedly involves sexual abuse, and her 
 VF> family has the backing of the local MASA representative for their case.
 AC> Fantastic.  I guess we would to except for the fact they appeared to
 AC> be on the prosecutor's payroll .
Yeah, that's typical.  I was really surprised that my friend got their
backing, and MASA knows all the details.  I guess perhaps the fact that
it was a mutual friend of the regional MASA representative and my friend
that introduced them, that probably made the difference.
About the "child-savers"...
 VF>I really wonder what line some of
 VF>these people were standing in when brains got passed out.
 AC> Well, most of them thought the good Lord said "RAIN" instead of
 AC> brains, and ran for cover.
Hee hee, hoo hoo, ha ha!  That's good!  I usually say that they thought
God said "PAIN" and ran away, but I like the "RAIN" better!  
 AC> Hey I just noticed your tag line; Pittsburg, CA.  Is that where you
 AC> are from.  
I'm in Martinez, but the board I log on to is in Pittsburg, which is 15
miles east of here.  Martinez is north of Walnut Creek, Lafayette, and 
Oakland.  Not only is it the birthplace and hometown of Joe DiMaggio, it
is also where the infamous drink, the martini, came in to being. 
 
 AC> If so, I was in your area not long ago and met some of the
 AC> most fantastic people.  
There are a lot of fantastic people here, but I want to go home to 
Michigan.  I know things are that much different with the system there,
but I'd like to at least be able to suffer with my family (relatives)
rather than 2500 miles away from them.
 
 AC> We started in San Diego (the grand jury) and
 AC> kind of worked our way up-state.  Some of our best help came from San
 AC> Diego. Met a woman named Carol Hopkins who served on the grand jury
 AC> during their studies into the false accusations of child abuse.  She
 AC> had a wealth of information and a world of great contacts.  You could
 AC> not meet a finer woman anywhere.
I'd love to talk to her!  I recently made a contact with a reporter from 
the Boston Globe.  He has an excellant contact for the horrors of the 
foster care system.  I'm hoping that perhaps I can work with him on some
articles (provide information/statistics) in the future.  I'll let you 
know where his sympathies lie, and if all goes right, perhaps he could 
shed some light on your clients case.
 AC> Well, I've all but turned this into a short BOOK , so I'll let you
 AC> go, but good luck and I'll be praying for YOUR FRIEND! .  Hang in
 AC> there and never give up the fight.
Thank you so much for the prayers.  You are joined by hundreds of others
praying for us, but I cherish each and every prayer we receive.  Thank 
you.  Al, you can be assured that as long as children continue to be 
victimized by the system like I was, and like my children are right now, 
I will NEVER give up.  Neither will my husband.  Three years ago our 16 
year old falsely accused us of beating him, and it was PROVEN to be false.  
We wanted to do something then to help other victims of false accusations, 
and we didn't.  As soon as social services was out the door we put our 
heads back in the sand and tried to ignore the problem that we knew was 
there.  We won't make that mistake again.  This time it has cost us our 
family (as we knew it), and we will never turn our backs again.  We can't.
 AC> It was great hearing from you and tell your husband hello.
It's wonderful hearing from you, and Don says "Hello Allen".
Val
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