Harold Grant Snowden - Perjury / False Accusation / CSA Hysteria

Snowden, Harold Grant; FL; NRE: perjury/false accusation, no crime, child sex abuse hysteria, false/misleading forensic evidence, prosecutor misconduct, misconduct that is not withholding evidence, witness tampering or misconduct interrogating co-defendant

Suggestibility issues

537 So.2d 1383; Dist. Ct. of App. of FL 1/24/89; affirmed

"Snowden appeals his convictions on five counts of sexual battery on two children: L.B., a female aged four, and her infant brother, JB, aged six months. While we find no merit in any of the numerous points on appeal raised by Snowden, we find worthy of discussion Snowden's contention that the introduction by the State of evidence to show that [Snowden] had committed on two other children (a five-year-old boy named GW and a six-year-old girl named KM) similar acts of sexual battery -- conceded by [the State] to be objectionable on relevancy grounds -- infringed upon his right to a fair trial..."

"[W]e have no difficulty in concluding that the concededly relevant and highly probative similar fact evidence introduced by the State did not become the feature of the trial, and thus the introduction of such evidence did not deny [Snowden] a fair trial before the properly cautioned [i.e., instructed] jury."

"At the time of the events in question, Janice Snowden, the defendant's wife, was the babysitter for LB and JB. These children, and others, were left regularly at the Snowden home during daytime hours. Janice Snowden frequently placed the children in her husband's care while she ran errands. The defendant, a South Miami police officer, was home in the daytime because he worked the night shift.

"LB, six years old at the time of trial, was the only witness competent to testify to the crimes allegedly committed against her and her infant brother. A short time after the incidents which formed the charges, LB was questioned by her parents, extensively interviewed by a psychologist, and physically examined at the Jackson Memorial Hospital Rape Center. [FN5: In 1984, after reading in the newspaper about accusations of child sexual abuse levied against Grant Snowden, LB's mother questioned her four-year-old daughter about whether anything bad had happened to her while at the Snowden house. LB said no. In response to another question, LB denied that Grant had touched her private parts. That evening, Mrs. B talked with her husband, and together they questioned LB again. The child again denied that anything bad had happened,* but her manner of answering -- LB looked at the floor and made no eye contact** -- made her parents suspicious. Mr. and Mrs. B were not satisfied with the child's answers and felt that she was not telling the truth. They contacted the State Attorney's Office and were asked to bring LB in for an interview.] Dr. Laurie Braga, the psychologist -- whose interview was videotaped -- elicited from the young girl that one time when Janice left the house on an errand, Grant came into the bedroom where she and the baby were and turned off the television. Grant [supposedly] took LB's clothes off and then his own. Grant then touched his penis to her 'pee-pee' and her 'butt,' placed his hand on her pee-pee, and placed his penis in the mouths of her and her brother. The doctor at the Rape Center examined LB and found that she suffered from vaginal redness, odor, and discharge. After observing a slide (wet smear) under a miscroscope, the doctor diagnosed LB as having garnerella vaginitis, a sexually transmitted disease rarely found in young children. LB presented no other physical symptoms of having been sexually abused. About a week later, LB told her mother about what Grant had done to her."

[* So, three times, this child said nothing happened to her. When children are repeatedly asked the same question, the message they get is this: 'My first answer must have been wrong. I'd better change it.' By the time this psychologist asked her similar questions a fourth time, she finally broke down and said what her adult interrogators clearly wanted to here.]

[** The reason why the girl looked down like that and refused to make eye contact was likely that she was tired of being asked the same question over and over again, and apparently not being believed. Boredom was probably present as well.]

"During the two years that passed while the case was being readied for trial, LB's parents brought her to the State Attorney's Office about ten times."

"LB was also deposed by Snowden's attorneys. In the deposition, LB said things she later denied or were contradicted by her mother. Thus, at her deposition, she testified, inter alia, that she had told her parents immediately that Grant had done something to her, that Grant touched her pee-pee with only his hand and nothing else, and that Grant had only patted her butt.

"These and other inconsistencies, as well as LB's numerous trips to the State Attorney's Office and the psychologist's videotaped interview, were to later form the basis for Snowden's contention at trial that LB's accusations were complete abrications born of the leading questions askedby Dr. Braga and nurtured by the retelling in countless interviews at the State Attorney's Office. LB's vaginitis, argue Snowden, was misdiagnosed as a sexually transmitted disease instead of what it really was, a typical rash and vaginal discharge associated with children not yet toilet trained."

"To the State's surprise, LB, age six at the time of trial, was unable to identify [Snowden] in court as the man she knew as Grant, whom she said had molested her. To overcome this deficiency and the inconsistencies between LB's trial testimony and her pretrial responses, and to firmly establish that [Snowden] was the person who had sexually assaulted LB and her brother, the State presented evidence that Snowden had sexually abused two other young children who had also been left in the daytime care of his wife. This evidence, which Snowden strenuously disputed, consisted of the testimony of a five-year-old boy named GW and KM for signs of sexual abuse. Neither of these children presented any physical evidence of having been sexually abused, except that GW was tested twice for oral gonorrhea, first yielding a positive and then negative test result. After receiving penicillin treatment, GW was again tested, yielding a negative test result."

135 F.3d 732; 11th Cir. 2/18/98; writ granted, due to evidentiary error

"The case against Snowden was based almost entirely upon the stories told by three, young-children witnesses. The oldest, allegedly abused child (and the oldest child witness) was 6 years old at the time of the trial; the abuse had supposedly occurred at least two years before the trial. The only physical evidence that a child might have been abused by anyone was that one of the children had been treated for an ailment which can be transmitted sexually, but is also transmitted by other means.

"And this case is not one in which the prosecution's expert view of victim credibility was touched on only briefly at trial. In the prosecution's argument to the jury, he stressed the significance of the expert's opinion about the credibility of child victims of supposed sexual abuse. Over and over again, the prosecutor hit the point hard, saying this, among other things, about Dr. [Simon] Miranda's trial testimony:

'Dr. Miranda is a witness who is a real expert in this case. . .He is a real expert. . .'

'He told you about those 1,000 kids [the 1,000 Dr. Miranda had said he had interviewed about sexual abuse], 995 of them told the truth*. . .That's 99.5 percent of the children. . .He said in 99.5 percent of those cases it has been his experience that the children have been telling the truth. . .'

[* There is no way in the world that Dr. Miranda, or anyone else, can say for certain whether a given child is telling 'the truth' when alleging that he/she has been sexually abused. Studies have demonstrated that even 'experts' are no better at assessing the veracity of alleged victim's allegations than simply flipping a coin. Moreover, if -- via suggestion -- an actually non-abused child has come to truly believe he or she was abused, that child is not 'lying'; he or she has, rather, been manipulated into holding this belief.]

'That's the opinion of Dr. Simon Miranda. 99.5 percent of the kids tell the truth. . .'

'[Dr. Miranda concluded], that. . .there was no evidence that the girl made up the entire story*. . .'

[* Especially for a child that young, the risk is far less about the child 'making up' a story than that a false memory will be implanted in a child by a reckless or malevolent adult. (In any event, as every student of logic knows, 'absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.' Even when a child actually does 'make up the entire story,' because this happens within one person's head, there will rarely be any actual evidence that it has occurred.)]

'And, remember, if you don't remember anything else about Dr. Miranda's testimony, just remember two things: That he was qualified as an expert in child sexual abuse 250 times, and that it is his experience that 99.5 percent of the children who report an incident of abuse are tellling the truth.'"*

[* Lastly, even if this 99.5% figure were correct, it would still be not enough to conclude to a moral certainty that the accused in this particular case is, in fact, guilty.]