Bernie Baran Update

Bernie Baran is now out on bail, and his 1985 conviction has been overturned. He will be getting a new trial, thanks to a ruling by Superior Court Judge Francis R. Fecteau. From the press release (sorry, I don't have a link):

Judge Francis Fecteau’s 79-page opinion is a devastating summary of everything wrong with these prosecutions – the coaching of the children, putting words in their mouths, refusal to hear their denials that any abuse took place, the careful editing of videotapes to keep the jury from seeing such denials, the misinterpretation of ordinary childhood problems as signs of sexual abuse, the blaming of family problems on day care workers, the suppression of exculpatory evidence by prosecutors. “Judge Fecteau, whether he meant to or not, has aimed a dagger at the heart of all of these phony prosecutions,” says Harvey Silverglate, Baran’s co-counsel (for the full text of Fecteau’s opinion, go here).

This is great news:

Baran's supporters view the judge's ruling as a strong step toward acquittal. Several convictions for mass child abuse from the 1980s have been overturned, including those involving workers at the Little Rascals day care center in Edenton, N.C. In another case involving the McMartin Preschool near Los Angeles, charges were dropped by prosecutors after juries deadlocked on criminal charges.

A year after Baran's case, three members of the Amirault family, who ran the Fells Acres daycare in Malden, were convicted of abusing children. Gerald "Tooky" Amirault was paroled in 2004 after serving 18 years in prison. His sister and mother were convicted during a separate trial and were released from prison in 1995. All three denied they ever abused children.

"I'm convinced that all of the high-profile day care cases of the '80s were absolute hogwash," Bob Chatelle, a Baran supporter who has helped attract attention to Baran's case, has said. Chatelle helped raise about $280,000 for Baran's new defense with a Web site, http://www.freebaran.org.

"The Baran case was railroaded through in a couple of months and was then forgotten about," Chatelle said. "No one was lifting a finger to do anything."

Here's hoping Baran finds some vindication.

Bernie Baran Update

A little more than a year ago, I first wrote about Bernie Baran, a Massachusetts man who many feel was wrongfully convicted and imprisoned on charges of child molestation – they believe that Baran was the victim of a homophobic witchhunt. And for the past 20 years, Baran has vehemently maintained his innocence.

Today, the Berkshire Eagle writes that a judge has granted Baran another trial – essentially giving Baran another chance at freedom.

Because his original trial in the 80’s was filled with many shady inconsistencies, this is wonderful news.

The important thing to remember was that the impetus behind Baran’s conviction was the fact that he was targeted for being an openly homosexual man who worked at a day care center. The hysteria that prevailed in 1984 (when his hearing was held) centered around the fear around AIDS and the mystery that surrounded this illness. Many feel that Baran was a convenient scapegoat; hopefully now, with some distance, Baran will get the fair trial he deserves.

UPDATE, 2:20 p.m.: My friend Dan, who has been working on a Baran documentary for the last few years, says that Bernie's "not at all as scary looking as the picture The Berkshire Eagle printed of him, which was taken shortly after major surgery last year, and he still had a morphine patch on his shoulder."

Open Letter to Margaret Cho

My friend Dan, the one I wrote about back in May who's making a documentary on Bernie Baran, just wrote this letter to Comedian and Gay-Friendly Activist Margaret Cho, in the hopes that she'll help build awareness about his case. I'm reproducing the letter here, because as a Person-Who-Loves-Gay-People, I want Bernie's voice to be heard. Every American deserves the right to a free trial. And in the tradition of the West Memphis 3 and Mumia Abu-Jamal, I want to do my part - however small - to end injustice in our own country.





***
From: Daniel Alexander
Date: Aug 11, 2005 12:56 PM
Subject: Bernie Baran
To: margaret@margaretcho.net

Dear Margaret & Margaret's People,

I'm writing to tell you about a gay man I have gotten to know while making a documentary film about him, his story, his family, and the injustice done against them.

His name is Bernie Baran. He likes to be called Bee. He's one of the most courageous and sweetest guys I have ever met. He reminds me of the guy at the Gap on Upper Market in San Francisco that can fold a sweater perfectly while simultaneously chatting you up and ringing you up, and noticing that you've lost a few pounds when you haven't. Unfortunately, Bee has not had the chance to work at the Gap, or see San Francisco.

Bernie Baran has the dubious distinction of being the first conviction from the day care panic of the 1980s where dozens of innocent day care workers across the country were wrongly convicted of child abuse. In some ways the Baran case is just like all the other day care cases: false accusations from one, crazed parent, then a panic amongst the other parents; aggressive, suggestive interviews with young children leading them to believe they were abused when they weren't; bad science introduced in the court room; constitutional rights to face your accusers overridden; parents allowed to make hearsay testimony in place of their children.

Bee's case gets worse than the others in that he was targeted because of his open homosexuality. The mother who sparked the panic in the Baran case said in a deposition that gay people shouldn't be around kids, shouldn't be allowed to have kids, shouldn't be allowed to get married, shouldn't be allowed out in public. Her son has boasted privately as recently as this year that he and his mother got away with accusing a gay guy of raping him when he didn't so they could file a civil suit for millions of dollars.

Baran's trial transcript reads like a homophobic melodrama. Think of those cases in the Deep South where African-American men were accused and convicted of rape without any evidence when the all-white juries just wanted to see black men hang. The Baran trial was much like this, with the assumption that any gay man around children must only be there to molest regardless of there being no evidence of it and plenty of evidence to the contrary.

Baran was 19 at the time of his arrest in a small town in Western Massachusetts. When he went to trial in 1984 It was still months before Doris and Rock appeared on television and AIDS became AIDS. It was still a mysterious disease during the Baran trial, and Baran was portrayed as some kind of diseased animal because he was gay and worked with children. He is still in prison today.

I recently read your blog entries about Zach and his incarceration. I also noticed you have several links to cases of injustice similar to Bee's case. I thought perhaps you might write a blog entry about Bernie Baran. (Please, pretty please: your voice goes much farther than any of the rest of us who have told Bee's story.)

Each time his story is printed (which has been rare), or each time I screen some clips from my film, a few new people come into the fold to support him in some way which he appreciates in ways we can't understand.

I've included links at the end of the email so you can read much more about him. Or you can contact me with questions; I know the case inside and out.

A ruling on overturning his conviction comes down this fall in Worcester, Massachusetts. Baran loves to hear from people on the outside who read about his story and contact him in writing to say they believe he is innocent (which he is). He especially likes to hear from gay people and people-who-love-gay-people, the luckiest people in the world. Although he is on "the inside" he was worked to keep up with the changes in gay culture. He is Queer Eye and Will & Grace literate, sneaking a portable television into his cell to watch the late night reruns hidden under the covers. He does a great Megan Mullally.

Bee is a genuinely nice guy who lives in hell but whose spirit withstands it all. In person, he's almost as funny as you.

Thanks for considering posting an entry about Bee, thanks for being a person who loves gay people, and thanks for making us laugh.

Sincerely,
Dan Alexander
917 385 4714

Attached is an article by Katha Pollitt from The Nation that encapsulates the Baran case in a page.

[...]

For all the details of Bee's case, go to the Bernard Baran Defense Fund. The site and fund are managed by two Boston justice activists who have been Bee's staunch supporters – and his gay dads -- for 6 years now. The site is comprehensive.

If you prefer watching over reading, there is an 11 minute teaser from the doc about Bee posted at my site.

Free Baran

My friend, Daniel Alexander, is currently working on a documentary featuring the story of Bernie Baran, a 39-year-old Pittsfield, Mass. native who many feel was wrongfully imprisoned for something he didn't do - an innocent victim of a homophobic witchhunt. There are so many inconsistencies and fishy circumstances that demand that Baran's case be rexamined.

For example, Katha Politt wrote in The Nation back in 2000, the following:

• The children first denied being molested, and produced accusations under parental coaching (one girl [...] told a therapist after the trial that her mother had told her to say Baran had molested her so they could get toys and money.)
• Key medical evidence has since been scientifically discredited. [One child] tested positive for gonorrhea of the throat - Baran tested negative. The test used on the child had a 50% error rate. A follow-up test on the child was never ordered.
  
• In court, the children were unforthcoming, wildly contradictory, glad to see their supposed molester [... ] and denied that anything bad happened to them.

Enough people need to know about this story so that Bernie can get his life back. He doesn't have the luxury of having a huge legal defense fund to take care of all of the expenses related to his case; he's not a household name; he didn't zoom across a Southern California freeway in a white Bronco. It's time to stand up for the little guy. It's time for justice to be served.

In this current environment of closed-door, cognitively dissonant, let's-change-the-rules-because-we-can political landscape of ours, no one is safe. Bernie's story could just as easily be yours.