Begging for Answers

If anyone can put together a coherent and believable explanation of what happened in the McMartin Preschool child-molestation case, there are many people who would like to hear it. The spectacle so far does not inspire confidence.

The case began nearly two years ago amid startling charges by children who said that they had been molested at the school in Manhattan Beach. A grand jury indicted. There was an unprecedented 18-month preliminary hearing that struggled with the thorny problems of children as witnesses--problems that have bedeviled this case throughout. Having heard the evidence, a judge ordered that all seven defendants be held to answer on all counts. Then the district attorney dropped the cases against five of the defendants, saying that there was insufficient evidence against them.

Either guilty people are being let off or innocent people have been unjustly and irreparably harmed. Children have been interviewed, have testified and been cross-examined and buffeted by the legal system--to what end? The remaining cases against two defendants rely on the same testimony of the same witnesses. How strong can they be? Has a message gone out to child molesters that the difficulties of prosecuting them mean that they need not fear prosecution?

No matter what explanation is given, it strains credulity that Dist. Atty. Ira Reiner could not have reached his decision to drop charges sooner. It is quite likely that Reiner believes that the initial charges were blown out of proportion and that much less child molesting took place at the McMartin Preschool than the public has come to believe. Why did it take two district attorneys nearly two years to discover this?

It would be easy to blame Robert H. Philibosian, Reiner’s predecessor. He was the district attorney in 1984, when the case got under way. Facing an election, this theory goes, he rushed to file charges in a high-visibility case even though his investigation was far from complete.

But blaming Philibosian overlooks the fact that a grand jury examined the evidence and returned indictments. A week before Reiner dropped the charges, his prosecutor in the courtroom asked a municipal judge, Aviva K. Bobb, to hold all defendants on all counts, and Bobb, having heard the evidence, ordered them to trial. These peoples’ actions support Philibosian’s original decision to file charges. What made Reiner change his mind and drop the cases?

The resulting mess leaves nobody satisfied, least of all the people who would like to know the truth. Did the alleged crimes at the McMartin Preschool actually take place? If not, did the children simply make up the charges, perhaps at the unwitting suggestion of interviewers and investigators? Did somebody bungle this case, or is it the sum of many small bungles along the way?

Two cases are still to go to trial. Participants are reluctant to give full details of their thinking while those cases remain. After the trials, more answers may emerge. The proceedings to date raise much concern about the outcome.