Okay, I've been meaning to post something about this topic for a while, but I haven't really decided exactly what it is I want to say. I still haven't decided, but here goes.

One of the themes of last week was witches. I guess you could say it continued till Tuesday of this week, when I went through Salem for a visit with a client for my clinical (Salem Cycles. Logo: Witch riding across the moon on a ... bike! What a wacky town!). In Evidence class we watched a fascinating documentary, "Capturing the Friedmans." This isn't something they would show at BYU, but the point was made loud and clear. Without making a full review of the movie, here's a summary. In 1988, Arnie Friedman was arrested at his Long Island home on multiple counts of child sexual molestation and sodomy. He had been teaching a computer class in his home for neighborhood boys ages 10-14 or so, and both he and his son Jesse were accused of molesting the boys every day when they came over for computer class. The story came to light because the postal service reported that Arnie was receiving child pornography in the mail. The police searched the house and found out about the computer class, got a list of the students, and interviewed them. In the interviews, the kids started telling for the first time about the terrible things Arnie and Jesse were doing to them. From an evidence class perspective, this is a nightmare of hearsay evidence. There was absolutely nothing to base the charges of molestation on other than the children's answers to provocative police questioning. But because the charges were so steep (over 200 counts, carrying quite a few years of jail time each), both Arnie and Jesse ended up pleading guilty, so the cases were never tried and nothing was ever proven. Arnie committed suicide in prison, and Jesse served 13 years. The whole proceeding stank of the Salem witch trials to me.

Enter the Salem witch trials. Last Friday I attended the Harvard Law School production of "The Crucible," directed by none other than my evidence professor (The Dramatic Professor Hay). As we all know, Arthur Miller wrote "The Crucible" as an analogy to the witch hunt of his day, the McCarthyist Communist hunt. The performances were great. I saw the movie long ago, and know the basic history of the Salem story, but this brought it to life for me much more.

I think one of the fascinating things for modern Americans about the Salem witch hysteria is that we can't comprehend that rational humans would act so irrationally. I think we all believe that witchcraft, as they defined it in 1692, doesn't really exist, so we automatically side with those who were accused, tried, and/or executed. It's appalling, and the human fascination with the abomination draws us in. But most importantly, all along, at every step of the way, with every line in "The Crucible," with every crazy shop sign in modern Salem, we tell ourselves THIS COULD NEVER HAPPEN HERE AND NOW.

The historical context of "The Crucible" reminds us that we're wrong. The Red Scare was very analogous to the Witch Scare. Modern America did it. People's lives were ruined based on spurious accusations. In the twenty-first century, though, we reassure ourselves that society has progressed a lot since th 1950s, and THIS COULD NEVER HAPPEN NOW.

But "Capturing the Friedmans" proves us wrong yet again. The events described happened in 1988, but on the special features of the DVD, there was film of the discussion after the New York City and Long Island premieres of the movie--in the summer of 2003. In attendance were many of the principal characters in the documentary. The police and the judge involved in the case still believe that what they did was right, and that Arnie and Jesse were guilty of these gross crimes. Just because some kids, scared by leading questions of a police officer, said so.

It can happen. Here. Now.

It makes me afraid.