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The Baran case produced the first of many bogus sex-abuse convictions of American daycare workers. But Bernard Baran's arrest was hardly the first in that '80s wave of hysteria. His prosecution was steeped in media hype surrounding the Amirault case in Malden, Massachusetts; purported sex rings in Bakersfield, California (see The Guide, April 2004), and Jordan, Minnesota; and the immense McMartin case in Manhattan Beach, California, a case that finally resulted in no convictions after the longest, costliest trial process in US history.

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These witch hunts hatched lurid news reports throughout 1984, a period of panic over nonexistent "Satanic Ritual Abuse." Newly discovered Baran documents include correspondence between prosecutor Daniel Ford and officials in Jordan, Minnesota, where 24 people were arrested in the spring of 1984 on charges ranging from kiddie-porn production to child sacrifice. (All of the Jordan defendants were acquitted or released when charges were dropped; the Minnesota Attorney General's office issued a borderline apology in 1985.)

The September 5 arrest of Gerald Amirault and the investigation of his mother's daycare center received over-the-top local TV news coverage during the weeks preceding David and Julie Heath's initial complaint against Baran. At the time of Baran's arrest and trial, David Capeless of Pittsfield worked in Eastern Massachusetts at the Middlesex County DA's office, then immersed in efforts to place the Amirault family behind bars. Whether or not Capeless traded information with Baran prosecutors who later became his colleagues, the future Berkshire County DA was grounded in the Middlesex County prosecutorial faith in widespread mass molestation.

Soon after Amirault's arrest, his mother, Violet, and his sister, Cheryl, were also placed in detention. The three had run the popular Fells Acres Day School, founded by Violet 14 years before. The Fells Acres debacle followed a classic pattern: following accusations from dubious sources, overzealous police and therapists elicited more accusations through relentless pressure, leading questions, and encouragement of sexual talk by means of dolls with genitalia. The children told of anal penetration with knives, animal mutilation, and attack by Star Wars robot Artoo Detoo.

Following the Amiraults' convictions, a succession of Middlesex County DAs used their case for political gain, ruthlessly derailing every appeal and building up a body of child-abuse jurisprudence unique to Massachusetts. Cultivation of spurious child testimony is, for example, more acceptable in the Bay State than elsewhere. The Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court sided with Amirault prosecutors, ultimately putting forth a doctrine of "finality"-- the idea that, while a case might be flawed, the appeals process should be stopped if it seems to drag on. Violet died in 1997; Gerald and Cheryl, now free, remain stigmatized as sex offenders.

The Amirault legacy sets Massachusetts apart. Most of the '80s sex-panic defendants in other parts of the US have been exonerated or set free through face-saving arrangements crafted by prosecutors. But DA Capeless's response to Baran's new trial motion cites failed Amirault appeals in his effort to deny an innocent man his freedom.