Oregon Supreme Court orders perversion files released

[RememberSchiff 3689]

"The Oregon Supreme Court on Thursday, June 14, ordered the unprecedented public release of more than 1,200 confidential files that detail sexual abuse of Boy Scouts by their troop leaders and others within scouting over a 20-year span beginning in 1965.

 

The documents, also known as the "Ineligible Volunteer" or "perversion" files, are a subset of records that have been kept under lock and key by the Boys Scouts of America since the 1920s.

 

The 20,000 pages ordered unsealed Thursday had been introduced as evidence in a landmark Oregon lawsuit in 2010. A jury awarded a record $18.5 million to a man who was molested by an assistant scoutmaster in the early 1980s, ruling that the Scouts failed to protect him..."

 

"The court ordered the files be made public after the names of victims and others who reported sexual abuse are redacted. It was not immediately known how long that process would take."

 

http://www.bostonherald.com/news/national/west/view/20120615court_approves_release_of_boy_scout_perversion_files/srvc=home&position=recent

 

http://www.oregonlive.com/portland/index.ssf/2012/06/boy_scout_sex_abuse_files_--_w.html

 

http://www.latimes.com/news/nation/nationnow/la-na-nn-boy-scouts-perversion-files-20120614,0,5541666.story

[SeattlePioneer 144]

The main purposes of this:

 

 

1) Sell more newspapers (not many people are buying them these days)

 

 

2) Help plaintiff's lawyers find new clients.

 

 

Frankly, I don't think raking up incidents that occurred 25 years ago or more serves much in the way of public purposes.

[packsaddle 753]

Somehow I still maintain the faith that regardless of the problem or need, ignorance does not enhance solutions or understanding. So as far as I'm concerned, it's about time to open this to the public.

[Horizon 97]

BSA should have seen this coming, and handed all of files over to a 3rd party organization for review. This could be a law firm, a group of former FBI agents, or whatever it was that the Scouts in Canada did. Instead, they stonewalled until forced into reaction instead of action.

[shortridge 184]

Wow, Seattle, you figured out the deep dark secret of newspapers ... They are a business, and as such need to sell papers to stay afloat. Your powers of deduction are remarkable!

 

Single-copy sales are a tiny part of a paper's revenue. Unless it's a giant blockbuster story that covers the front page with a screaming headline and photo, the average story about a scandal or controversy does not sell papers. I know the baskets of the media will find this hard to believe, but it's true. They build readers through consistency, reliability, service and information. The challenge to the print press these days stems from access. People are finding it far more convenient to read online than pick up an often-late, -soggy and -misdelivered paper that gets ink on your fingers. I worked for newspapers for 10 years, and now find myself reading it most often on my phone. Bizarre.

[Beavah 205]

Yeh do understand that the files contain things like suspicions about folks that weren't confirmed but were serious enough to exclude 'em from Scouting, right? As well as comments by people who expected that their statements would remain confidential.

 

So what we have is a plaintiff's attorney who was allowed to go on a fishing expedition for an organization's confidential records. Then, on somewhat strained grounds, the state decides to release the organization's confidential records to the world.

 

As nldscout said, da proper and likely response of the BSA and any other youth serving organization is to destroy the remaining records and never keep anything like that again. The courts have strongly incentivized making kids less safe by making it easier for predators to move around when folks get suspicious.

 

Da likely result of course is that some attorneys will sort through the records tryin' to figure out who the victims might be, so folks who are well past this will now be harassed by some in da profession. The news media will do the same. We'll see more suits against the BSA from victims, but also I expect we'll see defamation cases brought by ineligible volunteers who never actually committed a crime but whose names (unredacted in the order) will now get splashed across the news media nationwide. Imagine if you were a person who was once falsely accused of molesting a child, and the law enforcement authorities found no grounds to pursue it, but now 30 years later your name is goin' to appear in the national news. This will ruin some people's lives.

 

One can only hope that some savvy legislatures start to create safe haven exemptions in state or national law that try to protect youth organizations who maintain records like these to protect kids.

 

Beavah

 

[JoeBob 606]

SP - I think your second point about lawyers is most valid. $18.5 million for being molested? Where do I get in line?!?

 

Plus the leftist media needs another arrow to stick into the BSA. After all, we're nothing but a bunch of homophobes.

 

How much is it gonna cost to go through 1200 confidential files and redact all the names? Expect another FOS appeal...

 

 

[BadenP 93]

Beav

 

I think this is just the beginning, now that the BSA knows these "secret" files could possibly be released to the public on some future date they will do a much better and more uniform job in making these cases based on hard evidence vs reckless speculation on a nationwide basis. The local council SE's alone have too much power in the decision making as to whether or not an individual should be banned from scouting. The lack of consistancy, and questionable legality in investigating and dealing with these issues on a nationwide basis is the real dilema for the BSA, and the protection of the youth in the process.

[fred8033 1599]

Agreed. This is a witch hunt. Victim names will be redacted. How about who face unsubstantiated accusations? Until an incident is deemed credible, the accused is also a victim.

 

This is just like what happened in corporate law. For the last several years, most of the companies that I work for delete ALL email after 30, 60 or 90 days. It's a huge headache for the employees. But it protects companies from lawsuits that go fishing in email archives.

 

Will it be the same now for BSA? Every rumor needs to be a police case? Every time something doesn't jive call the police? Now BSA can't exclude volunteers just for not being comfortable with the volunteer because they can't privately document why?

 

BadenP - Nice comments.(This message has been edited by fred8033)

[Horizon 97]

As soon as the Catholic Church started losing court cases in regards to molestation charges in the ranks, the BSA should have started cleaning up their files and determining whether or not the BSA had every failed to operate both legally (as mandated reporters depending on the state) or morally (no definition should be necessary.

 

Yes, the files are full of accusations with no proof. What SHOULD exist is a commentary that states that the accusation was received, and how it was evaluated and followed up on. We should be the best at protecting kids (and I think that we are good, but not necessarily the best). Our system should be a model for everyone else.

 

I HOPE that a review of all of these files does not turn into a situation where it appears that the BSA covered up for molesters rather than cleaning up our own house. This is why I said that there should have already been a task force going through all of this already, at the request of the BSA.

 

Yes - now we are now up against hired gun plaintiffs lawyers and it could get really ugly. We need to be able to show that we did everything we could to protect the kids first.

 

NOBODY should be surprised that these files are going to be released. There is no way that we would have gotten away with keeping lists of potential child molesters secret.

[shortridge 184]

There is a very fine line that should be walked regarding unsubstantiated allegations, and I hope no speck of information is released that could identify any victims.

 

But the BSA as an institution should have nothing to fear. Irving and local SEs acted for years with only the best interests of the boys in mind, and made the proper referrals to law enforcement authorities every time. That's what they've said, at least. So these files should only improve the reputation of our youth protection efforts.

 

And if you believe that malarkey, I've got a monkey bridge over the Thames I can sell you real cheap. If these files wouldn't have embarrassed the institutional decisions, they would have been reviewed and summaries released a long time ago.

[Beavah 205]

I hope no speck of information is released that could identify any victims.

 

You're joking, right?

 

They are releasing the names and locations and details and timeframes of the ineligible volunteers. Yeh don't think that any private investigator or ambulance chaser will honestly have much difficulty in finding who the victims and folks who made the reports are, do yeh? It's virtually guaranteed.

 

Da BSA has already described that the information ain't useful for research because there were no real standards for reporting and compilation over most of the time, so the release is unlikely to provide anything useful to the broader community in terms of understanding this particular risk.

 

This will actually in the end make it easier for SEs to drop people, because yeh don't want to generate a paper trail that puts victims or reporters of potential problems at risk, along with da organization. So there won't be a record that others can review (or subpoena).

 

I think da real issue is that the general public believes that somehow if every potential abuse case is referred to law enforcement that the problem will be magically solved. Nothing could be further from the truth, as the Jerry Sandusky case demonstrates, where there were calls to law enforcement along the way. In the U.S., we require proof beyond a reasonable doubt for law enforcement action to be successful, and da nature of sexually abusive relationships with minors is that they are murky and proof is hard to come by. I remember reading in one report that on average, a child molester molests over 100 children before a conviction becomes likely.

 

So if yeh really want to protect children, yeh have to have organizations that are willing to act to exclude people long before there is sufficient evidence to yield a conviction. Yeh have to act before law enforcement is able to act.

 

What this ruling does is that it makes that common sense and necessary effort to protect kids much, much, much harder. Da BSA is 100% correct in its position.

 

Beavah

[skeptic 1002]

Can anyone say "McMartin"? Why is it that we do not learn from such fiasco's? Now the "witch hunt" is to open to whomever might likely profit from it, mostly lawyers with questionable ethics. As pointed out; how many individuals who were never prosecuted for whatever reason held sway at the time of the accusation or suspicion will now be dragged through the mud? How many victims will be accosted by things they may have finally dealt with and moved on from? Redacting victims is only asking the "diggers" to find them by other methods; but they will search, that can be almost guaranteed.

 

We continue to have some that think somehow we can make positive changes to difficult earlier traumas that were dealt with as the society generally acted at the time, but now do not conform. At some point, ALL of this should be allowed to remain in the past.

 

Now, I could see the usefulness of using completely redacted files to examine responses at the time as guides as to how better to deal with similar issues today. That makes sense to me.

 

But, as I have noticed; much of what seems sensible or pertinent to me in relation to these emotional subjects do not seem to much credence in these discussions. Whether that is because few here feel they are worth consideration, or they are so close to reality that they cannot be dissed very successfully, so do not fit in to the propensity to obdurate hysteria, I cannot surmise.

 

Whatever, I personally find these continued negative decisions to be invasive at least, and certainly overboard as far as their reach and the "emotional compensation".

[shortridge 184]

Beavah,

 

I'm sincerely not joking. My hope is that identifiying information about specific victims will not be made public. Identifying ages, ranks, specific dates, etc., can all do that. My hope is only the general information will be released. Saying that Mr. Molester was SM of Troop 27 in Anytown and that he was accused of molesting three boys but the SE found the allegations substantiated after interviews should not ID anyone.

 

Yes, you are absolutely right that referring cases to the police is not a sure fire way to catch these offenders. But we have seen over and over, most notably in the priest abuse cases, where no one was notified and the offenses swept under the rug. If police aren't contacted at all, they certainly can't conduct an investigation. I'd rather have them try and come up empty than have a SE or Monsignor effectively decide to shut down an investigation before it begins.

 

Your claim that this will hamper protection efforts is based in so much cattle manure. There is nothing preventing a SE from barring a Scouter contingent upon the conclusion of a criminal investigation or case.

 

If the BSA had nothing to hide, it would have reviewed and released these files itself, edited, of course. The fact that it hasn't speaks volumes about what they contain.(This message has been edited by Shortridge)

[scoutingagain 20]

Unfortunately Beav's correct. With ten's of $millions at stake in potential settlements a law firm could easily track down a list of scouts who were in Troop 27 during the suspected SM's tenure and then go fishing. In a civil case, it would not take evidence "beyond a reasonable doubt" to provide sufficient ammunition to get a negotiated settlement from an individual, council or a CO.

 

This is a potential nightmare.

 

SA