Molestation convictions tossed 19 years later

California man awaits hearing to set release date

BAKERSFIELD, Calif. - A judge Friday threw out the conviction of a man imprisoned 19 years for molesting children, concluding that the testimony of the alleged victims was unreliable. Most of the children now say the assaults never happened.

John Stoll, now 60, will remain in custody until a May 4 hearing to determine a release date.

He was convicted in 1985 on 17 counts of child molestation. Attorneys for the Innocence Project have sought his freedom since January, claiming authorities coerced false testimony from the child victims, ranging from 6 to 8 years old.

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Doctors never examined the children who claimed to have been molested by Stoll and others at parties that included sodomy and group sex.
Four of Stoll’s accusers, now adults, recently testified they were manipulated by investigators who dogged them for hours until they fabricated the stories. A fifth witness testified he has no memories from that part of his childhood.

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We know that innocent people get locked up for allegedly sexually abusing children. In the heat of the moment, how many innocents are locked up? There have been witchhunts. All too many say that it's better to lock up the innocent if you can nab the guilty too. That's a horrible attitude and degrades the society. There needs to be a review of how these investigations and criminal proceedings are conducted.

that was sweeping the country at that time> it has since been debunked.

These ingredients leave the accused at the mercy of the DA and psychiatrists without a reasonable ability to confront the evidence in order to refute it.

As for the repressed memory thing specifically, they used that with the "Satanic" frenzy of the 80's. Fringe groups were trying to make people believe that Satanists were raping children and killing people sacrificially left and right.

Hopefully he avoided all the rapes some "progressives" advocate for convicted (or in some cases accused) child molestors.

They committed felonies; send them to prison.