Inside the Courtroom

 

The McMartin courtroom proceedings from 1987 to 1990 were a judicial marathon that exposed the complete evaporation of the prosecution’s case under the scrutiny of an actual trial. What had seemed like an open-and-shut case of evil in the public imagination collapsed into a legal fiasco defined by a staggering lack of evidence.

Trial Timeline: A Slow-Motion Implosion

The legal process was grueling and fragmented:

The First Trial (People v. Raymond Buckey et al., 1987-1990): This was the main event, lasting 33 months and becoming the longest criminal trial in American history. The prosecution initially charged seven defendants, but charges were dropped for five of them mid-trial due to a complete lack of evidence. Only Raymond Buckey and his mother, Peggy McMartin Buckey, faced the jury’s verdict.

The Verdicts and Retrial: After deliberating for nine weeks, the jury acquitted Peggy McMartin Buckey on all charges and was deadlocked on 13 counts against Ray Buckey. The jury voted 10-2 for acquittal on the remaining counts. A second, shorter trial was held for Ray Buckey in 1990 on 8 of the deadlocked counts. That jury deadlocked again, voting 7-5 for acquittal. The prosecution, recognizing the futility, dropped all charges.

The Evidence: A Colossal Nothingburger

The core reason for the acquittals was the complete and total absence of physical evidence to support the fantastic allegations. In the courtroom, the conspiracy theory met the hard reality of the legal standard of proof beyond a reasonable doubt.

No Physical Corroboration: The prosecution could produce no evidence of the secret tunnels, no forensic proof of sexual abuse from medical examinations, no blood evidence from alleged animal sacrifices, and no pornography or ritual objects from the school. The entire case rested solely on the children’s testimonies.

The Testimonies Unraveled: In the witness box, the children’s stories, which had seemed so compelling in abstract, fell apart. Under cross-examination, many children recanted their previous statements, admitted they were lying to please the interviewers, or described events that were physically impossible. The jury saw firsthand how the testimony had been manufactured.

Ray Buckey’s Five-Year Ordeal

A central injustice of the case was the pretrial detention of Ray Buckey. He spent five years in jail without being convicted of a crime, a period longer than any sentence he might have received had he been convicted on the minor charges that initially had some plausible basis. This lengthy incarceration was a form of punishment in itself, inflicted by a system that capitulated to public hysteria rather than upholding the presumption of innocence.

Juror Reflections: The Experts on Trial

Post-trial interviews with jurors revealed that their verdict was not just about the lack of evidence, but a profound rejection of the prosecution’s methods and expert witnesses.

Credibility of the Interviewers: Jurors cited the testimony from the CII interviewers, particularly Kee MacFarlane, as a major factor in their decision to acquit. They found her methods to be blatantly leading and coercive. The videotapes of the interviews, when played in court, were devastating to the prosecution’s case. Jurors saw an adult relentlessly suggesting answers to a child rather than listening to one.

The “Recovered Memory” Defense: The defense successfully put the entire theory of Satanic ritual abuse on trial. Expert witnesses for the defense, like psychologist Dr. Stephen Ceci, explained how suggestive interviewing can create false memories in children. The jury came to believe that the “memories” of abuse were not discovered by the interviewers, but were implanted by them.

In the end, the courtroom served as a crucible that burned away the hysteria. The jurors, tasked with evaluating cold, hard facts, found that the Emperor had no clothes. The McMartin trial stands as a monumental example of the justice system eventually—though at great cost—correcting a massive cultural and prosecutorial error. The real conspiracy uncovered was not one of Satanic abuse, but one of misguided therapists, overzealous prosecutors, and a credulous media conspiring to destroy lives based on a fantasy.