STORY: "Family law attorneys say Keller is innocent: Veteran practitioners support Fran Keller's bid for freedom," by reporter Jordan Smith, published in the Austin Chronicle on February 0, 2013,
GIST: "A group of influential local family law attorneys, psychologists, and social workers have filed a court brief expressing their support for Frances Keller, who was convicted in 1992 of the sexual assault of a child – a crime that many, including the signers of the brief, believe never happened. "The undersigned all believe that Fran Keller is serving a sentence for a crime that actually never occurred and we all have been haunted since 1992 by a strong feeling that an injustice had been done," reads the friend-of-the-court brief filed by family attorneys Terry Weeks and Joe Milner on behalf of themselves and 18 other veteran lawyers and criminal justice system stakeholders who were working in the field of family law back in the early Nineties. "We all firmly believe she is innocent of the crime of which she was convicted." Keller and her husband, Danny, were each convicted and sentenced to 48 years in prison for the alleged sexual assault of a 3-year-old girl, Christy Chaviers, who'd been an infrequent drop-in at the home-based daycare center that the couple ran back in 1991. In the summer of 1991, Christy told her mother, Suzanne Stratton, that Danny Keller had spanked her; that allegation quickly morphed into an allegation of sexual abuse, and before too long the allegations expanded again to include wild tales that the Kellers had performed strange rituals while abusing Christy and at least two other children occasionally left in their care – stories seemingly prompted by insistent and repeated questioning by parents, and with the apparent approval of Chaviers' therapist, Donna David Campbell, who concluded that Christy had been a victim of "ritual abuse.".........The Travis County D.A.'s office has not yet filed a response to Keller's writ ‐ and under the law, the office is not required to do so – D.A. Rosemary Lehmberg said her office is still considering the case. And Judge Cliff Brown has not yet weighed in to designate what issues raised in Hampton's writ, if any, he believes are controverted and previously unresolved and should be reviewed, which he is required by law to do."
The entire story can be found at:
http://www.austinchronicle.com/blogs/news/2013-02-20/family-law-attorneys-say-keller-is-innocent/
PUBLISHER'S NOTE
I have added a search box for content in this blog which now encompasses several thousand posts. The search box is located near the bottom of the screen just above the list of links. I am confident that this powerful search tool provided by "Blogger" will help our readers and myself get more out of the site.
The Toronto Star, my previous employer for more than twenty incredible years, has put considerable effort into exposing the harm caused by Dr. Charles Smith and his protectors - and into pushing for reform of Ontario's forensic pediatric pathology system. The Star has a "topic" section which focuses on recent stories related to Dr. Charles Smith. It can be found at:
http://www.thestar.com/topic/
Information on "The Charles Smith Blog Award"- and its nomination process - can be found at:
http://smithforensic.blogspot.
Please send any comments or information on other cases and issues of interest to the readers of this blog to: hlevy15@gmail.com
Harold Levy: Publisher; The Charles Smith Blog.
