Just Ask My Children (2001)

Brenda (Virginia Madsen, Candyman, Dune) and Scott Kniffen (Jeffrey Nordling, TVs "Once and Again") are accused of child molestation and physical abuse. Without a shred of evidence, the authorities arrest them and take their two young sons into protective custody. The boys are lead to believe that if they give the "right" testimony, they will be returned to their parents. Through relentless badgering, the impressionable children are coerced into testifying against their parents. After an agonizing nine-month trial The Kniffin's are sentenced to life imprisonment for crimes they did not commit. While their sons are tormented by uncertain memories and obscure recollections, Brenda and Scott face many horrors in prison. Based on a True Story.

The Tide of Time

When history passes over it is people who are forgotten. Looking back on any period in history it is difficult, but not hard, to see the faces of individuals and how they felt about the defining moments of their lives. When the Kniffens and McCuans were tried and convicted in Kern County, Califoria of crimes of child abuse it couldn't have been a more perfect time for it to happen.
At that time in the early 1980s no one knew just how life-threatening one allegation of child abuse could be. All it took was an allegation by a paranoid schizophrenic and highy mentally unstable woman who could not tell fact from fantasy and two families were torn apart and used as scape-goats for the government's inability to end child molestation.
There are some similarities between this case and the McMartin trial as well as other so-called "child-sex rings" of the 1980s that resulted in "witch-hunting" trials but this case saddened me more because of the abuse of legal power over its people.
The entire justice system of Kern County violated every civil right law in the constitution and got away with it in the name of "saving children."
This film more so than any other on the subject shows just how the children were coerced into believing that they had taken part in acts of depravity the likes of which no one can even imagine.
Finally what you didn't see about the McMartin trial was just how the children had false memories planted in their mind and used to put away their innocent parents for 13 years.
What is so sad about this story is that those 13 years will never be given back to those families torn apart simply because no reversal of errors can turn back the hand of time.
There was a moment when Brenda Kniffen in the film begins to give up hope and she admits to herself and her husband that their sons childhoods have passed them by and that their only hope left is to hope for the happiness of their sons wherever they may be.
There are wrongs beyond redemption and what the California "justice" system did to these families can never be forgiven.

August 20, 2007

Kern County Witchhunts

I recently viewed this movie on TV and decided to order it for my own use. You see the Kern County Witchhunt was not limited to Kern County; it extended into Tulare County also. I know because my family has been living a nightmare because of false charges of child molestation since 1985. God instructed me to create a support group for innocent prisoners in 1989 which I did. I wrote several articles about false accusations in Tulare County for a local Tulare County newspaper and one article for a small newspaper in Bakersfield, California concerning the subject of false charges of child molestation. My son, daughter, and me was on a local radio station in Kern County two times discussing this subject. I named a name of local police officer who terrorized little children into lying about their parents. As a result, it was pay back time for me and after they along with others succeeded in brainwashing my grown daughter into saying I told her not to testify, that God would not like it and that she could be gotten for perjury, I spent over 5 years in prison for witness intimidation for allegingly stating the statements that my daughter claimed I said, but I never even talked to her about testifying at all. I was totally innocent and am currently on supervise release for another 2 years. Anyone who does not believe that thousands of parents in Kern,Tulare,Kings,Fresno,Butte,San Bernadino counties were imprisoned on false charges of child molestation is highly wrong because it truly did occur in the Child Abuse War of the 1980's. This movie is really a representation of the thousands who suffered as a result of this abuse against the family and I am thankful that this excellent movie was made. April 2, 2006

Just ask My Children review

Acting very realistic. As the story unfolds you can just see these actions happening in your own life and terminatiog in a jail sentence. Even though the authorities in this movie really investigated and were concerned for the children's safety, the evidence seemed to pile up against the parents. Good story line. September 2, 2005

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