1. What are the lessons?
--------Hysteria happens.
--------Children (especially) can be influenced by
suggestion
and peer pressure to say things that are not true.
--------We should be skeptical of confessions when the
confessions are the result of torture or when the person has a
self-interest
in confessing.
--------A "cooling off period" can sometimes prevent
injustices.
--------Trials should be fair: evidence introduced
should
be reliable, witnesses should be subject to cross-examination,
defendants
should have legal assistance and be allowed to testify on their own
behalf,
and judges should be unbiased.
2. Have we had "modern-day witch hunts"?
--------HUAC/McCarthy "Communist hunts" of early 1950s
(events
that inspired The Crucible)
--------Day care abuse trials of 1980s (child
witnesses,
accusations multipy, people afraid to support accused, unbelievable
charges,
hysteria).
--------To read about a modern-day trial with many
parallels
to the Salem Trials, see The
McMartin Preschool Abuse Trial (the longest and most expensive
criminal
trial in American history).