Candidates spar over child abuse team
by Glenn Franco Simmons, 5/18/2006
If elected, Worth Dikeman said he will concentrate on improving the Humboldt County Child Abuse Services Team, which he claims has deteriorated under District Attorney Paul Gallegos.
Dikeman’s contention was backed up last week by one of his supporters, Allison Jackson, a former deputy district attorney who worked with CAST before being fired by Gallegos.
In an interview published in The Eureka Reporter last week, Jackson broke her long silence regarding her concerns about CAST.
“You need a DA in there who is committed to put CAST back together and make that a priority,” Jackson said. “... You need someone who is fully committed to looking at these things every month.
“You need to look at the entire system again, because it is broken, and it’s going to take a lot of work and a lot of commitment (to repair it). These things don’t run on their own. They just don’t. Somebody needs to pick up the ball and administer these programs.”
Figures obtained by The Eureka Reporter indicate the DA’s child abuse court filings have decreased substantially over the past four years, while rejections have increased.
With filings down and rejections up, Gallegos critics maintain the children of Humboldt County are not being protected by the very law enforcement office that is supposed to seek their protection.
Gallegos disputes Jackson and Dikeman’s complaints about him and his management of the DA’s Office.
“What may not be apparent is that the cases that are not filed are a reflection of CAST’s success,” Gallegos said. “It shows that we are looking to find out the truth — not just a conviction. Also, the better the CAST and the case selection, the greater likelihood that the case will resolve prior to trial.
“(They settle) because the defendant feels confident that he or she will be convicted. ... CAST is more efficient than it was. ... The rejection rate shows that CAST works — it is intended to find out the truth, not just result in charges being filed. We work in this society to make sure children are protected.
“When you have a good attorney that is accurately assessing their cases and providing mandated discovery to the defense,” he continued, “most cases plead rather than go to trial. That’s what most people don’t understand. The better we do our job, the more pleas you get: people don’t want to go to trial.”
Gallegos’ stance angers Jackson, who believes Humboldt County’s child abuse statistics are a significant issue, regardless of the campaign.
Jackson said she doesn’t understand how Gallegos’ supporters “can remotely think (the decline in filings and prosecutions) is OK, that this change in philosophy is OK.”
“I don’t see that with these numbers,” she said. “How can anyone buy this any longer? Those figures are not (campaign) rhetoric.”
Dikeman said better staffing will help CAST return to what he said is its former status as a well-respected program.
“The first ... goal is to put a full-time attorney back in sexual assault and expand the program so that we could get two full-time attorneys in there,” Dikeman said, “which is what we had when Paul took over.”
“I can tell you that ... CAST has never paid for two full-time attorneys, nor have we had two full-time attorneys assigned to (CAST),” Gallegos said. “We currently have Maggie Fleming assigned to CAST with Andrew Isaac as her backup attorney for CAST cases.”
If elected, Dikeman said administration in the DA’s Office will change. Dikeman said the attorneys prosecuting child abuse would have other duties in the DA’s Office, but that one of the two attorneys could prosecute a case at any time and the initial prosecutor would remain with the case throughout the legal process. This is called “vertical prosecution.”
“We have Maggie assigned to the unit and arguably Maggie is the best person to prosecute child molestation cases if, of course, Maggie is available,” Dikeman said. “And therein lies part of the problem, because if you have Maggie doing other things — like asset forfeiture and other assignments, ... she’s not going to be immediately available for a child abuse case. That is the important thing in my mind, to have the attorney available.”
“It (vertical prosecution) minimizes the impact that the criminal justice system has on the child, because you have specially trained people who are dealing with the child.”
Gallegos countered and said vertical prosecution remains a priority of his department.
“Certainly, there is vertical prosecution,” he said. “... I see it as a responsibility, accountability, accessibility thing, and I know Maggie understands that. She is very responsible. She is very accountable. She is also very accessible.
“... By assigning Maggie to cases, we increase the likelihood that cases will resolve appropriately and without the risk, costs and trauma on the child that are necessarily associated with trial.”
Dikeman would change the time of day when children are interviewed.
“I would put an attorney in there and open up the interview process so we could talk to children in the morning,” Dikeman said. “People I have talked to, who have dealt with the (child abuse) unit, have told me it would be easier to interview the children in the morning. … They find the children are better information providers when they are fresh (morning) as opposed to when they are tired (afternoon).”
“We try to set interviews in the afternoon,” Gallegos said. “The idea is it works with their schedules and with ours. It is much easier on us if we can set it at regular times. For younger kids, it can be a hardship. I understand from Maggie that that is a concern of hers and she tries to work that into her schedule and theirs. It really depends on the kids’ schedules.”
(Editor’s note: The Eureka Reporter will publish a separate article tomorrow on CAST figures, comparing the information obtained by the newspaper to an interview with Deputy District Attorney Maggie Fleming, who is the CAST prosecutor – Jackson’s former post. In an effort to verify the figures obtained by The Eureka Reporter, the newspaper asked Gallegos to provide an annual report on the disposition for CAST cases. The District Attorney’s Office has yet to honor the newspaper’s request, even though it has provided other information in an interview and e-mails.)
Copyright (C) 2005, The Eureka Reporter. All rights reserved.
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