ER - DA's Office yet to respond to request for child abuse records

DA's Office yet to respond to request for child abuse records
by Glenn Franco Simmons, 5/19/2006

The Humboldt County District Attorney’s Office still has not provided documentation requested by The Eureka Reporter regarding the number of child abuse cases that it has dealt with, broken out by year, since the mid-1990s.

As a result, The Eureka Reporter will file a Public Records Act request that requests information about the Child Abuse Services Team’s performance.

Some critics have spoken to The Eureka Reporter and maintain that District Attorney Paul Gallegos has lost touch with CAST and that he is ignoring a significant trend in his department that points to fewer cases being filed.

According to former deputy district attorney Gillian Wadsworth, who has submitted an as yet unpublished letter to the editor at The Eureka Reporter, after 2002 when Gallegos took office, rejection of cases submitted to the DA’s Office increased from 28 percent in 2002 to 45 percent in 2005.

She also said that in 1997-1998, 65-70 percent of the cases submitted to the DA were filed on. In 2005, Wadsworth said, 48 percent were filed on.

Adding to the controversy, Gallegos has also been criticized for plea bargains.

“In 2005, 80 percent of cases were resolved with plea convictions — that’s the highest percent since the program opened,” Wadsworth said. “Plea bargains can be the best thing in a sexual abuse case, or they can effectively ‘let someone off the hook.’ This number needs to be explored and explained.”

Wadsworth also disputed Gallegos’ claim about the historical number of prosecutors assigned to CAST. Gallegos claims CAST never had two full-time attorneys working CAST.

“There were two attorneys whose primary case load was child sexual/physical abuse and one additional attorney who took on the role of director,” she said. “That is nearly 2.5 FTE’s, and those attorneys were busy. The attorneys attended the interviews, worked with the investigators, and when appropriate, prosecuted the case.

They knew the child and the family from the beginning, and the child and family knew their attorney. That was vertical prosecution.”

Gallegos vehemently disagrees with such assessments.

“I can tell you ... 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 Flemming assigned to CAST with Andrew Isaac as her backup attorney for CAST cases.”

“All we need to ask ourselves is how Paul Gallegos manages to staff CAST and maintain vertical prosecution when he has one attorney whose job is mostly child abuse but other things as well,” Wadsworth said. “Why did he put one person in a role that took at least two and a half? We can see the number of cases being investigated isn’t dropping, so we know the workload hasn’t reduced. Is this in the best interest of our community, our children and families, or for the team?”

Deputy District Attorney Maggie Fleming said she has done extensive CAST interviews this year.
“Since January 2006, I’ve reviewed 22 sexual or physical abuse cases,” Fleming said. “During that same time, there were actually 45 CAST interviews. Many of those stopped after the CAST interview, perhaps because there was no disclosure. Sometimes, it is because a person either can’t or is unwilling to identify the perpetrator. Law enforcement will proceed with an investigation, but at that point, we do not have anything to file on, so there isn’t a referral initially (to the DA’s Office).

“Traditionally, historically, a number of people don’t disclose at CAST. And I saw from some of the numbers that were sent to (The Eureka Reporter) last week, that are from Jan. 1, 2002 to May 11, 2006 (Gallegos’ tenure), there were 767 interviews done at the CAST office. Of those, in 635 there was an allegation of sexual abuse, meaning they came to the CAST office because someone either heard or saw something or believed that a child had been sexually abused. Of those 635, where that was alleged, 377 resulted in some form of disclosure. So statistically, you can see it’s right around 60 percent who said (during the CAST interview) that something had happened.”

“Even when there is a nondisclosure — meaning that even when during the CAST interview, the child interviewed says nothing happened — those cases are sometimes referred to the DA’s Office,” Fleming continued. “And that can be because there happens to be physical evidence that supports the allegation. Or, sometimes it’s because a family member or somebody else is adamant that something happened and they want us to look at it.”

However, Fleming said, sometimes in those cases, the DA’s Office cannot prosecute because it doesn’t have enough evidence, and with a non-disclosure, it does not find itself in a position to prosecute.

Copyright (C) 2005, The Eureka Reporter. All rights reserved.

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