Stay with me now - don't let the numbers put you to sleep. And read 'em all the way through.
◼ A decrease in child abuse cases?
I'll say. You decide
In 1997
There were 137 CAST Child Interviews
There were 56 cases of alleged child abuse RECEIVED by the DAs office
There were 37 child abuse cases FILED by the DAs office
In 1998
There were 142 CAST Interviews
There were 52 cases received by the DAs office
There were 37 cases FILED by the DAs office
In 1999
There were 194 CAST Interviews
There were 81 cases received by the DAs office
There were 49 cases FILED by the DAs office
In 2000
There were 194 CAST Interviews
There were 66 cases received by the DAs office
There were 48 cases FILED by the DAs office
In 2001
There were 196 CAST Interviews
There were 65 cases received by the DAs office
There were 46 cases FILED by the DAs office
In 2002
There were 215 CAST Interviews
There were 66 cases received by the DAs office
There were 47 cases FILED by the DAs office
In January of 2003, Paul Gallegos took office
In 2003
There were 205 CAST Interviews
There were 67 cases received by the DAs office
There were 40 cases FILED by the DAs office
In June of 2004 Paul Gallegos fired his top child abuse prosecutor.
In 2004
There were 146 CAST Interviews
There were 50 cases received by the DAs office
There were 23 cases FILED by the DAs office
In 2005
There were 155 CAST Interviews
There were 35 cases received by the DAs office
There were 17 cases FILED by the DAs office
In the first four months of 2006
There were 40 CAST Interviews (on track for 120 interviews)
There were 4 cases received by the DAs office (on track for 12 cases received)
There was 1 case FILED by the DAs office.
ONE.
ONE child abuse case filed. January to April of that year.
And now - a report of "a 40 decrease in investigations that led to cases between 2006 and 2009."
A 40% decrease.
40% From what? the 2006 numbers?
◼ "A matter of priorities"
RELATED STORIES:
ER - Former deputy DA speaks out
◼ SAVED ARTICLE: Former deputy DA speaks out
ER - Candidates spar over child abuse team
◼ SAVED ARTICLE: Candidates spar over child abuse team (see below)
ER - DA's Office yet to respond to request for child abuse records
ER - CAST established with child victims in mind
ER - CAST needs support Gallegos is not providing
(Note that Eureka Reporter stories are no longer available online, and you should be able to find them at your County Library in hardcopy. A few are saved here):
Former deputy DA speaks out
Candidates spar over child abuse team
DA's Office yet to respond to request for child abuse records
There is no question that the hardworking people at The Humboldt County Domestic Violence Prevention Coordinating Council, the Child Abuse Prevention Coordinating Council of Humboldt County, the Teen Center and the Humboldt County Department of Health and Human Services' Child Welfare Services, Humboldt County Chapter of Bikers Against Child Abuse, and CAST (not mentioned in this story but honored earlier this week by the Board of Supervisors) do good work. But there are serious questions to be asked here.
Former deputy DA speaks out
by Glenn Franco Simmons, 5/12/2006
EUREKA REPORTER
A former deputy district attorney terminated by Humboldt County District Attorney Paul Gallegos claims the DA is mismanaging the Child Abuse Services Team.
CAST is a multidisciplinary team that investigates child abuse cases. If child abuse is determined to have occurred, CAST refers the cases to the District Attorney’s Office for prosecution.
Allison Jackson, who is supporting Worth Dikeman in the June 6 election for district attorney, called Gallegos’ management style “appalling.”
Decline In Cases
“The decline in (child abuse) cases filed can be attributed to Paul’s lack of leadership and expertise,” Jackson said. “This is not the attorneys; this is Paul. It is Paul’s utter lack of vision.”
In a Thursday e-mail to The Eureka Reporter, Gallegos made one thing clear: “If there are any stones to throw, which there should not be, they are to be thrown at me. The people in my office work far too hard to be involved in politics as well.”
Based upon documentation obtained by The Eureka Reporter, the number of cases being referred to CAST from law enforcement agencies has not dramatically dropped off, but the number of cases accepted by the DA’s Office and the number of cases filed by the office have seen dramatic declines.
For example, based upon the documents’ first-quarter figures for 2006, there were four cases accepted by the DA’s Office — gleaned from 40 CAST interviews. Of those four cases, one was filed, two cases were rejected and one case has been received and was pending a filing decision at the end of the first quarter.
For the year previous, according to the documents, there were 155 CAST interviews of children. Cases received by the DA’s Office numbered 35 with 17 cases filed.
In 2000, for comparison, the documentation said there were 194 CAST interviews of children with 66 cases accepted by the DA’s Office and 48 cases filed.
Maggie Flemming
Deputy District Attorney Maggie Flemming — who is the main person at the DA’s Office who prosecutes persons accused of child abuse — said the numbers The Eureka Reporter obtained did not reflect the work she has done so far this year.
However, because of The Eureka Reporter’s deadline and her schedule, she was unable to provide current information by press deadline.
Jackson and Wes Keat of the District Attorney’s Office praised Flemming for her hard work and commitment. Jackson said her criticism of Gallegos should in no way reflect on Flemming.
“I believe that you will find that Maggie’s work, her skill and dedication, is universally acknowledged as being beyond reproach,” Keat said. “She has 20 years of successful experience as a prosecutor, including a substantial background in sexual assault, not to mention homicides. Maggie is simply the best.”
“I can tell you there is no other attorney I admire more in the world than Maggie Flemming,” Jackson said.
CAST Breakdown
Keat submitted a breakdown of cases going back into the 1990s, but they were not all broken down into years as requested by The Eureka Reporter. Keat sent the total numbers for 2002-2006. The program has been in existence since the 1990s.
When asked about declining prosecution rates earlier this week, Gallegos said, “As for a decline in prosecutions, if there are declining prosecutions, that’s because there are declining cases. If there are declining cases, we have certainly looked into that.
“... Now some will say it’s law enforcement, that law enforcement doesn’t think you are going to do anything with it, which is perverse to me, because here you have a child victim and they are saying they are not going to bring it (the case to the DA’s Office)? That’s crazy, but that’s the sort of stuff you will hear.”
Gallegos has his own explanation for the decreasing totals.
“... We broke it down and looked at the numbers and saw that where the decrease has been is in the stranger offenders,” he said. “So the next question is why, and we don’t have a good answer for that yet. The theory in my head, even though we don’t have enough data yet, but it’s probably public education and education of parents.
“It may have a certain amount to do with Jessica’s Law, to do with notification. A certain amount is probably the general neurosis or fear in society about law officers because they get so much air time because people are less certain about the safety of their kids these days.
“My suspicion,” he continued, “even though we don’t have enough data, is that there is self-policing activity on the part of individuals that is probably reducing the stranger (cases). Most of your repeat offenders are your stranger offenders. … The data that we get, that we see is that most familiar offenders — those are the people less likely to re-offend — there is a whole dynamic involved in that, but it’s the stranger (on child) that is the most recidivistic. … Some people, and this may sound sick to you or I, but some people actually molest out of different feelings, some times out of feelings of love.”
Gallegos said most child molestations are perpetrated by people a child knows.
“It’s family or friends of family, extended family,” he said. “It is an unfortunate reality.”
Jackson said there are different dynamics at issue.
“Something is happening at the center and something is happening in the DA’s Office,” she said. “There is a huge problem here. This looks like an utter system breakdown — irrespective of the fact that you have great people, and they are some of the most fantastic people I’ve ever met who work in this field.”
“When you have 40 interviews going in (through the first three months of this year), and you extrapolate that out for the year, you are looking at about the same number of cases (being brought in by law enforcement), but you sure don’t have the same number coming out and the same number filed. Paul runs the program and he runs that office in name only.
“This all comes back to priorities. It’s not just incompetence, but it’s also an utter lack of priorities. These statistics are directly attributable solely and absolutely to Paul Gallegos. They are not attributable to anyone else. … This program used to work. ... These children aren’t slipping through the cracks. These children have been marched up to the Grand Canyon and kicked off. There is a huge difference when you only have one case that is prosecutable (through the first three months of this year).”
Gallegos issued a rebuttal to Jackson’s charges.
“We are absolutely committed to the success of CAST and the discovery and prosecution of child abusers,” he said in an e-mail to The Eureka Reporter, Thursday. “To claim otherwise is an outrage, as it is first of all false, second, (it) creates false fear in our community, third, (it) creates false fear in the victims and witnesses in our current cases, and fourth, (it) creates the impression in the community — which includes potential offenders — that they may have the opportunity to offend in this community.
“No one (who) is committed to children and their families would act with such disregard for the truth, the interests of victims, the interests of the office and the interests of the community.”
Jackson said she has a solution to what she said is a broken system:
“You need a DA in there who is committed to put CAST back together and make that a priority,” she said. “You need to bring back the physical abuse and neglect cases as opposed to cutting them out of the process there. 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. These things don’t run on their own. They just don’t. Somebody needs to pick up the ball and administer these programs.”
Jackson said she doesn’t understand how Gallegos’ supporters “can remotely think this is OK, that this change in philosophy is OK. I don’t see that with these numbers. How can anyone buy this any longer? Those figures are not (campaign) rhetoric.”
(Editor’s note: This is the first part of a two-part series.)
Copyright (C) 2005, The Eureka Reporter. All rights reserved.
Candidates spar over child abuse team
by Glenn Franco Simmons, 5/18/2006
EUREKA REPORTER
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.
DA's Office yet to respond to request for child abuse records
by Glenn Franco Simmons, 5/19/2006
EUREKA REPORTER
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.
