SAN FRANCISCO — A couple being held
on charges of abducting a girl more than 18 years ago and keeping her
in their backyard wants permission to visit each other in the jail, a
defense lawyer said Thursday.
Phillip and Nancy Garrido have pleaded not guilty to kidnapping Jaycee Dugard
when she was 11, raping her and confining her and the daughters she
bore by Phillip Garrido to a hidden compound in the backyard of their
Antioch home.
Stephen Tapson, the court-appointed attorney representing Nancy Garrido, told The
Associated Press that he and Phillip Garrido's public defender made the
visitation request in twin motions filed Wednesday in El Dorado
Superior Court.
The couple is being held separately in jail. He said jail officials so far had refused to let the two inmates meet. "If one of them were out on bail, they could visit each other, so let them
visit each other in jail, just to say hello to each other," Tapson said.
Tapson said he and Deputy Public Defender Susan Gellman also filed papers
seeking to compel prosecutors to tell them where Dugard is living and
if she has a lawyer of her own so they can speak with her while
preparing defenses for the Garridos."We would like to talk to her, obviously, and
they are not telling us where she is and she doesn't have a lawyer that
we know of," Tapson said.
Nancy Seltzer, a spokeswoman for Dugard, said Dugard is represented by the
state. She had no comment on the defense motion seeking access to
Dugard or her lawyer because she had not seen it.
The El Dorado District Attorney's office confirmed receiving the motions but would not comment on them.
A hearing on the motions was scheduled for Feb. 26

ANTIOCH - New details into the deranged mind of Jaycee Dugard's alleged
kidnapper and rapist. The most telling tale from Philip Garrido - that
he stopped having sex with her after the birth of their second daughter.

"Oh hell no. No way. There's no way he stopped doing it with...," neighbor Sam Kovisto said with a sigh.T

He's still haunted by what allegedly happened directly across the street from him at the Garrido's.

"A sicko like that is a sicko forever and it doesn't matter. It's not
like he just wanted little girls though," he said. "There's no way that
he stopped doing anything with Jaycee. No way."

Fellow neighbor, Chuck Smith shares the sentiments of other residents.

He believes if Garrido stopped having sex with Jaycee, he merely moved on to other victims.

Hayward police had spent several days last year, trying to link Garrido to missing Hayward girl Michaela Garecht.

Captain Darryl McAllister confirmed, that overwhelming
similarities between Jaycee and Michaela's case, makes Garrido their
prime suspect, despite several other leads.

Kovisto recalls seeing Jaycee frequently checking the mail and seeing the girls in turtlenecks in the summertime.

They supposedly vacationed together as a family and made trips to the
library. An ordinary family, Garrido might have thought ...

"Well, hell no. There wasn't no ordinary family about it. 'cause everybody knows that he's a freak, you know?" Kovisto said.

Everyone just hopes the best for Jaycee and her girls, and...

"That no body ever says their name again. And they can just live a normal life... Be forgotten," Kovisto added.

SAN FRANCISCO — Jaycee Dugard,
the Northern California woman who was kidnapped as a child and held
prisoner for 18 years, kept a diary in which she wrote of longing for
freedom and feeling both emotionally trapped and protective of the man
charged with raping her, court documents filed Thursday show.
"It feels like I'm sinking. ... this is supposed to be my life to do with
what I like ... but once again he has taken it away," Dugard wrote in
an entry dated July 5, 2004, almost five years before she surfaced last
summer with the two daughters fathered by her alleged captor Phillip
Garrido.
"How many times is he allowed to
take it away from me?" she wrote. "I am afraid he doesn't see how the
things he says makes me a prisoner."A decade later, however, Dugard wrote of the complex emotions surrounding her situation and Phillip Garrido.El
Dorado County prosecutors quoted three portions of Dugard's diary in
the court papers seeking a protective order barring Garrido and his
wife Nancy from trying to contact Dugard or her children, now 12 and 15.
The motion came in response to papers filed last week by the Garridos'
defense lawyers trying to force prosecutors to tell them where Dugard
is living and if she has a lawyer. A hearing is set for Feb. 26.
District Attorney Vern Pierson said Dugard's writings show that Phillip Garrido
controlled her in the past and was trying to exert continued
psychological pressure on her from jail.
Dugard, now 29, has "emphatically stated to our office that she does not want
any contact with the defendants or their attorneys," Pierson said in
the documents. "The people ask this court to protect Ms. Doe and to,
once and for all, put an end to the defendant's manipulation."
The papers referred to Dugard as "Jane Doe" because she was 11 when she was kidnapped and sexually assaulted.
The documents also reveal new details about Dugard's captivity, saying she
was kept in a building in a hidden compound inside the backyard of the
Garridos' Antioch home for the first 18 months after her abduction then
prohibited from leaving the yard for the first four years.
In another diary entry, dated more than two years after Dugard was
snatched from the street outside her South Lake Tahoe home, Dugard
wrote, "I got (a cat) for my birthday from Phil and Nancy ... they did
something for me that no one else would do for me, they paid 200
dollars just so I could have my own kitten."
"I don't want to hurt him ... sometimes I think my very presence hurts
him," she wrote. "So how can I ever tell him how I want to be free.
Free to come and go as I please ... Free to say I have a family. I will
never cause him pain if it's in my power to prevent it. FREE."
In the court filing, Pierson said Dugard and the two daughters she had by
Garrido when she was 14 and 17 had been instructed by the Garridos to
run to the hidden backyard if anyone ever came to the door.
He also described a plan that Phillip Garrido allegedly hatched to stay in
contact with Dugard if he was ever arrested. Dugard told prosecutors
Garrido instructed her to request an attorney who could communicate
directly with him "without law enforcement knowledge," the papers state.
Since Garrido's arrest, he has tried repeatedly to put the plan into action, Pierson said.
On the day he was arrested and Dugard's identity was revealed, Garrido
advised her to get a lawyer. The next month, Garrido sent a letter to a
Sacramento television station stating he wanted to reach Dugard "by
attorney mail only."
In January, Garrido's lawyer wrote Dugard saying, "Mr. Garrido has asked me to convey that he
does not harbor any ill will toward (Ms. Doe) or the children and loves
them very much."
Dugard interpreted the "ill will" remark to mean she was not following the plan and that the
letter was another way of manipulating her, the papers state.
Phillip Garrido's lawyer, Deputy Public Defender Susan Gellman, wrote in an
e-mail that contacting a witness to determine what happened is part of
her job as a defense attorney, and the information she has been seeking
is a matter of routine in criminal cases.
"For the district attorney to hint that it is somehow improper or nefarious
is disingenuous to say the least," Gellman wrote. "I am not the 'tool'
of any man, as he has been intimated in today's filing."
Nancy Garrido's court-appointed defense lawyer Stephen Tapson
did not immediately return a telephone call seeking comment.
The Garridos have pleaded not guilty to the charges.
The couple also are requesting permission to visit each other in jail,
where they are being held on $30 million and $20 million bail,
respectively.
Pierson opposed that request, too, blasting efforts by defense lawyers to portray the pair
as the parental figures who deserve jailhouse visits so they can
discuss the welfare of their "family."
"The defense utterly fails to recognize that Jane Doe and her children were
not their 'family,' but were in fact captives -- they were victims,"
Pierson wrote. "The unfortunate reality is that Ms. Doe and her
children may not have fully realized they were captives and victims
because the defendants controlled their reality."

SAN FRANCISCO — Newly released parole records show that accused
kidnapper Phillip Garrido complained in 2008 about having to wear a
monitoring device because he had not been in trouble with the law for
19 years — nearly as long as he allegedly held Jaycee Dugard captive in
his backyard.The 120 pages of records released Friday by
California corrections officials paint a portrait of a convicted rapist
who, once he was released from federal and Nevada state prisons,
appeared to grudgingly comply with the conditions set by parole agents.
The parole followed his imprisonment for a 1977 conviction in the rape
and kidnapping of a Nevada casino worker.Numerous details on
Garrido's background and the Dugard's captivity have emerged since he
was arrested in August, but the new documents that cover the period
from June 1999 to the arrest shed more light on his activities and the
approach taken by law enforcement. He and his wife, Nancy Garrido, have
pleaded not guilty.They were made available after several news
organizations sued to have them made public. The parole file had
previously been turned over to the Office of the Inspector General,
which issued a report last fall blasting corrections officials for
lapses in oversight and missing chances to catch Garrido sooner.The
paperwork shows that in recent years, agents thought Garrido sometimes
acted oddly. At least one agent saw a girl, who Garrido said was his
niece, at the home. An agent also wrote notes about "cursory" visual
inspections of the house."(Garrido) was acting very strange,
weird to say the least by ranting on about God and loudly saying songs,
other than that, nothing out of the ordinary," an agent wrote in June
2008.When he was ordered to meet with his parole agent in April
2008 to receive an ankle monitor to check his whereabouts, Garrido
submitted a one-page letter arguing that he should not have to wear it
in part because he had founded a church and wanted to travel to the
University of California, Berkeley to discuss his religion. The
presentation, he claimed, "will gain the attention of world leaders.""Be
informed if you so choose to place me on this program I am advised to
have an attorney present. The reasoning here is simple it concerns the
continued progress and perfectly clean record I have with the State of
California and the fact that I have nineteen years behind me. The
program is as stated for: High Rish Sex offenders. The Sheriff's office
has me at low risk and as a continued cooperative indivudal."Earlier
documents provided by Garrido to the FBI shortly before his arrest
showed he believed that God spoke to him through an electronic device
he had built and claimed cured sex offenders.The documents also
show that less than a month before he was arrested, the 58-year-old
Garrido initialed papers promising not to have contact with girls
between the ages of 14 and 18 or to have a social or romantic
relationship with anyone who had custody of a child.Garrido was living at the time with the daughters he sired with Dugard, who were 11 and 14.In
granting Garrido early release from his federal parole in May 1999, his
U.S. government parole agent based in Nevada wrote Garrido to "thank
you for your cooperation over this period of supervision and I hope
that you will continue to do well."Because he was also convicted
of the same rape in a Nevada, state parole officials decided to keep
Garrido on life parole. But they wanted him supervised in California,
where he had been living since he got out of prison.When he had
his first encounter with California parole in 1999, the agent's opinion
of Garrido also seemed high, writing: "He is stable and the prognosis
of success is good."Only months later, the same parole agent, Al
Fulbright, recommended that Nevada terminate Garrido's parole, a bid
that apparently failed.The documents released Friday also
outline the events leading up to the Garridos arrest, including some
details not mentioned before about the conversations Garrido had with
law enforcement.Dugard, for example, seemed to be aware that her
parents had moved from Northern California, where she was abducted, to
the southern part of the state."A long, long, long long time
ago, I kidnapped and raped her," Garrido told his parole agent the day
he was arrested, according to the documents."I asked him if Jaycee knew where her parents were, and he said, somewhere in Los Angeles," the agent wrote in the report.

A lawyer representing the Northern California man charged with
kidnapping and raping Jaycee Dugard says her client is mentally ill and
incapable of trying to manipulate his victim from jail.Susan Gellman, a deputy public defender in El Dorado County, made the characterization in court papers filed Wednesday.Gellman
is asking the judge overseeing the case to make the district attorney
provide her with Dugard's address and to appoint a neutral party to
serve as a go-between between her and Dugard.Prosecutors are trying to obtain a court order that would block Gellman from trying to contact Dugard.Phillip Garrido and his wife, Nancy, have pleaded not guilty to kidnapping Dugard and holding her captive for 18 years.

SACRAMENTO, Calif. --Phillip Garrido's public defender said the El
Dorado district attorney is ignoring the extent of her client's mental
illness and indicated her client might not be competent to stand trial.Attorney
Susan Gellman wrote in Wednesday's court filing that Garrido claims to
have heard the voices of angels. She also claimed District Attorney
Vern Pierson was wrong in calling Garrido a "master manipulator."Wednesday's
court filing cites Garrido's contacts with the media, particularly KCRA
3, as "evidence that he may not be competent for trial."Garrido and his wife, Nancy Garrido, are accused of kidnapping Jaycee Dugard, who was allegedly held prisoner near Antioch.
The documents dispute assertions by prosecutors that Gellman should be
prohibited from trying to contact Dugard because Garrido is using her
to manipulate Dugard from jail. Gellman said her relationship with
prosecutors has deteriorated to the point where it could hamper her
ability to defend her client. "The district attorney has
"laudabl(y) claimed his right to champion the rights of the victim in
this case," she said. "But he cannot do so while abandoning the truth
for the sake of political grandstanding."The filings refer to Dugard as "Jane Doe" because she was 11 when she was allegedly kidnapped and sexually assaulted.UC Berkeley police officers spotted Dugard's two daughters, whom Garrido allegedly fathered, with him on the school's campus."Obviously,
the campus police at UC Berkeley were able to perceive the clear signs
of mental illness and took some action instead of ignoring them, which
ultimately led to Mr. Garrido's arrest," the filing states.Gellman
cited Garrido's decision to bring Dugard and the two daughters with him
to his parole agent's office the next day and the confession he made
that morning that he had kidnapped her in 1991 as evidence of his
"complete lack of sophistication."Garrido wrote a document
called "Origin of Schizophrenia Revealed," which he addressed to the
FBI. Gellman said in his writings, he talks about his ability to
control sound with his mind and "his gift of being able to speak with
the tongues of angels."The filing states that one of his
children described of how voices would keep Garrido up at night, and
how the angels lived underground and spoke to him."I think
raising some type of mental defense is his only hope of not spending
his entire life in prison," legal expert and defense attorney Johnny
Griffin said. "It's hard to get the insanity defense if there are not
facts to support it, but here the defense has set forth that there are
numerous things out there -- his manifesto, his weird behavior, his
statements of hearing voices."Griffin said he thinks Gellman
could be doing two things by filing the motion: Telling the court she
cannot effectively communicate with Garrido because of the mental
illness, and telling the court that Garrido doesn't truly understand
the trouble he's in and doesn't understand the legal system.

SACRAMENTO, CA - An appeals court Monday rejected an attempt by
state corrections officials to avoid turning over additional documents
relating to the bungled parole of Phillip Garrido.
The California Department of Corrections
and Rehabilitation (CDCR) sought to overturn a Sacramento judge's order
that the department hand over all of Garrido's parole records as
requested by several media organizations under the Public Records Act.
The CDCR argued publishing the documents could endanger the safety and security of its staff.
Garrido is accused of kidnapping Jaycee Dugard, then 11, from her
South Lake Tahoe neighborhood in 1991. At the time, Garrido was on
federal parole. Garrido's supervision was transferred to California
parole agents in 1999.
California corrections officials have been criticized for allowing
Garrido to keep Dugard and the two daughters he fathered with her in
the backyard of his Antioch home for a decade while under the
supervision of a series of California parole agents.
The CDCR was forced to release a number of documents Feb. 12 after failing to get an emergency stay from the appeals court. More sensitive documents, such as personnel and medical records, were allowed to be held back for a judge's review.
On Monday, the court summarily denied the state's petition,
requiring the CDCR to provide Sacramento Superior Court Judge Patrick
Marlette with a list of documents withheld from the initial release.
Marlette will review the documents before deciding which ones will
be made public. He had previously set March 1 as a deadline for
receiving those documents. A CDCR spokesman confirmed the department
had complied.
Marlette earlier indicated he would decide which documents would be released to the public sometime after March 15.

SACRAMENTO, CA - America will get a chance to actually hear from Jaycee Dugard for the first time Friday.
ABC's "Good Morning America" and "20/20" will air exclusive video
and recordings of the kidnapping victim Friday -- the first time her
words have been heard publicly since her August 2009 rescue after 18
years in captivity.
In addition to hearing Dugard speak, the footage is expected to show
never-before-seen images of Dugard's new life with her mother Terry
Probyn and step-sister Shayna.
The programs also promise to present "Jaycee Dugard's mother's powerful plea."
Kidnapped from outside her South Lake Tahoe home in 1991, Dugard was
allegedly held for 18 years in the backyard of Antioch couple Phillip
and Nancy Garrido. The couple are awaiting trial on kidnapping, rape
and imprisonment charges.
Dugard is currently living in an undisclosed location with her two
daughters fathered by Phillip Garrido. Except for an interview with People Magazine last October, Dugard has not spoken publicly about her ordeal.
Portions of the exclusive story were expected to appear on "Good
Morning America" at 7 a.m. Friday on ABC. More footage will be
featured on "20/20" at 9 p.m. Friday.

Good Morning America 3/5/2010

Jaycee Dugard Exclusive: 'It's Been a Long Haul'

Jaycee Dugard Speaks for the First Time in Exclusive Home Video



Excerpt:

The home video shows a portrait of a healing family -- a mother and her two daughters baking cookies, riding horses and laughing together.

It's the first glimpse at the freedom kidnap survivor Jaycee Dugard has enjoyed since her rescue last summer from the backyard lair where she was held captive for nearly two decades.

"Hi I'm Jaycee. I want to thank you for your support and I'm doing well," Dugard said in her first public statement since the arrest of her alleged captors. She is seated, dressed in a black shirt and jeans and a pink baseball cap, and feeding two spaniels.

"It's been a long haul," she said, "but I'm getting there."

READ MORE: http://abcnews.go.com/2020/TheLaw/jaycee-dugard-home-video-kidnap-survivor-speaks-time/story?id=10009310

The man charged with kidnapping Jaycee Dugard and holding her captive
for 18 years has been ruled out as a suspect in two unsolved murder
cases involving children in Reno, police said.


Phillip Garrido was cleared after investigators looked for similarities
between the cases and Garrido's alleged method of operation in the
Dugard case, Reno police Lt. Mike Whan said.

Dugard resurfaced last August in Northern California after being
abducted near her school bus stop in South Lake Tahoe, Calif., in 1991
at the age of 11.

The cold cases eyed by Reno detectives included the 1989 murders of two
children who vanished near their school bus stop.

Investigators searched records on microfiche, contacted retired
investigators and sought other physical evidence such as DNA, Whan said.
"We were just looking for facts and everything came to a dead end. There
was nothing," Whan told The Associated Press.

The unsolved cases occurred within two years after Garrido was paroled
from a Nevada prison in 1988 after serving time for the 1976 kidnapping
and sexual assault of a 25-year-old woman while he lived in Reno.

One of the Reno cases involved siblings Jennifer and Charles Chia, who
were kidnapped on a 100-yard walk from a bus stop to their home in 1989.
The remains of Jennifer, 6, and Charles, 7, were found nine months
later about 60 miles northwest of Reno.

In the other case, 7-year-old Monica DaSilva was taken from her bedroom
as she slept in 1990. Her remains were found three weeks later.

Investigators found it interesting that no similar child abductions had
occurred in Reno since then. But they have no suspects in either cold
case, Whan said.

"It's very frustrating. You get information where you think this might
be the one, and you follow it until it goes nowhere and then you start
looking for another suspect," Whan said.

Garrido and his wife Nancy Garrido have pleaded not guilty to kidnapping
and sexual assault charges in the Dugard case.

Tom. Thank you. This is stunning.

So, he didn't murder anyone, he just abducted and raped a little girl, then kept her hidden for years....honestly, what is wrong with our world....???

I'd like to hook him up with Casey. They make a perfect couple.

People of his ilk should go directly to the death chamber. Do not pass "go"...Do not collect $200

TomTerrific0420 wrote:People of his ilk should go directly to the death chamber. Do not pass "go"...Do not collect $200

Death is too kind for him. But he is also too crazy to know what a freak he is, he probably thinks dying is the best thing that could ever happen to him....Can anyone get him a 'script for some Seroquel? What a nightmare that guy is....

More and more, I am becoming a proponent of exacting the same punishment on offenders that they have inflicted on their victims...

I'm fairly certain that would make some potential offenders think twice. Maybe that should be Caylee's Law. Please pass the chloroform and duct tape. I still haven't sent anything to Casey for her b-day.

Jaycee
Lee Dugard's attorney says Dugard will not allow the children she
had with accused kidnapper Phillip Garrido to meet with attorneys a
court has appointed to represent them, and is asking that no information
about them or their whereabouts be released.

The development comes as an El Dorado County Superior Court judge is
preparing for hearings next week over whether attorneys for Phillip and Nancy Garrido can have any contact with Dugard, who
was forced to have children with Garrido after her 1991 kidnapping when
she was 11.

Attorney Shawn Chapman Holley said in court documents filed
today that Dugard is asserting her rights under the California Victims'
Bill of Rights, passed as Proposition 9, or Marsy's Law, in 2008.

Judge Douglas Phimister appointed two attorneys on Feb. 26
to represent the interests of the children and had asked that they be
allowed to meet with the girls, but Holley said in the papers filed in
Placerville today that she would not allow the meeting.

Hearings in the case - one closed to the public and a later one open -
are set for April 15 in Placerville.

Dugard, who allegedly was held by the Garridos for 18 years before
she was found safe in August, has told authorities she wants no contact
with them.

Court papers filed Tuesday in El Dorado County Superior Court show alleged
kidnapping victim Jaycee Lee Dugard and her two daughters are now being
represented by a high-profile celebrity lawyer.
According to court records, Shawn Chapman Holley, of Kinsella Weitzman Iser Kump
& Aldisert, represents both Dugard and her children.
Chapman Holley's profile on the firm's Web site says she has represented a
laundry list of Hollywood celebrities, including Lindsay Lohan, Nicole Richie
and Paris Hilton. She was also a member of O.J. Simpson's defense team.
An El Dorado County judge had previously appointed lawyers to represent
Dugard's minor children. The new lawyer, Chapman Holley, said in court papers
Dugard's daughters do not wish to be represented by court-appointed attorneys,
and she has advised them not to meet with those lawyers now or any other time.



The court records also show Dugard and her daughters are exercising their rights
under Marsy's Law and seek a protective order from the court "to prohibit
disclosure of any and all information, documentation and other materials which
is confidential and otherwise pertains to them."
Phillip Garrido and his wife, Nancy, are charged with kidnapping and
raping Dugard over a period of years. She and her daughters were discovered last
August, living at the couple's Antioch home. The pair will be back in court on
April 15.
Gloria Allred, another high-profile attorney connected to the case, is
working with Dugard's biological father, Ken Slayton, as he tries to establish
contact with his estranged daughter.

Jaycee Dugard, who resurfaced last year after being kidnapped 18
years ago, says she has no interest in having a relationship with the
man who claims to be her biological father.In a statement
released Wednesday, spokeswoman Nancy Seltzer says the 30-year-old
Dugard does not wish to see Kenneth Slayton or his family, though she
reserves the right to change her mind later.Almost immediately
after Dugard was found in August in Northern California, Slayton
publicly announced he was her father and retained a lawyer to help him
establish his paternity.
Dugard's mother, Terry Probyn, has never denied Slayton was the
father. She said she told Slayton about the pregnancy and about his
daughter's birth, but he showed no interest. He was also told by
authorities when Dugard was kidnapped, the statement said."At no
point did Mr. Slayton offer any assistance beyond what was requested of
him while Jaycee was missing," the statement said. "It is now Jaycee
Dugard's turn to express her feelings and she has no interest."Slayton's
attorney Gloria Allred said Wednesday that they will have no comment.Last
October, Slayton said he had never met Dugard because he did not know
she existed until he briefly became a suspect in her 1991 kidnapping.Outside
of a court hearing regarding the suspects in Dugard's abduction,
Slayton said he hoped to forge a relationship with Dugard. He said he
attended the hearing for Phillip and Nancy Garrido, who have pleaded not
guilty in the case, because "Jaycee Lee Dugard needs a father. She
needs a masculine role model."Dugard has been living privately in
California with her mother and the two daughters she bore with Phillip
Garrido while in captivity.

California lawmakers approved a $20 million settlement Thursday with
the family of Jaycee Dugard, who was kidnapped as a girl and held
captive in a secret backyard for 18 years by a paroled sex offender.Dugard,
30, resurfaced last August with two daughters she bore with Phillip
Garrido, a convicted rapist.Dugard, her mother and daughters
filed claims in February saying state officials with the Department of
Corrections and Rehabilitation failed to do their jobs. Parole agents
began supervising Garrido in 1999 but failed to discover Dugard.The
Dugard family members claimed psychological, physical and emotional
damages."I can't emphasize enough that we've got to be much more
prudent in terms of how we provide oversight for released prisoners in
the state of California," Assemblyman Ted Gaines, R-Granite Bay, said.Attorneys
for the Dugards did not immediately respond to calls seeking comment.Garrido
and his wife, Nancy, have pleaded not guilty to charges that they
kidnapped and raped the young woman.Dugard and her children were
hidden at the Garrido home in the eastern San Francisco Bay area city of
Antioch, authorities said."Jaycee and her children, now 13 and
16, are now living in seclusion and will need many years of therapy,
education and health care," said Assemblyman Felipe Fuentes, D-Sylmar.Lawmakers
approved the settlement with a 30-1 vote in the Senate and a 62-0 vote
in the Assembly.The money for the Dugards will come from the
state's hard-hit general fund, which pays for most state operations. It
comes while the state faces a $19 billion deficit as it enters the new
fiscal year without a budget.The settlement made up the bulk of
the money approved in AB1714, which settles three other claims for a
combined $1.49 million.Assemblyman Jim Nielsen, R-Yuba City, said
it was wise for the state to pay the claim quickly rather than fight a
court battle that he said "exacerbates the grievous loss of the victims
and the lifelong condemnation and pain of their families."He
predicted the state also will pay claims as well in the case of John
Albert Gardner III, who pleaded guilty to killing two San Diego County
teenagers. Parole agents were also faulted in that case for failing to
send Gardner, a convicted sex offender, back to prison.

It's a
terse, unmistakable mantra, evoking memories of tragedy and failure in a
push by the Contra Costa County Sheriff's Office to do better."Look in the backyard."Jaycee
Dugard's reappearance nearly a year ago and the revelations that
followed -- myriad failed chances to discover the hidden backyard
compound where registered sex offender and lifetime parolee Phillip
Garrido is suspected of having kept Dugard and their two girls -- shone
an unforgiving international spotlight on state and local law
enforcement.The emotional and political impact of the case continues to ripple.Apologies
would follow -- one in the form of a $20 million payout approved by
the state Legislature -- along with change. Local police call the case a
spark for more focused street-level policing. State corrections
officials, who oversaw Garrido's parole since 1999, tout an improved
system in sex-offender management and enforcement, with better
coordination and a host of policy changes to address the kinds of lapses
exposed by Dugard's 18-year disappearance. But whether urgent
mantras and a host of parole policy directives signal lasting progress
or a misguided knee jerk, or perhaps some of each, remains subject for
intense debate, while the state grapples to keep sight of more than
60,000 registered sex offenders.The pall of failure fell hard on
the Sheriff's Office, which patrols the patch of land where Garrido and
his wife, Nancy, lived.
Had Garrido lived a few
blocks south, it would have fallen on Antioch police to respond to a
November 2006 emergency call from a neighbor saying Garrido had a
"sexual addiction" and kept young children living in tents in his
backyard.But the cosmic odds chose this virtual island. In the
absence of state and federal parole officials explaining their primary
roles in monitoring Garrido, Sheriff Warren Rupf took to the podium.Rupf
specifically apologized for a deputy's response -- rather, his lack of
one. The deputy had spoken with Garrido in front of the house but never
entered. He never checked Garrido's background as a convicted rapist and
registered sex offender. Rupf, who is retiring after 18 years in office
told a battery of news outlets that his agency had blown its best
chance to find her."The oversights were relatively minor, but the
impact was immense," Rupf said recently in his office. "There were
mitigating circumstances, but there are no excuses. It was a failure."The
media horde trumpeted the apology. The Sheriff's Office had paid other
visits to the home on Walnut Avenue, during periodic sweeps designed to
ensure registered sex offenders were living where they said they were. At
first, corrections officials issued a news release lauding agents for
their role in Dugard's discovery. It would be months, after a scathing
review by the state Inspector General, before Matthew Cate, the state
corrections secretary, apologized for numerous failures to properly
classify and monitor Garrido. "I was not surprised," Rupf said,
"but still angry with the lack of response from other government
officials." Federal officials, he noted, oversaw Garrido's parole over
the years authorities say he kidnapped Dugard and fathered her two
girls."I'd like to find somebody in federal parole and shake 'em.
And tell them how embarrassed I am for them that you're not only
willing, but the system allows you to simply stand behind the curtain."Rupf
soon announced that he would not run for a fifth term as sheriff.
Murmurs arose that the impact of the Dugard case and his international
mea culpa had sapped him."If anything, it gave me cause to consider re-election," he said.
Tactical shift
Whatever
the fallout for the Sheriff's Office, Rupf points to an array of
tactics and programs that were either created or accelerated in the wake
of his apology.Among the first, he said, was stripping divisions
between what he called "silos of information" where facts and
observations gathered by patrol deputies never reached sex crime
investigators, and vice versa. Now, a patrol deputy gets alerts on his
in-car computer if a registered sex offender lives within a mile of
where a police call originates."If you have a missing kid, and
you see that you have a sex offender two doors down, he might be someone
to look at," said sex crimes Detective Kelly Challand.The
Sheriff's Office also fixed a glaring oversight made obvious when
millions of computer users instantly logged onto Google Maps for an
aerial view showing the illicit compound that had eluded state and local
law enforcement.Now, included along with a registered sex offender's dossier is an aerial view of the property."Look in the backyard.""I
hear people say that all the time," Challand said. "Deputies didn't
know there was another backyard. They didn't know the property lines. A
guy on the street sees the fence line and assumes that's the end of the
yard."Cooperation between state parole agents, county probation
officers and local police has since become enshrined into quarterly
meetings on the 1,485 registered sex offenders in Contra Costa County.
There are now agreements with the U.S. Marshals Service to extradite sex
offenders who skip the state.Such plans were already in the works, Challand said, but after August 2009, obstacles quickly dissolved.In
February, during the first county sweep after the Dugard revelation, a
litany of agencies lent a hand, including a strong showing by state
parole agents, who were mostly absent on many previous sweeps.Local
police have seen a payoff. Last month in Walnut Creek, police found a
14-year-old girl at a local motel room. They investigated and learned
that her suspected pimp was a paroled sex offender. Detective Greg
Leonard said he called a state parole agent who tracked the suspect by
GPS, leading to his quick arrest and pending charges."It quite possibly saved this girl's life," he said. "I'm not saying from the parolee, but the lifestyle she was in."That level of communication, before Dugard's reappearance, went lacking, Leonard said. "I've talked to people that were involved in the Dugard incident," he
said. "There's so much regret and what could have been done differently.
It's one of those crimes that hits home. "
Monitoring offenders
Significant
shifts in parole policy trailed the political torrent over the Garrido
case. More recently, criticism over the supervision of ex-parolee John
Gardner -- a sex offender who went on to rape and murder two Southern
California girls -- has state lawmakers moving swiftly to harden
sentences for many sex crimes and lengthen parole terms -- in some cases
to life -- for some offenders, while adding polygraph tests and
treatment.A new statewide task force reviews GPS monitoring.
Parole agents have undergone new training, and corrections officials
have formed GPS "super units," with parole agents assigned exclusively
to sex offenders or gang members strapped with monitoring anklets.Inspector
General David Shaw found that parole agents ignored hundreds of alerts
in 2008 from the GPS device strapped to Phillip Garrido's ankle, showing
it failed to transmit a signal, that he'd veered far from the 25-mile
radius under his parole terms and that he had often stayed out past his
midnight curfew.Parole agents monitor sex offenders deemed "high
risk" using "active" GPS, meaning they check their daily electronic
tracks. Other sex offenders are monitored less frequently, under
"passive GPS." Before the Garrido case, they could check active
GPS tracks days later, and there was no policy dictating how often they
checked passive GPS parolees. Now they must check active tracks within a
day, and the new policy requires them to check two days of passive GPS,
twice monthly.The new policy, instituted in March, also demands
that parole agents analyze the tracks -- dots on a computer screen that
indicate intervals of 10 minutes or less -- one by one.The policy
also mandates "collateral contacts" -- speaking with neighbors and
other people familiar with a parolee -- something agents failed to do in
Garrido's case.At the parole district office in Fairfield,
agents assigned to the GPS unit spurn talk about the Garrido case. They
prefer to talk about quiet success stories.Agent Curtis Murry
said he nabbed a sex offender parolee in March who had cut off his
electronic ankle bracelet and was leaving on a bus for San Diego. GPS
recently helped him catch another parolee who was attending youth
Narcotics Anonymous meetings to troll for vulnerable girls, he said."The
only thing (the public) ever hears about is the cases where something
goes bad," said Murry, whose caseload includes 13 active and 14 passive
GPS cases in Contra Costa. On a recent afternoon, Murry found an
alert for Richard Miranda, a registered sex offender on parole for auto
theft. He had left his sister's house in Martinez at 12:30 that morning
for a trip out to Bailey Road in East Contra Costa. Murry checked
Miranda's location -- his father's apartment near the Solano drive-in
in Concord -- and drove out with two other agents. They banged on the
door, shouted, and then Murry set off a vibration on Miranda's anklet.
Still nothing. He checked his laptop GPS in the car. "He's in there," he mouthed to the other agents. They went in, guns drawn.Miranda
was passed out on a bed. There was porn -- 17 magazines, 7 DVDs -- drug
residue, a sex toy and a knife. Miranda admitted using methamphetamine
and had violated various parole terms, Murry said. He had set up a form
of residence there, with a room and a key. Regardless of whether he
slept there at night, the apartment was too close to a park under
Jessica's Law. His sex crime, misdemeanor indecent exposure, came
18 years ago. State corrections is applying Jessica's Law, including a
GPS requirement, on all registered sex offenders who are on parole for
whatever reasons."They're lumping everyone together. I'm not a
child molester," said Miranda, 47, handcuffed behind his back. "No one
should know where you're at 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Nobody."
'Difficult spot'
In
some ways the new policies are not enough, in other ways, overkill,
said Robert Coombs, chairman of the California Sex Offender Management
Board, whose appointed members include corrections and probation
officials, prosecutors, victim advocates and treatment experts. Among
other measures, the state is putting in place a kind of score-sheet
system for parole violations. In part because of the Garrido and Gardner
cases, the state is adding new burdens on overworked parole agents and
stripping away their discretion and flexibility -- the time to use their
valuable intuition, said Coombs, also spokesman for the California
Coalition Against Sexual Assault.The idea that agents must analyze each individual "track" for every sex offender is ludicrous, he said."Everyone
who actually knows the process parole agents go through knows that's a
monumental waste of time. That's a response to getting lambasted by the
Inspector General and lots of folks in the media," Coombs said. "We
need to recognize the scenario in (the Dugard case) is just so extreme,
that really the big failure was we didn't have someone who could
imagine the evil he was capable of. The biggest lesson in the Dugard
case for me is that law enforcement, parole, all of these different
elements need to be working together."Locally, that may be the most dramatic change -- an attitude shift toward cooperation, spurred in part by worry. No one wants to be the officer or deputy who failed to find the next Dugard."I
get calls all night long from deputies on the street who see a sex
offender or go to a house," he said. "They want to make sure before
leaving the scene that they're getting everything right."A catchy motto doesn't hurt. "Look in the backyard," Rupf repeated. "I extend that to virtually everything we do."

A judge temporarily suspended criminal proceedings Friday against the man accused of kidnapping Jaycee Dugard when she was a child and holding her prisoner for 18 years, citing worries about the defendant's mental state.
El Dorado County Superior Court Judge Douglas Phimister made the decision after a short pretrial hearing for Phillip Garrido.
Phimister said he had concerns about Garrido's mental competency to participate in his defense on 29 counts of kidnapping, rape and false imprisonment in the 1991 disappearance of Dugard. A preliminary hearing where prosecutors would have laid out their evidence against Garrido had been scheduled to start Oct. 7.
The judge did not halt proceedings against Garrido's wife, Nancy, who faces similar counts. The couple are accused of holding the girl captive in a backyard jumble of tents and sheds for nearly two decades until they were arrested in August 2009.

Authorities said Dugard, who is now 30, bore two daughters to Garrido while being held.
The judge said he based his decision on talks with Garrido's attorney and observing the defendant in court over the past few months. A report from a psychiatrist Phimister appointed to assist the defense are pending.
Phimister said he was concerned about Garrido's unresponsive behavior during earlier hearings.
He said he'd noticed Garrido looking away and appearing not to be listening when his lawyer was talking to him, and frantically scribbling notes when nothing important was happening.
"The court is troubled by these observations," he said.
The judge's action came in response to a private meeting Thursday with Garrido's lawyer, Deputy Public Defender Susan Gellman, who has previously stated she thinks her client is mentally ill. She told Phimister Friday that she agreed with his assessment based on her more than 20 visits with Garrido in jail.
"In these meetings, we have had persistent trouble," Gellman said.
District attorney Vern Pierson said prosecutors think Garrido "is in fact competent," but would defer to Gellman and the judge's opinion for now.
Outside court, Gellman described the suspension as a delay that would likely last only a few months and not a strategy to keep her client from being prosecuted.
"This is a fundamental fairness issue," she said. "What we are talking about here is whether a defendant is able to make a decision about his case."
Nancy Garrido is due back in court on Oct. 1 for a final pretrial conference before her Oct. 7 preliminary hearing.
At that hearing, prosecutors would present evidence that the judge would use to decide whether there is enough to put her on trial.
Phimister set another hearing for Phillip Garrido on Oct. 8, where he said he would consider appointing an independent expert to evaluate Garrido. Although he suspended the case against Garrido Friday, the judge still must hold a full competency hearing.
Similar issues delayed proceedings against the couple accused of kidnapping Utah teenager Elizabeth Smart in 2002 and holding her captive for nine months. The case was postponed for more than six years while Brian Mitchell and Wanda Barzee underwent psychiatric treatment.
Last November, Barzee pleaded guilty to kidnapping and unlawful transportation of a minor. Mitchell was declared competent in March and his trial has been scheduled for later this year.

Jaycee Dugard had been kidnapped at the age of 11 and was held captive for 18 years. The details of what she endured will be revealed in a new memoir she is writing.

The now 30-year-old will be writing the book herself, and will be talking about her abduction in 1991,chronicling the events she endured leading up to present day.

"When I read the pages, I was moved and inspired by the raw power of Jaycee Dugard's voice, her strength and her resilience," Simon & Schuster publisher and executive vice president Jonathan Karp remarked about the forthcoming book.

Dugard spent almost two decades locked away until her captors, Phillip Garrido, and his wife Nancy, were arrested in August 2009.

The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) has been tasked with handling U.S. child abduction cases since 1932, when Congress granted the agency jurisdiction under the Lindbergh Law, named after the famous Lindbergh baby kidnapping.

Through their Child Abduction Rapid Deployment (CARD) teams, the FBI gathers and shares information regarding abductions, and also works with local field offices and the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children to initiate an investigation.

CARD teams may become involved in an investigation immediately - a parent whose child has been abducted does not have to wait for a certain amount of time to elapse before reporting them missing. They also do not have to wait for a ransom note or know if the child has been transported across state lines to ask the FBI for help.

The FBI has created a brochure, A Parent's Guide to Internet Safety, to keep parents informed about the dangers of internet abduction, and what precautions they can take to keep their children out of harm's way.

California kidnapping victim Jaycee Dugard and her two young daughters will be spared from having to testify in open court any time soon following a grand jury indictment of the couple charged with kidnapping and holding her captive for 18 years, a prosecutor said Friday. Phillip and Nancy Garrido were each indicted on 18 counts that ranged from rape to false imprisonment, plus multiple special allegations in a process that will eliminate the need for a preliminary hearing where their alleged victim likely would have taken the witness stand. Authorities said the Garridos abducted Dugard, then 11, from a South Lake Tahoe bus stop in 1991 and held her captive until she and her children surfaced at the office of Phillip Garrido's parole agent. Garrido fathered the two children, authorities said. El Dorado County District Attorney Vern Pierson said outside court the indictment was sought to protect Dugard's privacy and to prevent much of the evidence from becoming public. "It's a better way to get a case to a final conclusion and move it along to trial" when it has attracted a lot of publicity, Pierson said.
The preliminary hearing that had been scheduled to begin next week was canceled in light of the indictment. The indictments were returned Sept. 21 but kept confidential until Friday, when Superior Court Judge Douglas Phimister sealed the transcripts of the proceedings.
Pierson would not say if Dugard had appeared before the panel. A witness list attached to the indictment names a Jane Doe, which is how Dugard has been referred to in all previous court documents.
Stephen Tapson, Nancy Garrido's court-appointed lawyer, said outside court that he heard from a juror that Dugard spent a full day before the panel and that her testimony brought many in attendance to tears. The revised charges against the Garridos include kidnapping, forcible rape, lewd acts on a child and false imprisonment. The indictment also alleges Phillip Garrido videotaped sex acts involving himself and his wife with the victim. Both defendants were charged with possession of child pornography.
Nancy Garrido pleaded not guilty to the new charges. Criminal proceedings against her husband have been suspended to evaluate his mental competency. On Friday, the district attorney urged the judge to enter a not guilty plea for Phillip Garrido, saying he was concerned that an untimely arraignment might later derail the case. But Phimister declined and asked to be briefed on the issue. The judge also appointed a psychiatrist who already had evaluated Phillip Garrido to prepare a report offering his views on whether the defendant was capable of participating in his defense. The couple previously were charged by prosecutors with 29 counts each. Those charges were superseded by the indictment. The Garridos each face eight special allegations, including kidnapping for sexual purposes and victimizing a stranger. Phillip Garrido faces five additional special allegations related to his prior record as a sex offender from a 1977 rape conviction. The special allegations could lead to tougher sentences if the Garridos are convicted. Katie Callaway Hall, a woman Phillip Garrido was convicted of raping and kidnapping 34 years ago, attended the hearing and told reporters she was distressed he might avoid trial in the Dugard case because of mental competency claims. "He shows extreme competence in his ability to make a lot of people believe exactly what he wants them to believe," she said. "He was able to hide three people, their very existence, for 18 years." Dugard, now 30, is writing a memoir for Simon & Schuster. The publisher says the book will cover her life from the abduction to how she is doing now.

TomTerrific0420 wrote:A judge temporarily suspended criminal proceedings Friday against the man accused of kidnapping Jaycee Dugard when she was a child and holding her prisoner for 18 years, citing worries about the defendant's mental state.
El Dorado County Superior Court Judge Douglas Phimister made the decision after a short pretrial hearing for Phillip Garrido.
Phimister said he had concerns about Garrido's mental competency to participate in his defense on 29 counts of kidnapping, rape and false imprisonment in the 1991 disappearance of Dugard. A preliminary hearing where prosecutors would have laid out their evidence against Garrido had been scheduled to start Oct. 7.
The judge did not halt proceedings against Garrido's wife, Nancy, who faces similar counts. The couple are accused of holding the girl captive in a backyard jumble of tents and sheds for nearly two decades until they were arrested in August 2009.

Authorities said Dugard, who is now 30, bore two daughters to Garrido while being held.
The judge said he based his decision on talks with Garrido's attorney and observing the defendant in court over the past few months. A report from a psychiatrist Phimister appointed to assist the defense are pending.
Phimister said he was concerned about Garrido's unresponsive behavior during earlier hearings.
He said he'd noticed Garrido looking away and appearing not to be listening when his lawyer was talking to him, and frantically scribbling notes when nothing important was happening.
"The court is troubled by these observations," he said.
The judge's action came in response to a private meeting Thursday with Garrido's lawyer, Deputy Public Defender Susan Gellman, who has previously stated she thinks her client is mentally ill. She told Phimister Friday that she agreed with his assessment based on her more than 20 visits with Garrido in jail.
"In these meetings, we have had persistent trouble," Gellman said.
District attorney Vern Pierson said prosecutors think Garrido "is in fact competent," but would defer to Gellman and the judge's opinion for now.
Outside court, Gellman described the suspension as a delay that would likely last only a few months and not a strategy to keep her client from being prosecuted.
"This is a fundamental fairness issue," she said. "What we are talking about here is whether a defendant is able to make a decision about his case."
Nancy Garrido is due back in court on Oct. 1 for a final pretrial conference before her Oct. 7 preliminary hearing.
At that hearing, prosecutors would present evidence that the judge would use to decide whether there is enough to put her on trial.
Phimister set another hearing for Phillip Garrido on Oct. 8, where he said he would consider appointing an independent expert to evaluate Garrido. Although he suspended the case against Garrido Friday, the judge still must hold a full competency hearing.
Similar issues delayed proceedings against the couple accused of kidnapping Utah teenager Elizabeth Smart in 2002 and holding her captive for nine months. The case was postponed for more than six years while Brian Mitchell and Wanda Barzee underwent psychiatric treatment.
Last November, Barzee pleaded guilty to kidnapping and unlawful transportation of a minor. Mitchell was declared competent in March and his trial has been scheduled for later this year.

OMG, he's worried about the monster's mental health? Something is wrong with this. No wonder people feel so free to commit such heinous acts against children.

Nancy Garrido confessed to the kidnapping and 18-year enslavement of Jaycee Dugard, telling police she snatched the girl off a South Lake Tahoe street and went along as her sex-offender husband locked their 11-year-old captive in a Bay Area shed, Garrido's attorney said Monday.
Garrido, 55, confessed late last year with the understanding that she
might earn a chance at eventual parole, said the attorney, Stephen
Tapson. But now she may try her luck at trial after prosecutors offered
her a plea deal of 242 years to life in prison, he said.
Tapson spoke after a court hearing on the case in Placerville. He said El Dorado County District Attorney
Vern Pierson offered the plea bargain over the weekend, but that the
defense had rejected it because a term of 242 years is essentially a
life sentence.
"At this point, why not go to trial?" said Tapson, whose client has
pleaded not guilty to 18 counts. "I was hoping for a chance for parole.
My hopes were dashed."
Pierson hopes to avoid a trial that could force Dugard - and the two
daughters she had by Garrido's husband, Phillip Garrido - to testify
against their alleged captors, who were arrested in August 2009. Pierson
declined to comment Monday.
A lawyer for Phillip Garrido, 59, did not return a call seeking
comment. On Feb. 3, Judge Douglas Phimister ruled Phillip Garrido
competent to stand trial, and Tapson said he had subsequently confessed
as well.
Tapson said Dugard was not in the same room as Nancy Garrido when she
confessed, but that the two met. He said his client had left the
meeting in tears.
According to Tapson, Nancy Garrido confessed that she grabbed Dugard
on June 10, 1991, as the girl walked to a bus stop.He said Nancy Garrido
never engaged in sexual activity with Dugard, but knew her husband was
doing so. When Dugard gave birth, at age 13 and again at age 16, Nancy
Garrido delivered the children, Tapson said.
She recalled parole agents visiting the couple's home outside
Antioch, Tapson said, with the agents failing to notice a compound of
sheds and tents hidden in the backyard where Dugard and her daughters
lived.
Tapson said he would argue at trial that his client had been under
her husband's power. He said there were similarities to the case of Patty Hearst, the heiress who joined Symbionese Liberation Army radicals in a San Francisco bank robbery after they kidnapped her in 1974.
"She was led down the path to sin and degradation by Mr. Garrido,"
Tapson said of his client. "You have a young girl who was never in
trouble and never into dope, who meets him, is entranced by him, becomes
a crankster (methamphetamine user), decides to do what he wants and
suffers the consequences."
Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2011/02/28/MN3T1I0LF7.DTL#ixzz1FJlB2AoT