Jacycee Dugard - settlement

Schwarzenegger signs $20M payment to Jaycee Dugard

By the CNN Wire Staff
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July 10, 2010 8:40 a.m. EDT


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California authorities missed opportunities to rescue Jaycee Dugard from her backyard prison.


STORY HIGHLIGHTS

• California pays $20 million settlement to Jaycee Dugard
  
• Dugard was held captive for 18 years by convicted rapist Phillip Garrido
  
• Parole officers never questioned why she was at Garrido's home
  

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  Arnold Schwarzenegger
  

(CNN) -- California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger on Friday signed a $20 million settlement for Jaycee Dugard, a woman who was held captive for 18 years by a convicted rapist who had been under the supervision of the state.
Parole officers saw and spoke to Dugard during visits to the home of the man accused of holding her captive, but they never questioned why she was there, California officials disclose in newly released documents that figured in the settlement.
At least three parole officers spotted Dugard at the home of Phillip Garrido, a convicted rapist who had been under California state supervision since 1999, according to a June memo from the California attorney general's office. On at least one occasion, a parole officer spoke to her and one of her daughters, whom investigators say Garrido fathered during her captivity.
But those officers "failed to investigate their identities or their relationship to Garrido," the memo states.
The document outlined the $20 million settlement between Dugard and California authorities, which the state Legislature approved last week. It was drafted to brief state lawmakers on the settlement before their vote, said Christine Gasparac, an attorney general's office spokeswoman.
Dugard disappeared in 1991, at age 11, and was found in August 2009 at Garrido's home in Antioch, about 45 miles east of San Francisco. Garrido and his wife, Nancy, have pleaded not guilty to 29 felony counts in the case.
Garrido was released on parole in 1988 after serving less than 12 years of a 50-to-life sentence for rape in federal and Nevada prisons. His victim in that case, Katie Callaway Hall, told CNN's "Issues with Jane Velez-Mitchell" that the latest revelation was "unbelievable."
"It's just one more astonishing fact in a long line of errors," said Hall, who is now an advocate for rape victims.
Responsibilty for Garrido's parole was transferred to California authorities in 1999.
A November 2009 investigation found parole officers failed to follow utility wires running from Garrido's house toward the shed where Dugard was held, didn't check out the presence of a 12-year-old girl during a visit or act on information that indicated Garrido had violated the terms of his release.
The June 25 memo concluded that while the state could have successfully defended some of the claims on procedural grounds, the state Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation "recognizes that this case has a unique and tragic character."
"Obviously, no amount of money could compensate these plaintiffs for what they have endured," it reads. But the settlement will provide Dugard and her daughters -- now teenagers -- with "the financial support that they will need to rebuild their lives."

The document estimates the family will need as much as $7 million alone for decades of counseling.

http://www.cnn.com/2010/CRIME/07/09/jaycee.dugard.settlement/index.html

I think pretty much everyone can agree that she is entitled to some compensation. There seems to be some debate among people who chose to comment on the CNN article. I think many of them raise and interesting question. Is $20 million appropriate?
I think it is a little high. The settlement will certainly provide for her. That is worth something. That is all that was accomplished. I think the $20 million was a mostly random figure that just happened to be agreed upon. No one really knows what a situation like this is worth. The $7 million estimate for counseling is over the top.
I doubt any amount of money could prevent something similar from happening again. $20 million is a lot. Relative to the state budget it hardly exists. Plus I am of the belief that financial penalties have almost no influence on business and less on governments. It is going to be a line on a state budget report that is reviewed by people who had no involvment in the situation.
Parole officers will still be underpaid government employees with ABSURD case loads and the public will expect them to be right all the time. Some will be great at the job. Some will be terrible. Most will be somewhere in between. Mistakes will happen and it is the mistakes that are remembered. You don't remember the countelss times the dog goes in the backyard. You remember the occassional time he craps on your carpet.
Thoughts?

Further talking this out by myself......
I suppose before you answer is $20 million the right # you have to address the question what are you trying to accomplish with the settlement?
Is California compensating her for what the state did? Did the state do anything to harm her or did they just reasonably fail to prevent someone else from harming her?

This was being discussed on our local talk radio...the compensation will be for a lifetime of counseling for she and her two children conceived by a gross, crazy old rapist pedophile...(that could take some therapy lol) and in the civil courts, money is the only way to compensate for damages. She also lost her youth and her family for years. It's hard to put a dollar figure on what that costs a person for the rest of their life. She will be able to live comfortably, get the girls counseling and education, go to school herself and not worry about money. This should make things easier for her while she reunites with her real family and tries to basically become Jaycee again.

The state blundered in so many ways I think it's only fair that they pay. I just wish the schmucks who didn't give a rats ass and botched their jobs didn't have immunity and could do AT LEAST some community service or have their checks garnered, pensions taken away, whatever the state can do to seek some repayment from them.

ziggy wrote:This was being discussed on our local talk radio...the compensation will be for a lifetime of counseling for she and her two children conceived by a gross, crazy old rapist pedophile...(that could take some therapy lol) and in the civil courts, money is the only way to compensate for damages. She also lost her youth and her family for years. It's hard to put a dollar figure on what that costs a person for the rest of their life. She will be able to live comfortably, get the girls counseling and education, go to school herself and not worry about money. This should make things easier for her while she reunites with her real family and tries to basically become Jaycee again.

The state blundered in so many ways I think it's only fair that they pay. I just wish the schmucks who didn't give a rats ass and botched their jobs didn't have immunity and could do AT LEAST some community service or have their checks garnered, pensions taken away, whatever the state can do to seek some repayment from them.

I suppose that is the part I am having a problem with. It seems as though several people in a position of authority really dropped the ball AND someone else [ in this case the state of California ] is paying for the mistake. I suppose only the state can pay. Realistically even without immunity what would a $20 million verdict against them be worth? It is one of those situations that is really just not fixable.. so we as a society do the best we can.. we put a dollar figure on it becuase what else really can be done... and we move on.
I hope Jaycee has someone that really cares about her in a position to look out for her best interests. She has been so compromised for so long that even with $20 million she will need a lot of help.

Well, there is something the state can do - they can fire the people and place a judgement for a portion of that money on them if they had any balls - AND rip away their pensions; but CA is too spinelss for that.