Court Tries to Deal With Cries of a Troubled Woman

Eighty-year-old Elizabeth Curran has become a fixture in the Santa Monica Municipal Court, after numerous complaints by neighbors about what they say is her bizarre, antisocial behavior.

A small, frail woman with a loud voice, Curran has five criminal cases now pending in the court, on charges including misdemeanor assault, obstructing a police officer, petty theft and using offensive words in public.

Santa Monica City Atty. Robert Myers says he repeatedly prosecutes Curran in part because he hopes that the courts will somehow find help for her mental problems.

In a 1987 incident, Curran doused neighborhood children with a garden hose. When officers arrived, she refused to sign a citation and was arrested.

Booked for assault and battery, Curran was held in a cell at the Santa Monica police station in lieu of $500 bail, according to court records. An arrest report listed her then as 76 years old, 5-feet-5, and an “imminent danger to others.”

This April, Santa Monica Municipal Judge David B. Finkel ordered Curran evaluated by a psychologist, but she missed her appointment.

“There are many times Mrs. Curran has engaged in antisocial conduct we ignored,” Myers said. “When she started to attack children in the neighborhood we felt we had to intervene. . . . The bottom line in our dealing with Mrs. Curran is that she needs help. I don’t think anybody wants to put her in jail.”

Nevertheless, Curran did spend three days recently in Sybil Brand Institute, the women’s jail. She was arrested June 28 on an outstanding warrant for failure to appear in court.

When she appeared in Santa Monica Municipal Court, she wore an orange jail uniform. Her gray hair disheveled, the elderly woman looked bewildered and angry as a marshal wheeled her into the courtroom.

After conferring with the prosecuting attorney and Judge Garrett Olney in chambers, Leo McNamara, Curran’s court-appointed attorney, agreed to a plea-bargain. Curran would plead no contest to a trespassing charge and be placed on probation. In exchange, the city attorney’s office would drop the rest of her cases.

It was a good deal, McNamara told her. Olney also tried to explain the plea-bargain from the bench. By pleading no contest, the judge said, Curran was not admitting that she had done anything wrong. As the judge methodically tried to explain the law to the woman, she repeatedly interrupted him. Finally, he persuaded her to go along.

The deal fell apart when Olney began the usually routine process of asking Curran if she waived her constitutional right to a trial.

Rather than answer yes or no, Curran wanted to talk about her neighbors and the “liars” who brought the charges against her.

The judge gave up. “I feel very uncomfortable in taking this defendant’s plea,” he said. Olney then asked McNamara if he had considered having his client declared “1368,” mentally incompetent to stand trial. McNamara shook his head no. Finally, the judge ordered a jury trial, now scheduled for Sept. 3.