D.A. Defends Handling of Abuse Cases

Keeping families together is not always the best course in court cases involving abused or neglected children, the San Diego County district attorney’s office said Tuesday in a lengthy report that defends the way prosecutors handle the sensitive cases.

Reacting to county grand jury reports issued earlier this year that urged authorities to emphasize family structure and that sharply criticized prosecutors for the handling of several cases, the district attorney’s office said it deems the safety and well-being of an abused child a “paramount” priority--even if that means a family ends up being torn apart.

Repeatedly, Dist. Atty. Edwin L. Miller took issue Tuesday with the series of grand jury reports, which were sparked by the case of a father wrongfully accused of raping his 8-year-old daughter. The reports, Miller said, appeared to be based on false assumptions, riddled with factual distortions and laced with inaccurate judgments.

The reports did contain “useful suggestions,” including one that police, prosecutors, social workers and court workers develop more effective ways to discuss child abuse and neglect, Miller said.

But overall, he said, the grand jury reports were “tainted by prejudices brought to the inquiry, grotesque misunderstandings of the operation of the systems studied and a rush to judgment which may feed sensational headlines but does not nourish justice for society’s children.”

Prompted by the grand jury’s first of four reports, issued in February, the County Board of Supervisors in April approved a wide-ranging reform package. The board ordered better training for social workers, fairer rules of investigations and a greater emphasis on keeping families together whenever possible.

“As the criminal case prosecutor in child abuse cases, we do not and will not recommend sentences which provide for reunification when we believe it is dangerous to the child or other members of the community,” Miller said in his 45-page report.

In its last report, issued in June, the grand jury said prosecutors had apparently not “accepted any responsibility” for the county’s child protective system nor “critically examined existing policies and procedures.”

That was a “cheap shot,” Miller said Tuesday. Prosecutors own up to their mistakes and review their policies on a regular basis, he said. Besides, he said, the grand jury never bothered before publication to talk with him about what “ ‘responsibility’ (his office bore) for the ‘crisis’ ” in the child protective system.

In the case of the 8-year-old girl, Miller said, there “were no doubt errors made.” It was a difficult, emotional case, and the system “should do better.”

But the hostile tone and “underlying philosophical bias” of the grand jury make the panel’s reports an “unlikely vehicle with which to bring about such improvements,” Miller said.