Shackled Children in Legal Dilemma

Three young siblings, whose only crime was their apparent reluctance to testify against their father, were jailed for 12 days in Los Angeles County’s overcrowded Central Juvenile Hall and brought to court in handcuffs and leg chains, according to their attorneys and other court officials.

The shackled children--two boys, ages 14 and 12, and a girl, age 14--appeared March 30 before Judge Lance A. Ito, who had issued warrants for their arrest as material witnesses less than two weeks before. Their father, Jose Flores, is accused of sexually abusing his daughter.

Prosecutors said neither they nor the judge expected the children to be shackled while they were transported to court and that the incident was an aberration.

“I had seen murderers walk in the front door, no handcuffs, no leg chains,” said Deputy Dist. Atty. Susan M. Powers.

The children’s attorneys decried the way the children, already taken from their family due to alleged abuse, were being held in Central Juvenile Hall in the company of serious juvenile offenders.

Ito requested that the young witnesses be moved to the “least restrictive setting to ensure their return to court,” according to court records. He would not comment on the case.

After sitting through the hearing in the shackles, the children were transferred to MacLaren’s Children’s Center, an El Monte shelter run by the county Department of Children and Family Services.

The girl’s attorney, Jo Kaplan, said such treatment is the inevitable outcome when children are drawn into the criminal justice system as material witnesses. “They’re going to be shackled. They were locked up with delinquents,” she said.

“I was furious at the district attorney, what they’re putting these kids through,” Kaplan said.

The children were not so much the victims of any one decision, most involved agree, as of an overburdened county system whose various parts often do not work in unison to protect the children.

A spokesman for the county Probation Department, which transfers inmates to and from Juvenile Hall, said department policy requires any serious offender or anyone at risk of escaping to be transferred in shackles. He said the children were determined to be a flight risk based on their history.

“The thing is, when we have someone in custody, we want them to stay in custody,” said Craig Levy, a department spokesman.

The emotionally distraught children have escaped from foster care twice since they were removed from their home in September, attorneys said.

Both times, the children’s mother, Ana Flores, allegedly concealed the youngsters and urged them to recant any allegations against their father. He is now in County Jail.

According to attorneys, the first time the children escaped, the mother, who has ovarian cancer, told investigators she did not know where they were. Moments later, officers found the children huddled together behind some clothes in a closet of the family home, according to court records.

The next time the children failed to appear in court, the mother was asked in open court to give their address. Officers who were sent to search for the address found that it did not exist, according to attorneys. The judge asked investigators to search Flores’ purse.

A different address written on a piece of paper led investigators to the children, who were taken into custody. Ana Flores was arrested on suspicion of perjury.

“These poor children were really caught in a dilemma,” Powers said. “They were caught between loyalty to family and these civic obligations [to testify] that were put in front of them.”

Generally, material witnesses like these children are offered bail after they are arrested, Powers said. But that wasn’t an option in this case.

“They’re wards of the court,” she said. “In this case the county would post bail, but they’re already in county custody. So it’s kind of a paradox.”

Prosecutors and attorneys said the criminal justice and Dependency Court systems need to communicate with each other when dealing with juvenile material witnesses.

“I think there is a big abyss between the two systems,” Powers said. “For us, it’s hard to get information from them and they say it is hard to get information from us.”

This was perhaps best exemplified Wednesday when the children were again ordered to appear in Ito’s court to face their father. Again, the youngsters did not appear.

According to Powers, officials at the children’s department did not know they were supposed to transport the youngsters that day.

Ito again issued arrest warrants for the siblings and ordered children’s department representatives to appear in court Tuesday to explain why they did not bring them.

Superior Court Judge Michael Nash, presiding judge of the Juvenile Court, said that judicial canons prevent him from discussing an ongoing case but that he intends to look into what happened. Nash, who supervises about 47 Juvenile Court judges, also said he had never used a similar approach to compel youths to testify.

“I never had to do that and I am sure it is unusual under any circumstances,” Nash said. “But whether it has happened before, I don’t know. And whether it is appropriate or inappropriate, legal or illegal, I don’t have any idea.”

Kaplan said that although prosecutors in this case were trying to help the children by getting them to testify against their father, they were ignoring the harm they were inflicting along the way.

“The way they were handled in the criminal court system wasn’t doing anything to further the healing process,” she said. “If anything, it was shattering their lives.”

Times staff writers Eric Malnic and Greg Krikorian contributed to this story.