Lost in the System

Outrage is good for the soul. Shaking one’s fist and shouting are a diversion from life’s tedium and a release from 21st century tension. Additionally, protest, in its purest form, is fun.

Therefore, when a situation arises that involves the jailing of a brain-damaged woman for stealing candy and a soft drink, we rise as one roaring our indignation.

And boy did we roar in the case of Ann Marie Degree.

She’s the 38-year-old woman who 20 years ago suffered ruptured blood vessels in her brain and lost almost all of her cognitive powers.

Degree was a drill team member at Huntington Beach’s Marina High, a bright and active girl, when she was stricken. Today, she has virtually no control over her impulses. In the words of her sister, Becky Yourex, a registered nurse, she reacts like a 6-year-old brat.

The child-woman has spent half her life in psychiatric facilities. In addition to the brain damage, she also suffers from diabetes, and on March 4 was transferred to the Riverside County Regional Medical Center for treatment.

It was there that she wandered into the gift shop, stole candy and a soft drink and took them back to her room. Someone saw her, and a sheriff’s deputy was summoned.

When he tried to retrieve the stolen items, Degree threw a tantrum, was arrested, jailed and charged with three different felonies.

And a million and one fists shot into the air.

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Why in God’s name, we shouted, would a brain-damaged woman with the mind of a child be put behind bars? Why would the Riverside D.A.’s office even begin to prosecute such a case?

Killers go free, rapists get a slap on the wrist, armed robbers are turned loose on probation and a brain-damaged woman who stole candy and a soda gets charged with burglary and assault? What am I missing here?

I wanted to ask that question of Richard Bentley, the Riverside deputy D.A. handling the case, but he wouldn’t discuss it. He was outraged too, but not in the same way all the rest of us were.

Bentley says that the story of Ann Marie Degree was filled with inaccuracies in the media and he was tired of being demonized as a result of them.

His boss, Chief Deputy Eileen Hunt, said it was a question of clarification. What happened, Hunt says, is that all the deputy intended to do was return the stolen items to the store. When he reached for them in her room, Degree went after him.

According to Hunt, during a struggle she tried to pull the deputy’s gun from its holster. When he shoved it back into the holster, she battered him with both hands and scratched his face until he finally subdued her.

The police report on the incident mentioned nothing of Degree’s condition, Hunt insists; felony charges were filed on the merits of the case alone. It wasn’t until her first court date two weeks later when she pleaded innocent, Hunt says, that Degree’s brain damage was revealed to the D.A.’s office.

Hunt adds: “Rick [Bentley] asked for a doctor’s report, and when he received it the next day he offered to let her plead guilty to a misdemeanor and be credited with time served.” She had been in jail for two weeks when she was freed on $5,000 bail. The likelihood is the case will be settled on or before the June 6 trial date.

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What bothers Becky Yourex is that the incident will be on her sister’s record, possibly making it more difficult for her to be placed in a new psychiatric institution.

A nurse for 25 years who has handled brain-injured patients, Yourex doesn’t understand how the incident got so far out of control. “The nursing staff,” she says, “could have just dealt with it and then called me or our parents. It never should have turned into such a confrontational situation.”

Because the hospital won’t discuss the case, we are also left to wonder why it ever went as far as it did. Yourex hopes that the D.A.’s office will move to dismiss all charges against Degree, but fears that a reduction will be all they’ll get. Their attorney, public defender John Isaacs, was on vacation and unavailable for comment.

What all this amounts to is that the system failed Ann Marie Degree. No one was specifically to blame for terrorizing this child in a woman’s body. No one wanted her hurt beyond the pain life has already inflicted on her.

Even though the situation was handled poorly, fists in the air won’t help this time. But if the D.A.’s office truly wants to undemonize itself, it will ask for a dismissal, embrace the damaged woman and prove that justice can be tempered with mercy when the system falters.

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Al Martinez’s column appears Sundays and Wednesdays. He can be reached online at al.martinez@latimes.com