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About the CASA worker being taped...
 AC> No they had no idea they had been taped, but they sure do now; they 
 AC> just don't know to what extent and the amazing thing was that they were
 AC> never heard from again.  Wonder what they could be worried about .
Hmmm.  Who knows?    My friends attorney wants to use some the tapes
she made, but her husband's attorney advised against it because he is sure
that the Judge would have my friend thrown in jail for it.  In California
they MUST be informed.  Federal law says otherwise, but the judge would
use the state law against my friend.  However, a federal lawsuit should
be a good forum for the tapes!
 AC> Well, I can understand a plea bargain under some circumstances, but
 AC> not something like the sexual abuse of a child.  There are many cases
 AC> where the abuse it true and I won't even say what I think their
 AC> punishment should be, 
I agree with you completely on that one... hmmmm, boiled in oil, tarred
and feathered, turned into a eunoch, etc....
 AC> but how in good faith can any prosecutor "plea
 AC> bargain" something as serious as sexually abusing a child away.  
I don't know.  I don't understand it either.  A friend of mine is a DA, 
and to my knowledge she has never won a case against someone who really
was not guilty.  She is very careful to make sure that she has an iron
clad case before she tries it.  If she finds evidence to indicate that 
the party is not guilty, she takes it to her superiors and asks that the
charges be dropped or reduced to the appropriate level (i.e. assualt with
a deadly weapon reduced to a assualt if she finds that the deadly weapon
wasn't a deadly weapon at all).  She says her ethics are this:  "If I
can't look the person in the eyes and be 100% convinced that they are
guilty, then I have no business trying the case, and I won't!"  If she
were to wrongly convict someone, I know that she would be devasted by it
and take it personally.  Unfortunately, it seems that DA's like this are
few and far between.  
 
 AC> If he ad no case, he should not have filed it, but to file and then a 
 AC> plea AT TRIAL to me is inexcusable.  
I agree, but it happens, all too often. 
 AC> ... as the girls were being taken to trial by a DHS worker, that worker 
 AC> told the girls the DA instructed him to ask them if they were saying 
 AC> they had not been molested because they were afraid their father would 
 AC> go to jail and if they would go ahead and tell the "TRUTH" and admit he 
 AC> had molested them, the DA promised their father would "NOT SPEND ONE 
 AC> DAY IN JAIL and WOULD GET THE HELP HE NEEDED!" 
This is so heartwrenching.  I know just what those little girls must have
been going through.  When I was 12, I was in a foster home because my mom
voluntarily placed us there after having been in a mental hospital due to
a nervous breakdown.  My mom just needed 6 months to get on her feet 
financially and emotionally.  Social services made a deal with my father
(who was extremely abusive) and then got us to go along with it even though
we didn't want to.  On the way to visit my mom, the SS told us that my mom 
decided we should live with our dad since she couldn't take care of us, and 
that my mom felt really bad about it and needed us to reassure her that we 
wanted to go, that we were looking forward to it, and that we would be okay.  
The SS told us that if we didn't say that, our mom could get sick again and 
have to go back to the hospital.  So we lied.  We were terrified of my 
father, but we lied to keep our mom from getting sick again.  Later on we 
found out that the visit had been arranged by my mom and SS so that my mom
could decide whether or not to go to court and fight against the placement
that the SS wanted to make.  My mom had told the SS that if she heard from 
our lips that we really wanted to go, then she would not fight them in 
court.  This is how they won, and this is how we lost.  I spent the next 
four years being physically, sexually, and emotionally abused.  What a
great way to save the children, isn't it?
 
 VF> If you get back out this way (San Francisco area) our door is always 
 VF> open and you're welcome to stay here if you wish.  Of course, you 
 VF> would have to put up with us, a bunch of kids, a bunch of cats, and 
 VF> our dog,  but we'd consider it a privilege to help in some way.
 AC> Thanks for the offer and I wish I had know where you were while we 
 AC> were out there. I would love to have met you.
Same here!  That comment really made me feel good!  Thanks!
 AC> I guess Bill Swan stopped monitoring this conference.  I left him
 AC> several messages and never got a response.  
Nope, nope, nope!  He still monitors it, he's just been really swamped 
lately.  He and Kathy have been super busy.  I left Bill a couple of 
messages recently, offering my support, and was delighted to find him
being so supportive of me and my family.  
 
 AC> I sure hope he has not just given up.  
Never!  :) 
 
 AC> He seems like a fine man and harly a day goes by that I don't think 
 AC> about him.
Same here, and I believe that he is a very fine man.  I would consider it
a pleasure and an honor to meet him and his wife.
 
 AC> Hang in there
You can count on it!  :)
Val
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