Opinion: Dugard’s nightmare a lesson for all
Publisher’s note: This editorial is from the July 10, 2012, Reno Gazette-Journal.
As Jaycee Lee Dugard, the young girl kidnapped in South Lake Tahoe and held captive for nearly 20 years, promotes a memoir of her ordeal, a federal judge in San Francisco has admitted what was obvious to most observers: Federal agents failed in their duty to monitor the convicted sex offender to grabbed her off of the street, raped her and fathered her two children.
A report by the Administrative Office of the United States Courts, released on Friday by Chief U.S. District Judge James Ware, should be a warning as the states and federal government look to save money by releasing more prisoners from overcrowded prisons.
“Had Mr. Garrido’s federal supervision been conducted properly from the onset,” Ware wrote, “it is possible that he may have been deterred from some of the acts now attributed to him.”
California officials already have admitted mistakes in their supervision of Garrido, who had been convicted of a particularly nasty attempted assault that started at Lake Tahoe and ended in a Reno storage unit when his intended victim escaped.