Patterico's Pontifications

2/6/2010

The Garrido “Family”

Filed under: Crime — DRJ @ 4:14 pm



[Guest post by DRJ]

Phillip and Nancy Garrido are charged in connection with the kidnapping, rape and confinement of Jaycee Dugard, who was abducted at the age of 11 and released last year when she was 29. Dugard allegedly gave birth to two daughters by Garrido, now aged 15 and 12, both of whom were reportedly told that Nancy Garrido was their mother and Jaycee was their sister.

Now the Garridos want visitation with Dugard and her daughters because their defense attorney describes the Garridos as “parental figures in a close, caring family who deserve in-jail visits with each other.” Defense counsel have also filed pleadings “to force prosecutors to tell them where Dugard is living and if she has a lawyer” so they can prepare a defense, although Nancy Garrido’s attorney admits “She can tell us to pound sand.”

Hopefully she will.

— DRJ

32 Responses to “The Garrido “Family””

  1. This is the very definition of “sick.”

    And further, how could any attorney work with these evil, evil people? Wouldn’t it taint any lawyer willing to work with them?

    Eric Blair (c2a27d)

  2. There are times when I am grateful to prosecutors and police, but don’t understand how they can do their jobs according to the rules.

    They have to deal with the worst our species has to offer, utter scum of the worst order, and they have to restrain themselves. Were I to deal with someone like this, I’d probably violently assault them on sight.

    I’m glad there are folks who can cope with this without losing control, and are willing to do so.

    Steven Den Beste (99cfa1)

  3. Eric, I don’t blame their attorney. our legal system is based on a competition between two advocates, each of which tries to make the best case they can. The prosecutor makes the best case for conviction, and the defense attorney makes the best case for acquittal. Then the jury decides who did a better job.

    If defense attorneys refused to represent defendants like this, they’d be substituting their own judgment for that of the jury, deciding for themselves who should walk free and who should hang. That’s not how our system is supposed to work.

    Steven Den Beste (99cfa1)

  4. I wonder if Idiotology thinks that man builds prisons for people like this.

    Also, what SDB said. That is all.

    JD (c39b83)

  5. #3 Steven Den Beste:

    That’s not how our system is supposed to work.

    I agree with your assessment up to a point, but see no reason for Gellman to press the court to grant access to the victims by the perpetrators.

    I can’t believe that any other public defender would insist that a rape victim be requested to visit the rapist in jail: what makes that acceptable here?

    EW1(SG) (edc268)

  6. This entire case is beyond sick!

    Just another incidence of 98% of lawyers giving the other 2% a bad name.

    Yes, SDB, I realize that every criminal defendant is entitled to the best defense his lawyer can mount,
    but you have to seriously question how some lawyers can look themselves in the mirror in the morning.

    He needs to be horse-whipped, ’cause hangings too good for him”

    AD - RtR/OS! (a61dac)

  7. you have to seriously question how some lawyers can look themselves in the mirror in the morning.

    Most of them don’t have any problem with it because they see themselves as serving a higher cause. By being willing to defend anyone and everyone, they make the justice system itself work.

    Sometimes it’s necessary to do a dirty job, that’s all. They’re like the police and prosecutors, in that sense. They’re doing an ugly job so that the rest of us don’t have to.

    Steven Den Beste (99cfa1)

  8. although Nancy Garrido’s attorney admits “She can tell us to pound sand.”

    Hopefully she will.

    I am a far worse person, because that isn’t even CLOSE to what I hope she tells them…

    Scott Jacobs (d027b8)

  9. My guess is the defense hopes that giving their clients access to Dugard and her daughters will help them learn more details about their potential testimony, and perhaps even encourage them to be less adverse in that testimony. As Steven Den Beste indicated, that’s what zealous attorneys do … and attorneys have a duty to be zealous. But I would have a hard time going this far.

    DRJ (84a0c3)

  10. Mr. Den Best, I don’t want to sound judgmental, and I understand the history of this kind of thing.

    But it assumes a relativism, rather than an absolute. If there was a question about the Garrido’s being innocent, I would understand. I would call what they did enslavement.

    Again, I understand why you state the situation as you do.

    I could not stomach it.

    Eric Blair (c8876d)

  11. This whole thing is a nightmare.

    They want visitation AFTER doing to her what they did? @&#$(*&!%@$.

    I really love our justice system. A lot. I understand the point, and agree, that Steven Den Beste makes. But like DRJ I find this request a bridge too far.

    Hopefully Dugard will tell them to pound sand.

    Vivian Louise (643333)

  12. I would go farther: could Ms Dugard actually make a rational decision after over a decade of enslavement and opportunity for the most extreme brainwashing I could think of?

    Again, a lawyer participating in that kind of thing? Unthinkable, to me.

    I think that the judge should order that the defense attorney’s brain be scrubbed clean with a wire brush.

    Sorry if I am being extreme here, to those of you in the legal profession. This is just too much for me.

    Eric Blair (c8876d)

  13. I’m curious about the attorneys who do this for a living and if there is a line they draw, telling themselves they won’t cross it? Is there something just so beyond the pale that they actually say no?

    It would seem a fine line between duty and being able to live with oneself. And from the outside looking in, it would seem that some cases would take a very serious convincing of oneself that duty supersedes moral compass and/or conscience.

    Dana (1e5ad4)

  14. if there was any justice in the system, Phillip and Nancy would have already had their jury trial, and, on the assumption that a competent jury of 12 honest citizens would have viewed the available evidence in a reasonable manner, upon the unanimous verdict of guilty, they would then have then been immediately taken out and hung with a rope by the neck until they were dead, after which their corpses would have been hauled off to the nearest toxic waste incinerator for disposal.

    THAT would be justice.

    redc1c4 (fb8750)

  15. Dana, you have the lawyer that was smuggling messages for her terrorist “clients”….. so, depending on the person, my guess is “no, there’s no line…”*

    *(not all lawyers, but enough that it should make the rest of them uncomfortable, IMHO. %-)

    redc1c4 (fb8750)

  16. This is one more example of how our society has changed its norms over the years. When I was about 9 years old, a friend of my parents was the defense attorney for William Heirens, a Chicago serial killer from 1946. I can still remember reading every story about the case when I was eight years ago. The lawyer, whose name I can no longer recall said that he just wanted to see that Heirens was off the street for the rest of his life and negotiated the plea bargain with that in mind. The Wiki article is critical but there was no doubt in those days. It sure scared me.

    Mike K (2cf494)

  17. Yeah, forget it. Respecting our system is outweighed in this instance. I can’t respect someone for representing these Garridos, even though that means, as Steven brilliantly noted, convicting them in your mind without due process.

    It’s one of those conflicts you have in our system, and you’re supposed to always side with the administration of justice, but most people can’t. At least I can’t.

    Dustin (b54cdc)

  18. Cases like this are the reason that vigilante justice is frowned upon…

    Lord Nazh (8d682b)

  19. If you deny due process to people like this, it may not be there when you need it.

    Steven Den Beste (99cfa1)

  20. But you see, Mr. Den Best—with respect—that statement presumes that we are just like people who kidnap little girls, rape them, keep them for over ten years in near-slavery, have two children by them, and then have our attorney try to get the abused woman to agree to let her long-term tormentor see the children he forced into her—the first at the age of fourteen.

    That is the danger of relativism. Your statement earlier that juries will see what lawyer can do the best job is independent of absolute guilt or innocence.

    Again, I see your point. But all things are not equal. And they never have been.

    This is the kind of argument that infuriates non-lawyers. Again, I have attorneys in my family; I know what you are trying to say. But I could not defend a person like Garrido (especially when you read over his background).

    So I couldn’t be a good attorney.

    Eric Blair (c8876d)

  21. If you deny due process to people like this, it may not be there when you need it.

    Comment by Steven Den Beste —

    I recognize the flaw in my thinking. But I suppose I just expect that a special few people, judges and defense attorneys in particular, will allow for due process.

    But trust me, you don’t want me defending you on charges like this. 🙂

    Dustin (b54cdc)

  22. One more thing, Mr. Den Best. At family gatherings, I often ask my attorney relatives why judges and attorneys who free criminals who then go commit crimes again—including murder—cannot be sued for malpractice.

    It’s interesting to hear the responses.

    Eric Blair (c8876d)

  23. Well, Eric, sometimes the state just can’t prove their case.

    I guess it depends on the circumstance, though. There are situations where people let convicts out, say for budgetary reasons, which is obviously wrong and probably expensive in the long run.

    Dustin (b54cdc)

  24. I think this would be more palatable to me if the defense had simply asked for access to Jaycee Dugard and her daughters for the purposes of preparing a defense, rather than engaging in what strikes me as a charade that they are an intact and caring family. The former is appropriate representation. The latter is just strange, although it might tell us something about the defense’s trial strategy. If so, I think it will backfire.

    DRJ (84a0c3)

  25. Call me a troublemaker, but I think Jaycee and her new best friend should get to spend some quality time with “mom” and “dad”.

    Chris (c7c0c6)

  26. Even criminal defense attorneys must have a good faith reason to believe the truth of the things they file. They don’t actually have to file every single thing the client wants them to file. If the client wants to make a claim that the attorney believes has no real good faith basis, then the attorney either is supposed to withdraw or, if he must, he can tell the court that his client desires to file X, but that he, the attorney, has no good faith belief that X is appropriate or factually accurate.

    PatHMV (003aa1)

  27. I’m glad there are folks who can cope with this without losing control, and are willing to do so.

    In a sense, I’m not really.

    There’s a part of me that wants cops and so forth to just haul off and kill these sick f***s, then stand trial and claim diminished capacity. There’s not a jury that’ll convict them.

    I want cops who limit themselves to undeniable cases of “in flagrante delicto” but I don’t have a major problem with summarily removing nature’s obvious mistakes from the gene pool. And I’d pull the trigger myself and sleep nights with no problems. >:-/

    The potential for abuse is too high to actually excuse the sort of thing I’m suggesting as a rule, but… it’s damned tempting as a concept…

    Alannis (79d71d)

  28. > “He needs to be horse-whipped, ’cause hangings too good for him”

    I’m fond of:

    “One minute with him is all I ask; one minute alone with him, while you’re runnin’ for th’ priest an’ th’ doctor.”
    – Sean O’Casey, ‘The Plow and the Stars’ –

    > There are situations where people let convicts out, say for budgetary reasons, which is obviously wrong and probably expensive in the long run.

    I don’t think this kind of thing is a major issue, as long as it’s limited to non-violent and non-extreme offenders (i.e., “check kiting”, “shoplifting”, “marijuana growing” and so forth. Not murderers, rapists, and career extortionists.

    There are virtually always a lot of minor criminals of that stripe. It’s when they threaten to or actually do release violent offenders that they cross a Line They Should Not Even Be Near.

    > Even criminal defense attorneys must have a good faith reason to believe the truth of the things they file.

    I believe this the case, too — are they actually NOT pleading “Guilty” here? WTF do they need any access to the victim for, if not? Why isn’t the defense aiming to reduce the final sentence — I don’t see how harassing the victim is conducive to that.

    IgotBupkis (79d71d)

  29. I agree with Steven Den Beste. But …

    There are honest attorneys who do their best to represent their clients, although they suspect they may be guilty, in order to ensure that even the lowest of us gets an adequate defense at trial.

    And then there are the sick, sociopathic sh!theads who play The Game for fun and personal aggrandizement. The ones who chortle when they can get a guilty person acquitted. The ones who who revel in scoring points by using pettifogery, outright bullcrap, and the Chewbacca Defense to convince a jury that black is white, up is down, rape is love, and slavery is freedom.

    Mike G in Corvallis (70f47e)

  30. I agree with Steven. The Garridos should receive a fair trial, followed by a lifetime of prison buggery.

    packsoldier (01f7a8)

  31. I sure hope that the clear, complete and utter lack of remorse that this behavior demonstrates is admitted during the sentencing phase.

    Phil Smith (4e586c)

  32. I love that it’s a Public Defender who’s asking for the family visits. Can’t she manage to just do the bare minimum for these creeps?

    IF they’re pleading not guilty to snatching her off the street when she was 11, what’s their version? She wandered into the house, so they kept her?

    Chris (c7c0c6)


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