Teens & the Law

The Kids Are All Right: Graton teens stand to lose this popular hangout.

Photo by Michael Amsler

Legal rights no minor issue

By Paula Harris

IT WAS A SUN-FILLED summer afternoon one recent Thursday as Amber Radich, 17, a Guerneville resident with a summer job at the Sebastopol Center for the Arts, sat in Ives Park quietly enjoying her lunch hour. Wearing work clothes and with her hair in pigtails, Radich had finished her sandwich and was about to bite into an apple when, she says, a local police officer riding a bicycle peddled up “out of nowhere” and began questioning her. The incident, she maintains, included the officer lying to and harassing her, and ultimately escalated into her arrest.

“He said my mother had sent him to check up on me. That wasn’t true,” she recalls. Radich says the officer asked what she was drinking–it was a Sunny Delight, a fruit juice drink–then saw she had a pack of cigarettes and began hassling her. “He was trying to find an excuse to bust me,” claims Amber. “He then peddled away. I was pissed because I just got harassed, so I lit my last cigarette; then two friends came by and asked for a drag.”

She says the police officer, who’d been circling the park, pulled up and asked her for identification. He then called for backup and two police cars arrived. They arrested Radich–who was by then crying–handcuffed her, put her in the back of the police car, and drove her to the Sebastopol Police Department on a charge of furnishing tobacco to a minor.

Zero tolerance for drugs. Cops on campus. Curfews. Tobacco and alcohol crackdowns. Gang task-force sweeps. These days, kids–and parents–are faced with an increasingly complex array of legal situations regarding behavior at school, work, and on the streets as teens become the target of law enforcement. But most kids are unsure of their legal rights.

IN RESPONSE, the State Bar of California has published Kids and the Law: An A-to-Z Guide for Parents, a handbook triggered by a State Bar­commissioned statewide survey of 600 California youngsters (ages 10 to 14) and conducted in 1996.

“The survey found most children didn’t know a lot about their legal rights,” says attorney Anne Charles, a spokeswoman for the State Bar of California. “Most kids, instead of getting their information about the law from their parents, get it from TV and school.”

The free, 80-page handbook, believed to be the first of its kind in the state, explains a variety of legal issues faced by teenagers, such as gang colors, curfew laws, juvenile court, loitering, and drugs.

“Most kids don’t know what to do [in legal situations]. Even adults don’t know their rights, because California is one of the most complex legal jurisdictions in the country,” says Tom Nazario, a professor at the University of California School of Law, who authored the guide. “Parents should be aware if kids do get in trouble, and they shouldn’t be reluctant to talk about these issues.”

Nazario adds that he is seeing a trend throughout many communities to try and keep kids off the streets. “With curfews and zero tolerance areas, the law is making it more difficult for kids to simply grow up,” he says.

Sonoma County has had its share of increased, and often complicated, activity involving teens and law enforcement:

What the numbers say about kids and crime.

ON THE NIGHT of July 3, several Graton teens were among a small crowd of families, adults, and dog walkers, watching the Analy High School fireworks display from the vantage point of the Graton graveyard–an annual tradition–when sheriff’s deputies arrived and homed in on the kids. A couple of youths who had beer fled; the remaining teens were all subsequently ticketed for loitering and/or drinking.

Witnesses say the deputies ordered four of the six, whom they’d just ticketed for drinking without administering sobriety tests, to squeeze into the cab of a pickup–without sufficient seat belts–and drive home. Two 15-year-old girls were made to walk home, unescorted, along an isolated dark road.

IN JUNE, Slater Middle School honor student Jackie Young, 12, of Sebastopol, unknowingly brought a Swiss Army knife in her backpack and was suspended because of a strict “zero tolerance” policy against students bringing weapons or drugs onto campus.

The seventh-grader was suspended for a week June 7 after school officials searched her belongings. According to Jackie and her mother, Suzie, they had innocently carried the small knife on a horseback riding excursion in Annadel State Park and forgotten it was still in the backpack.

PETALUMA POLICE and business owners clamped down this spring on groups of teens hanging out in Helen Putnam Plaza, a tiny downtown park. Complaints from merchants and residents spawned proposals to install video surveillance cameras and blaring classical music–the latter already being used without much success as a youth-repellent in downtown Santa Rosa–as possible deterrents.

POLICE WOULD never try [these kinds of] intimidation tactics on an adult,” says Joyce Bedler, an adult friend of Radich. “[Amber] doesn’t even know her rights–didn’t know she could file a complaint.”

Sebastopol Police Lt. Jerry Lites , while not familiar with Radich’s case, says there has been “a tremendous problem” with teens hanging out and intimidating park-goers. “If kids respected the rights of other people, we wouldn’t be down there,” he says. “We don’t say, ‘Today we’ll go harass kids in the park.'”

Dillon Chavez, 18, of Graton, was so freaked out when sheriff’s deputies ticketed him for dropping a cigarette butt recently that he completely ignored the ticket, an act that only made matters worse. “He had no experience with the law and so didn’t tell his mother, and the ticket turned into a warrant,” explains his grandmother Mary Moore, a longtime west county activist. “Suddenly the gang task force was running checks on him; he was handcuffed and arrested. “

Chavez’s relatives say that, during the booking process, deputies asked whether he wanted to be in a cell with the Nortenos or the Surrenos–referring to notorious street gangs. “If he’d randomly chosen one, it would have been written down that he’d claimed gang membership,” says Dillon’s mother, Diane Pope.

“We ask, ‘If you could be housed with either one, could we anticipate any problems?'” says Sonoma County Sheriff’s Capt. Casey Howard, adding that it’s a routine question given to everyone for their own safety. “They are absolutely not asked to state a preference.”

Even so, other parents have complained that teens have been falsely accused of being gang members by law enforcement officials and specifically by the county task force on gangs, which makes regular sweeps.

Now, Moore says, parents are starting to connect with each other over many of these issues. “I told the kids, if anyone says you can’t gather, be polite, take their name, date, and time, and we’ll handle it from there,” she says. “These kids don’t know how to fight back–they just grumble among themselves.”

Santa Rosa attorney Marylou Hillberg, who practices juvenile law, says the law has become more stringent over the last 10 years, with more focus on punishment than rehabilitation. Kids should know their rights, she says.

“School authorities can search you with very little reason–some inkling but not as much as a police officer would need,” she says. “Also, kids have fewer rights than adults about being stopped in the street because of curfew laws in some towns.”

The best advice to kids who are arrested? Stay mum, because it seldom does them any good to make statements to police without an attorney and/or parents present, Hillberg warns. “Police are free to lie to kids to get statements. They may say, ‘We’ve got your fingerprints,’ when they don’t, and kids are more likely to confess because they’ve been taught to answer.”

Hillberg says that because people tend to be frightened of teenagers, especially in groups, merchants in many towns have complained that youths intimidate their customers. She has witnessed in Sonoma County a “concentrated effort to disperse kids.”

Parents also suspect teens are being targeted, specifically in areas that are undergoing developments and makeovers because of business interests. “Graton is a town under reconstruction; people are starting to bring in money,” explains Diane Pope.

Parents say deputies have told kids they couldn’t gather in groups of more than three. “What’s fueling it in Graton is that it’s one of the last really funky areas in Sonoma County that’s not been yuppified,” claims Mary Moore.

Joyce Bedler agrees, saying Sebastopol is also “jumping on the bandwagon of a local police harassment campaign” because of complaints from business owners. “The police are driving [the kids] out of nice safe communities,” she complains.

“We’re teenagers and we have nowhere to hang out, so we hang out downtown and the businesses don’t like it,” says Emily Chavez, 15. “Some places are pushing [law enforcement] to get us out.”

PARENTS IN GRATON complain that deputies are handing out tickets to teens for trivial matters when warnings would suffice. Moore says that one time several kids (more than three) on the way to a church outing were ordered to disperse by one deputy until the minister intervened.

Sheriff’s Capt. Howard says that he’s met with concerned Graton residents and that everyone came away with a “better understanding.”

He adds that he is satisfied with the department’s handling of teen-law enforcement. “Not every violation necessitates a ticket. I try to encourage officers to balance things to meet community needs as a whole,” he says. “If groups of 15- or 16-year-olds are out after midnight, there is a reasonable likelihood they will encounter police,” he adds.

Howard acknowledges that there have been complaints from business owners about teens congregating, using profanity, and loitering, but he says there are no street gang problems in Graton.

Amber Radich says her experience with police became an ordeal that other teens should try to avoid. “I’ve never been arrested or in trouble before. I was lied to and harassed before I did anything wrong,” she says. At the police department, Amber became angry and told officers, “This is bullshit.” She says they told her that her attitude was “failing” and threatened to send her to jail for four days.

She sat in a holding cell for three hours until her mother was notified. “I wish I’d asked for an attorney,” says Amber. “I didn’t know. I was upset and overwhelmed by the whole idea I was being arrested. I just wanted to get back to work.”

HOW SHOULD TEENS react to a similar situation? “Don’t talk unless you’re spoken to and be really, really polite,” Amber warns. “Police don’t like teenagers as a group, and they’re just waiting for you to get a stereotypical teenager’s attitude.”

Attorney Mitch Genser of the Children’s Law and Mediation Center in Santa Rosa says as adults perceive more violence, drugs, and school expulsions, they are cracking down harder with policies such as zero tolerance, which could backfire. “When you set up lines in the sand and say, ‘When you do X, that is the consequence,’ you catch into a net a lot of kids who aren’t part of the violence, ” he says. “When some kids screw up, other teens have to pay the price.”

When examining all the deterrents congregating teens face from communities, from surveillance cameras to blaring Beethoven, Kids and the Law handbook author Tom Nazario is a mite sardonic. “We’re lucky kids don’t have a right to vote,” he comments. “Otherwise there wouldn’t be a lot of this.”

For a free copy of the Kids and the Law handbook, call 1/800/455-4LAW.

From the Aug. 27-Sept. 3, 1997 issue of the Sonoma County Independent.

© Metro Publishing Inc.

Courting Trouble

Michael Amsler

Hanging On: Sonoma County court administrator Greg Abel.

Tougher sentencing and a state budget cut could spell disaster for county courts

By Paula Harris

SONOMA COUNTY COURT Executive Officer Greg Abel is not pleased. “Don’t get me started talking about state funding or you’ll probably hear more than you care to,” he grumbles. “A few months ago, the year was filled with promise, the state was coming out of a recession, and it looked like there was a lot more money to hand out,” he recalls. “But the state has made courts dependent on funding and hasn’t lived up to its promises and obligations–it’s put us in a terrible situation.”

Seated at a table stacked high with files, the weary county courts administrator pulls out statistics summarizing Sonoma County’s trial court funding, to illustrate his reaction to reports that Gov. Pete Wilson will veto a bill that would have bailed out cash-strapped county and city courts.

The plan–a second attempt in two years–calls for the state to assume full funding of trial courts and then pay for any future growth. It was a measure widely expected to pass, but now the future of court systems statewide hangs in the balance.

“Everyone said last year it would have to pass this year or it would be a catastrophe, so we hung on,” says Abel. “Now, there are a lot of angry judges and court administrators out there.”

The court trial­funding measure would have boosted the ratio of fiscal support the state gives counties to run courts, from about 35 percent this year to 60 percent next year, and would have made the state responsible for full costs of running court operations in the state’s smallest counties.

A $450 million increase would have been given by the state to run courts, with counties splitting $388 million. Abel says the bill would have been worth several hundred thousand dollars this year for cash-strapped Sonoma County courts and would have risen each subsequent year. “It would have been a great bill for the counties,” he says. “It would have capped counties at 1994-95 levels, and it would have been extremely valuable to Sonoma County in the long term.”

THE SITUATION is putting stress on the entire county system, especially the general fund departments, which are funded entirely by the county and not by the state,” says Sonoma County Public Defender Louis Haffner.

He reports that the county Public Defender’s Office is seeing a leap in domestic violence cases owing to changes in the law that eliminated diversion programs. “It’s one of the fastest-growing segments because of increased public awareness and changes in law enforcement policies,” explains Haffner, adding that about 40 percent of his staff’s time is spent on domestic violence cases.

During Tuesday’s budget hearings, the Sonoma County Board of Supervisors voted 5-0 in support of a new Domestic Violence Court. It will cost $210,000 to start the program. So far, county funding is unavailable owing to a $6 million budget deficit, but the supes have pledged to find a way to pay for it. The Domestic Violence Court–the fourth in the state and the first in Northern California–will be modeled on the Drug Court. It is scheduled to begin Nov. 1 if funds can be found.

Lorene Irizary, director for the Sonoma County Commission on the Status of Women, is elated with the development. “We’ll have a better system to respond to victims of domestic violence, cases won’t get lost in the system, and there will be trained experts so that victims won’t be revictimized,” she says.

Judge Robert Dale, who will preside over Domestic Violence Court in the mornings and Drug Court in the afternoons, says the initial funding will pay for two probation officers, a deputy district attorney, and a deputy public defender. “Other than that, we’ll use existing resources,” he explains. He adds that the Domestic Violence Court was given high priority in the budget hearings because it’s expected to eliminate delays and improve efficiency in dealing with cases.

“Now, instead of being distributed alphabetically between three judges, all cases will appear in front of me,” says Dale, adding that he expects to be very busy.

There have been no new state-funded judicial officers added since 1985, and administrator Abel laments that a much-anticipated judgeship bill that had placed Sonoma County 10th on a list to add a new judge (one of 40 new judgeships statewide), appears to be “dying on the vine.”

Also, Abel says, if the state had come through with the funding, Sonoma County courts would have added some 10 new staff positions, including much-needed legal processors, court room clerks, and court reporters. Several years ago, the department had to cut 27 positions, which saved the county $1.3 million per year, but resulted in workload surges and reduced services.

“People are having to work themselves crazy, and the services are probably not the same,” Abel says. “We’re having difficulty maintaining critical service areas–juvenile, family law, jury, records management, courtroom clerks, computer services. All these would be priority areas to fund.” There are 168 permanent positions in the Sonoma County court system, including judges. “I couldn’t tell which area to cut a position if my life depended on it,” states Abel.

Services are being stretched while Sonoma County has been experiencing major increases in felony filings. The system is still reeling from a recent 30 percent growth in felony filings, which tapered off in 1995-96, but rose again to almost 20 percent in 1996-97. Misdemeanor filings are also up (by 6.8 percent) for the first time in four years. In addition, juvenile cases have increased substantially.

Although the high-profile Richard Allen Davis kidnap and murder case cost $2.4 million, the state paid through special legislation, explains Abel, but he adds that the Robert Scully murder case has cost the county about $1.2 million.

The state started funding the courts in 1989. In 1991-92, state funding was set at 50 percent and was supposed to grow in 5 percent increments each year until it reached 75 percent, but that never happened. The county became dependent on the state, and later had to absorb costs.

The department has consolidated municipal and superior courts and clerk of the court, and bridged much of the financial gap between 1994-95 and 1997-98 levels with increased civil filing fees. The Sonoma County court system now gets about one third of its funding from the state, another third from the county, and the rest from fines, fees, and other charges

According to Abel, after hours of staff work and wading through red tape, the fines and fees are sent to the state, processed through various formulae, and then mostly sent back to the county. He says the real net value in the state budget is worth only about half a million dollars to the county. “We get money re-routed to us, and there’s not enough to justify the work load associated with it,” he explains.

Abel adds that although the Sonoma County courts system is not bankrupt like those of some counties, it’s going that route. “We had the opportunity to get back some of what we lost [with state funding]. Now that’s fallen by the wayside,” says Abel. “The state came in with a boom and slowly it’s eroded–some of that we’ve had to eat. We had the opportunity to partially restore cuts, and now that’s gone.”

From the August 21-27, 1997 issue of the Sonoma County Independent.

© Metro Publishing Inc.