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been a gloomy day,” the report states. “He said he had always wanted to see the Carson Mansion. The day before the present matter, he had been turned away and told he had to be a member of the Ingomar Club to enter the building. He said he returned the next day. … When asked why he would so such a thing, he stated, ‘I was probably just too stoned.’” The report notes that while Sanchez was found to have no history of mental illness, he was found unfit to stand trial and remanded to a state mental hospital for 63 days because he was “suffering from a substance-induced psychotic disorder due to his long history of substance use, including cannabis, alcohol, cocaine and inhalants.” Born on April 30, 1985 in Vallejo, the only child of Daniel Sanchez and Denise Henry, Sanchez was raised by his mother in Eureka with three half-siblings. Sanchez told his probation officer, according to the report, that his stepfather was physically abusive. At 16, he moved out of his mother’s home and in with his maternal grandfather, where he stayed until he turned 18. At the time of his arrest, the report notes, Sanchez was being employed under the table by Storre, earning $10 an hour for landscaping work — a job he’d held for nine months. While deeming Sanchez a suitable candidate for probation, the report warns that he “would appear to be in danger of future criminal activity without substance abuse and mental health intervention.” Sanchez was sentenced to time served and three years probation in the case.
Into public view Collectively, these recently unsealed reports raise a host of questions, most centering on the topics of substance abuse treatment, mental health intervention and community supervision. But back at the Center on Juvenile and Criminal Justice, Macallair said it’s important to recognize that missed opportunities for rehabilitation and intervention can be symptoms of larger failings than those of any individual department. Like the crimes of the offenders they work with, probation departments’ performances need to be viewed in the proper context, he says. “It’s the largest piece of the criminal justice system, and yet, I think it’s been woefully underfunded for at least a generation,” he says. But, Macallair says there’s a lot that can be learned from a public review of a defendant’s past probation reports. “One of the problems with confidentiality is it gets invoked, and it’s sometimes used as a vehicle to protect the system from its own failings,” he says. “With these reports out there, you can say, ‘So you diagnosed this person as a mentally ill substance abuser? Well what did the system do to address those issues?’ “I think it’s important that the criminal justice system, like any other system, be held to a high level of scrutiny and accountability, and I don’t think you can do that without giving a high level of access to information.” ●
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northcoastjournal.com • NORTH COAST JOURNAL • THURSDAY, APRIL 10, 2014
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