Rape victim put in jail after breakdown on witness stand

originally posted by: neutronflux
a reply to: dawnstar

Found a source that went into greater detail. Sorry, I agree it went bad. But there was lots of good intentions too?

Why didn't the family take a more active roll? Why didn't the family arrange for home care.

What home care? What are you talking about? There is a dearth of qualified professionals who can deal with something like that and any with half a lick of sense certainly don't work in home health. Too many liabilities. Nobody is that bullet proof. Even if her family could secure that (which I really, REALLY doubt), most insurance companies won't touch that with a ten foot pole; again, too many liabilities, so the family is left with most if not all of the bill out-of-pocket. There are not enough resources for the mentally ill period. I have no doubt that this family was confused as to what to do and disheartened by the profound lack of resources available. It's like a wasteland out there.

The families hands were tied, the court was left with a crappy alternative and this poor woman paid the price. It's incredibly frustrating but I think the kinder thing to do would have been for the court to accept the flight risk; certainly not jail her. Although, it seems to be fairly normalized to incarcerate the mentally ill anyway, so I guess they figured might as well.

a reply to: redhorse

So her family is not responsible for her care or care costs? No responsibility to take care of her needs before government. I was not saying care for her alone, but overseeing she got proper care. I have a daughter, I hope I would be in "mother bear" mode until the offender was locked up?


Unless the family members were in their 70s or older?

a reply to: neutronflux

As far as testimony, her testimony my only be admissible if she was under the care of a psychologist and / or the proper medication.

originally posted by: windword
a reply to: Domo1

Good grief! Another reason to stay away from Texas!

Not Texas, just Harris County - issues for years with the DAs office.

originally posted by: neutronflux
a reply to: redhorse

So her family is not responsible for her care or care costs? No responsibility to take care of her needs before government. I was not saying care for her alone, but overseeing she got proper care. I have a daughter, I hope I would be in "mother bear" mode until the offender was locked up?

Unless the family members were in their 70s or older?

Again. What in the hell are you talking about? A home health care alternative (if it existed) would cost tens of thousands of dollars (or more) A MONTH out of pocket... If it was even an option, which it wasn't, because a home mental health care worker (A.K.A. a unicorn) wouldn't have had the legal authority or capacity to keep this woman contained (because she was flight risk, which was the whole pretense for jailing her in the first place) in a home environment. You can't do that in a home setting because (read it slowly) IT'S ILLEGAL and there were apparently no facilities to take her.

It has to be a super power to stretch that far to blame the victims. In this case, there was no medical safety net (a ubiquitous problem) and the government was supposed to protect her and failed. Period. Done.

a reply to: neutronflux

this is what the da stated...

“How were we to assume that a homeless, mentally ill victim of an aggravated sex assault would return to testify at the trial of her rapist when that victim was going through a life-threatening mental health crisis and had expressed her intention not to testify?” Anderson asked.

maybe the family didn't feel qualified to handle this "life-threatening mental health crisis, or maybe that choice wasn't offered to them by the district attorney's office. but, it wouldn't surprise me to find out that the district attorney's office presented the idea of hospitalization acting genuinely concerned with the women's health while in reality mainly concerned with making sure she stayed available to testify at a later date. it's really quite obvious that her mental health wasn't the primary concern since after the 10 day stay, they still didn't give the family the option to take custody of the lady. but preferred to throw her in jail instead.

this is why I say the girl was not homeless and the DA knew this...

Jenny’s attorney, Sean Buckley -- who is suing the Hendricks’ case prosecutor, a jail guard, Harris County Sheriff Ron Hickman and Harris County -- calls Anderson’s statement a lie.

Buckley said Jenny was not homeless when she came to testify against her attacker or after she was eventually released from jail.

Buckley said Anderson misled viewers.

“She has to know that is (a) false statement because her investigators were the ones who went there to pick Jenny up at her apartment and bring her to Houston to testify,” Buckley told investigative reporter Jace Larson Wednesday. “Now that I know the district attorney’s office is willing to lie to the public about the facts of this case, I’ve got to protect my client. I’ll be sending out subpoenas for their emails and phone records.”

quotes came from:

www.click2houston.com...

a reply to: dawnstar

I am just looking from the standpoint that as long as I have the mental capacity, always being an advocate for my daughter. She is my responsibility, not the states? Being an advocate for her best health if it came to where my daughter was mentally unable to make her own choices. The least I would have done was see her in prison two or three times a week?

If just one person acted out as an advocate, instead of just part of the system, things could have been so much different.


Not Blaming the family. Exploring how I would react. I probably would ended up in prison myself if denied the right to act on my daughter's best interest.

What is sad, the lady was a victim before prison and during prison?