For years, Couey hid in the open
Information on a criminal past may be scattered and not easily available to officials.
By JUSTIN GEORGE
Published March 27, 2005
Across Florida, county probation offices are searching for solutions after 9-year-old Jessica Lunsford's abduction and murder highlighted a widespread and long-standing problem: accessing criminal background information of probationers.
It's not easy getting that information from the courts or law enforcement databases, the probation officials say. That makes it difficult for them to know what they ought to know about the men and women they supervise in misdemeanor cases.
To Citrus probation officials, John Couey, 46, was just a small-time crook on probation for drunken driving and a minor drug charge.
If probation officials had known his full background, they would have realized Couey was a registered sex offender who wasn't allowed to change addresses without notifying authorities. When he failed to answer notices mailed to his address, probation could have blown the whistle.
Instead, Couey moved into a mobile home within sight of Jessica's home in Homosassa. Authorities say he confessed to abducting and killing her.
There are many reasons why background information is so limited, probation officials said. Courts don't hand over a probationer's rap sheets after sentencings. Except for law enforcement, access to the national and Florida crime information centers is restricted by the state and federal governments. While access has opened up for probation privatization, it's highly guarded.
The reasons for the limited information also stem from the divisions between different levels of probation.
Probation for felony offenders, including serious sex offenders, is handled by the state Department of Corrections. Counties supervise probation for misdemeanor crimes, such as Couey's minor drug charge.
Some counties, such as Pasco, do the job themselves. Others contract the job out.
Pinellas, Hernando and Hillsborough counties hire the Salvation Army Correctional Department, which oversees probation for 15 Florida counties. Citrus has depended on the agency since 1989, mostly for cost-saving reasons, county officials said.
Mary Doyle, Citrus court representative for the Salvation Army, began overseeing Couey in October 2003, when he was convicted of driving under the influence.
In August, sheriff's deputies arrested him on a minor drug charge, Doyle said. That new offense constituted a violation of his probation terms.
For violating the DUI probation, a judge sent him to jail for 59 days, court records showed. The judge put him on probation for the drug charge.
When Couey got out of jail, Doyle said, he didn't check in with probation as required. So her office sent notices to Couey's listed address, 7421 Grover Cleveland Blvd. in Homosassa.
The notices went unanswered, so officials arranged for a violation of probation warrant on Dec. 2. But no one went looking for him; the warrant just sat in the system, ready to be served whenever Couey came into contact with law enforcement.
Couey eventually moved into a mobile home on Snowbird Court in Homosassa, across the road from Jessica's home.
If probation workers had known Couey's extensive criminal background, Doyle said, they would have knocked on his door and told the Sheriff's Office he wasn't living where he had registered as a sex offender. Deputies might have done more to find him sooner.
Couey has been charged with first-degree murder, kidnapping, sexual battery on a child younger than 12 and burglary with battery. He remains at the Citrus County jail without bail.
Doyle blamed the courts for not providing her with the information about Couey. Judges just give probation workers information relevant to the latest crime, said Steve Dick, Salvation Army Correctional Department spokesman.
"We did everything that was required of us," Dick said. "The system gave us the information to handle the case. There was nothing more that we could do or could have done to prevent what happened."
Mario Paparozzi, criminal justice professor at the University of North Carolina at Pembroke, wonders why judges wouldn't share such records. How would probation officers know they are supervising "Jack the Ripper," he asked, or just a low-level offender?
"Why?" asked Paparozzi, former chairman of the New Jersey state parole board and former president of the American Probation and Parole Association. "That would be my question: Why aren't they getting the criminal history?"
County Judge Mark Yerman and the State Attorney's Office did not return phone calls for this story.
Judges cannot give criminal records to probation workers unless there is a special agreement, according to state and federal laws that protect criminal databases and records, said Jean Itzin, planning and policy administrator for the Florida Department of Law Enforcement.
Sometimes judges share criminal backgrounds with probation workers verbally in the courtroom. But probation workers said the judges don't do so consistently.
"We're the ones sitting here that don't have the song sheets," said Brian Harper, program development director for Pride Integrated Services Inc., the company that runs Palm Beach County's misdemeanor probation program.
Most county probation offices in Florida don't run background checks on their clients, either. That surprises many - even those familiar with the legal system.
"I don't know of a probation department that does not do a criminal background check," said Alvin Cohn, a consultant for the National Institute of Corrections in Washington, D.C., and a court-recognized expert witness on probation and parole supervision strategies. "It doesn't make a difference if it's petty larceny or indecent exposure. If the court put him on probation, they need to check his criminal background."
While the state Department of Corrections has instant access to national and state databases for felony cases, local probation workers say they are handcuffed by red tape restricting them from the same records.
"We don't get them at all," said Tracy Kanyok, director of the government-run Pasco County Misdemeanor Probation Division.
Neither does government-run Desoto County Probation, according to director Douglas Mann.
"It's information we would really love," said Harper, of Palm Beach County.
Harper said he can get local records checks. But if a probationer commits a crime in another county, probation workers don't always find out unless they read about it in the newspaper.
Criminals aren't the type to typically tell the truth when it comes to their histories.
But the National Crime Information Center and the Florida Crime Information Center don't lie. Those centers were created to share criminal justice information with criminal justice agencies. Their information is protected by federal and state law.
A few years ago, the FBI recognized that privatization was sweeping the nation's jails and prisons. Since then, the agency has allowed private companies performing criminal justice jobs - like probation - to access FCIC and NCIC.
But it's not easy. A criminal justice agency, such as a sheriff's office, police department, courts, state attorney's office or public defender's office, must sponsor and oversee probation offices in this task.
Both the sponsor and probation office must adhere to 17 pages of guidelines, which are very specific, time-consuming and expensive to follow, according to probation officials.
People who use the databases must be trained and certified. The computer terminals to access NCIC must be protected. Access to them must be limited. Backgrounds of users must be checked. Records need to kept.
The FDLE performs audits to make sure.
That liability, probation officials said, can scare away law enforcement agencies from partnering with a probation office.
"None of us can find a sponsor agency," said Palm Beach's Harper.
David McGriff, chief executive officer of the Advocate Program Inc., a nonprofit probation provider for Miami-Dade County, said the state and the U.S. Department of Justice have made things too complicated.
"But I think we're arriving at a consensus: Something needs to be done," said McGriff, also president of the Florida Association of Community Corrections.
Along with FDLE, the association has made criminal backgrounds a top issue to tackle since the Jessica Lunsford case, officials said.
McGriff's company is now working with the Miami state attorney's office to gain NCIC and FCIC access.
But complex as requirements may be, FDLE officials said, county probation workers should try harder to find law enforcement partners.
"I can't imagine that they wouldn't want to gain access to that information and make that a priority," said Mary Coffee, FDLE senior management analyst supervisor.
Itzin, also of FDLE, said she thinks probation officials just don't know how to go about gaining access.
"That's one thing that can be improved: Making people know that there is that option," she said.
Even without NCIC access, Coffee pointed out, probation offices have reams of information available to them for free. FDLE lists all the state sexual offenders and predators on its Web site. The Department of Corrections' Web site provides free backgrounds on prisoners dating back to the late 1990s, as well.
Probation workers can cross-check their rosters with this information, Coffee said, something the Salvation Army's Citrus unit has since done using the sex offender registry.
"Again, that's free," Coffee said.
Getting more complete criminal records, Coffee said, is not as hard as probation officials say it is. The public can order criminal background checks on anyone in Florida. The St. Petersburg Times routinely orders checks through FDLE.
But the reports cost $23 apiece.
Probation workers on the front lines working with criminals say they shouldn't have to pay. They say they should get information just like a law enforcement agency can because they are nearly as important preventing major crime.
"It's a misdemeanor," Harper said of the cases his office supervises. "But what we say is, "It's a misdemeanor this time.' "
He said the Legislature needs to step in and change the laws to make it easier for probation offices to get records.
But not everyone is so quick to seek legislation. Paparozzi, the former parole officer turned UNC professor, said new laws could lead to misdemeanor probation offices being required to run all their clients through background checks.
Just imagine the mounds of paperwork that would have to be kept, he said.
While the Lunsford cases spotlights a chasm between what law enforcement knows compared to what local probation officials should know, Paparozzi said, it's just one case out of hundreds of thousands nationwide.
"It's a really rare event," he said.
Probation workers in the Lunsford case, he pointed out, did everything correctly. Maybe if they went the extra mile, they would have tried harder to find Couey when he went missing.
But that does not mean he would have been caught before he abducted Jessica Lunsford.
"A guy like Couey would do the damage he did," Paparozzi said.
Justin George can be reached at 352 860-7309 or jgeorge@sptimes.com