Charges are dropped in Idaho neglect case

Associated Press

SANDPOINT, Idaho — A judge dismissed a misdemeanor child neglect charge against JoAnn McGuckin, the mother of six children who held police at bay in a five-day standoff earlier this year.

"When all the circumstances came together, at least in my mind, it became readily apparent JoAnn is not a criminal," Bryce Powell, McGuckin’s court-appointed legal counsel, told the Coeur d’Alene Press after the ruling Friday.

Powell said the facts in the child-neglect case spoke for themselves.

The family had been struggling with financial hardships and the death three weeks before the standoff of McGuckin’s husband, Michael, who had multiple sclerosis.

When McGuckin was arrested May 29 on accusations of child endangerment made by an older daughter who had left home, the other children — ages 6 to 13 — barred themselves inside the rural house with a pack of semiwild dogs. Police who had come to take them into protective custody waited outside until the children emerged on their own five days later.

The three boys and three girls have been in foster care, and authorities are working to reunite them with their mother.

McGuckin, 46, admits she isn’t cooperating. She said she visited with her children on her birthday earlier this month, and she lamented the state’s involvement in the family’s affairs.

"We all cried. We just kept wondering why we couldn’t pick up and go home," the Press quoted her as saying after the hearing. "It’s bewildering to all of us what has happened."

In the motion to miss the child endangerment charge, Bonner County Prosecutor Phil Robinson said it was based on the "observed and evident medical, emotional and personality deficits evidenced by the defendant."

"Further prosecution of this case is not necessary to accomplish justice, nor to provide protection, care and safety for the minor children," Robinson wrote. He was out of town during the brief pretrial hearing and could not be reached to elaborate.

McGuckin still faces charges of harboring a vicious dog. She is pleading not guilty, and a tentative trial date is Oct. 11. If convicted, should could face up to six months in jail and a $300 fine.

The pending charge stems from the pack of dogs the McGuckin family raised at their Garfield Bay home.

Days before McGuckin’s arrest, a neighbor who was walking nearby said she was attacked by as many as nine of the dogs. Bonner County Sheriff’s Deputies conducting a welfare check on the children at the time waded into the pack to protect the woman and uses pepper spray to fend them off.

After the standoff ended, the dogs were taken to shelters. Some were destroyed and others some were reunited with McGuckin’s children.

Copyright ©2001 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

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