Rapist Release Causes Stir

[AP]

ATLANTA (AP) -- Gov. Zell Miller Friday fired the head of the
Department of Children and Youth Services over the release of an
11-year-old rapist after just 19 days in state custody.
Miller said he fired Commissioner George Napper after meeting
with Napper Friday morning. Napper left through a back door without
speaking to reporters. The firing becomes effective Sept. 16.
Miller said Napper failed to carry out the governor's mission to
get tough on juvenile offenders.
``Maybe this is not a good analogy, but when the team is not
working right, it's the manager that has to go,'' Miller said.
``We need to change the leadership to restore the public
confidence.''
Sherman Day, chairman of the Board of Children and Youth
Services, said the agency has failed in its mission to rehabilitate
children and protect the public.
``This case has continued to undermine public confidence in this
agency,'' Day said.
The 11-year-old Cobb County boy was released in June after only
19 days in state custody. He had pleaded guilty to raping a
7-year-old neighbor.
Juvenile Court Judge Irma Glover had ordered the boy held for
two years. But her final order, prepared by court staff, did not
reflect the judge's oral recommendation that state officials
``strongly consider not releasing him until they were sure that he
was not a danger to the public.''
The release of the boy into the custody of his aunt became
public earlier this week after the 7-year-old victim told her
mother she saw him on a playground at the apartment complex where
the rape occurred.
Miller then called the release an outrage and promised to fire
the state workers who authorized it.
``It's regretful that I have to take this action,'' he said
Friday. Napper ``made great contributions, but this was an
outrageous event and it cannot be tolerated.''
Napper, 54, had headed the agency since it was created two years
ago to oversee crime prevention programs for troubled youths and to
run youth prisons. He was Atlanta police chief from 1978 to 1982
and served as the city's public safety commissioner until 1990.
Before joining the state, he headed Project Connect, a federal
drug-treatment program in Atlanta.
Miller said he would name a replacement for Napper as early as
this weekend.
The governor said he doesn't expect to take disciplinary action
against the six-member committee within the agency that made the
recommendation to release the boy.
``The person who is at the top is responsible for these kinds of
decisions,'' he said.
Miller denied that he fired Napper because he needs to appear
tough on crime in an election year.
``There's not any politics involved in it,'' Miller said. ``I'm
taking this action because it's obvious that we need new leadership
at the top of that department.''
Meanwhile, the Cobb County district attorney's office said it is
trying to get the rape case reopened because the boy had returned
to the scene of the rape and because he was suspended from school
for an attack on a schoolmate.
Assistant District Attorney Amy McChesney declined to give
details of the school attack. She said her office has filed a
motion to modify the original Juvenile Court order, and a hearing
on the motion is set Sept. 14.
Napper had called the decision to release the boy a mistake.
This week, he ordered the boy held at an ``attention home'' in
another county, where he will be under 24-hour supervision.
Ms. McCheshey said her office wants information about the boy's
whereabouts from the DCYS.
``I don't know where he is,'' she said. ``He is just in a group
home. They just put him in another community that knows nothing
about him. ... He's not in a YDC (youth detention center) or a
residential treatment facility. This is the juvenile system, this
is how it works.''