In Re Antonio F.

Antonio F. was committed to Los Pinos Conservation Camp, an Orange County juvenile facility, in March of 2000. Three months later, he and 11 other wards from Los Pinos were taken by probation counselors on a working field trip to the Kidseum in Santa Ana, where they painted, dusted, vacuumed and performed other tasks. Antonio asked to use the bathroom and was escorted to a door marked “Mens Room.” The counselor assigned to Mm, Rhonda Hembree, stood outside the door for about five minutes, then opened it to look for Mm. She found the door did not lead directly into the men’s room, but into a hallway to the men’s room. She found there was a door in the hallway that led to the parking lot. But she did not find Antomo. Antomo was nowhere to be found, did not make the bus back to Los Pinos, and never returned to Los Pinos.

Antomo’s untimely evanescence was tried in juvemle court as a violation of Welfare and Institutions Code section 871. That section provides that “[a]ny person under the custody of a probation officer or any peace officer in a county juvenile hall, or committed to a county juvemle ranch, camp, or forestry camp, or any person being transported to or from a…