The dissent in that ruling argued for a different application of the relevant standards. Dugard’s attorneys sought broader review, but the case did not advance to a successful resolution at the federal level.
The contrast between the state settlement (successful, substantial) and the federal case (dismissed 2-1 in 2016) is important to understand accurately. It does not reflect a factual determination that one entity’s supervision was more deficient than the other’s. It reflects the application of different legal standards in different legal forums. Whether federal parole supervision before 1991 had been adequate is a question that the 2016 ruling did not factually resolve; it resolved the legal question of liability under the applicable federal standards.
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## The Memoir and the Voice
Jaycee Dugard’s decision to write *A Stolen Life* and to publish it under her own name was a significant act in its own right, separate from the content of the book. The choice to speak, in one’s own name, about an experience of captivity and abuse is not inevitable. Many survivors of extended captivity and abuse do not make that choice, for reasons that are their own and entirely reasonable.
Dugard’s choice to publish reflected, in part, her stated desire to reclaim the narrative of her own life. The case had been public from its first hours—the 1991 disappearance had generated extensive television coverage, and the 2009 recovery had generated equally extensive coverage. Her story had been told many times by others, in the absence of her voice. The memoir was an assertion that her voice had a right to be heard in the account of her own experience.