Undated family photo of John Eastlack.

Pima County Juvenile Court Judge Nanette Warner believes some of the children she sees may have prenatal alcohol damage, but their handicaps are hidden.
"The undiagnosed are a big problem," she said. "We're missing a lot of these kids, the ones without the dramatic physical characteristics. I think it's a huge problem."
She said being placed in a healthy adoptive or foster family isn't always enough to overcome the overwhelming disabilities.
"They have a real dysfunctional way of approaching life that has a biological basis," Warner said. "Environment can overcome that to a certain degree. You can take a child with problems, and a real good environment can affect biology. But this is definite brain damage. They're not wired the same."
Warner doesn't believe prison is the best alternative for people with prenatal alcohol damage.
"But you have to balance societal protection and rehabilitation," she said. "To the victim, it doesn't make a difference if someone died because of a psychopath or because of FAS."

Warner said people who work in the criminal justice system are not trained to look for FAS or FAE.
"It's not a standard screening question here," Warner said. "It should be part of every psychological and physical evaluation. It should be part of the family history that probation officers take."
Some end up in the criminal justice system after years of floundering through life.
"Their self-esteem is so damaged," she said. "When you have bad self-esteem, you tend to make bad choices."
Warner said when she sees pregnant girls in court, she warns them of the dangers of drinking.
She told of a pregnant 16-year-old who had been a passenger in a car that was stopped. The girl, who was six months pregnant, had a blood alcohol level of 0.089. In adults, a level of 0.10 is considered legally drunk.
"Part of her probation was to learn about FAS and FAE," Warner said.
She believes society is just beginning to understand the impact of FAS and FAE on the criminal justice system.
"It may be like ADHD (attention deficit hyperactivity disorder) was 10 years ago," she said. "We're just starting to see what kind of an impact it has."