Ferguson Says He’ll Weaken Jail-Death Bill

Saying he was doing Orange County a favor, Assemblyman Gil Ferguson (R-Newport Beach) agreed Tuesday to weaken his bill regarding jail deaths to quell opposition to the measure by law-enforcement officials.

In its original version, the bill would have allowed counties with combined sheriff-coroner’s offices to make district attorneys responsible for all coroner duties whenever someone died while in custody or as a result of incidents involving law-enforcement officers.

The bill had been sought by the Orange County Board of Supervisors and patterned after Sacramento County’s own policy, adopted last May.

But Tuesday, Ferguson agreed to narrow the new bill so that it would merely require district attorneys to investigate those deaths and require sheriff-coroners “to cooperate with the district attorney.” In addition, he agreed to limit the bill to cover only those deaths in which the sheriff or sheriff’s deputies are involved, not all law-enforcement officers.

Assemblyman Dominic L. Cortese (D-San Jose), chairman of the Local Government Committee, said the changes made it “a totally different bill,” and postponed a vote on the measure until March 11.

Supervisor Bruce Nestande had complained last week that Ferguson’s bill “goes further” than county supervisors had in mind.

Orange County is the largest county in California that has a consolidated sheriff-coroner office.