County Cuts Lawyers’ ‘Jail Mail’ Pipeline

For the past five months, the county of San Diego has been providing personal information about persons booked at the County Jail that has then been sold to attorneys to attract business, a practice called “jail mail.”

Decried by the local legal community as “electronic ambulance chasing,” the flow of information was halted last week after county information specialists and the San Diego County Sheriff’s Department determined that it was being used for profit.

“From our perspective, we don’t like the practice, period, of people gaining privately at the expense of personal privacy,” Rick Pinkard, the sheriff’s legal counsel, said.

Advocates of unrestricted public access to arrest data argue that such details cannot be withheld simply because the information is being sold.

Last October, the county signed an agreement with the San Diego law firm of Recordon & Recordon to provide information about arrests--names, addresses, ages, telephone numbers and a past arrest history--that can be obtained under state public records laws.

A month later, the same information was sold by the county to United Reporting Service, a New Mexico company that recently established an office in San Diego. The county’s Department of Information Services, which keeps all county records, had been mailing computer tapes to the company’s owner, Troy McCasland, in New Mexico.

Under both agreements, McCasland and Steve Recordon agreed not to sell the information, and either side was able to end the agreement at any time with 30 days notice. The county canceled McCasland’s contract because he sold information. No reason was given to Recordon other than the exercise of the 30 days’ notice.

The practice of providing arrest information to outside interests pits the First Amendment rights of the press and public against the rights of privacy. It also raises ethical questions for attorneys who make solicitations using such information.

Law firms that use the information have mailed warnings to those arrested, informing them about the possible penalties, including lengthy jail terms, associated with various infractions.

“One of them says: ‘You’ve been arrested for DUI. Do you know that you can go to prison for up to four years and suffer fines of up to $10,000?’ ” said attorney Jack Phillips, who is opposed to the solicitation.

“Well, that’s only under the fourth infraction for a felony DUI with the maximum sentencing,” Phillips said.

Phillips has a client who attends San Diego State University but who keeps a mailing address at her parents’ home. After she was recently arrested for drunk driving, an attorney sent a letter to her home seeking to represent her.

“It drove a real wedge between the student and her mother,” he said. “It has resulted in the devastation of her family relationship.”

It is unclear how many attorneys are using the service in San Diego, although Phillips said a client of a colleague was arrested and received 13 solicitations in the mail the next day.

McCasland, a 28-year-old University of New Mexico graduate who set so many advertising sales records at his college newspaper that they named an award after him, said he should not be denied access to any arrest information, regardless of whether or not he is selling it.

“It’s a public record, and lots of public records are sold for profit,” McCasland said. “You write news articles on information you’ve gotten through the public record, and then sell newspapers. Selling public records is not illegal.”

By refusing to make arrest records available, McCasland said, “we’d have the kind of situation like Communist China where people disappear off the streets, and nobody ever hears about them again.”

Pinkard of the Sheriff’s Department said that, although McCasland’s contract was canceled, he or anyone else is still free to obtain the same information, except the home addresses of those arrested, through the jail.

Addresses are generated by each arresting agency and are not the responsibility of the Sheriff’s Department or the county, he said.

Although crucial to the businesses of McCasland and Recordon, addresses should not have been provided by the county’s Department of Information Services because they are not “identifiable records” to be released under the state’s public records act, Pinkard said.

Defense attorney Mark De Yoe, who has used McCasland’s service, said his mailings--clearly marked “legal advertising”--serve to remind the accused exactly what they need to do before their first court date.

For example, he said, many arrested for drunk driving do not realize that they have 10 days in which to schedule a hearing with the state Department of Motor Vehicles or risk having their license suspended.

Jail mail “has helped a lot of people, sweet little old ladies and things like that, whose very lives depend on driving,” De Yoe said. “Some people are absolutely delighted to get our letters. Other people say they don’t need our services. You have a right of privacy, but you have a right of due process also.”

De Yoe declined to say what he paid for McCasland’s service, and McCasland, likewise, would not reveal his fee. Pinkard said he has been told that McCasland charges clients $1,000 a month.

The county had been charging McCandless an average of $100 a month for the computer tape, staff time and mailing costs, according to Jon Fullinwider, director of the Department of Information Services. Recordon was charged 62 cents a day in computer time for printouts of arrest information, he said.

The State Bar of California has no rules against attorney solicitation through the mail. Anne Charles, the director of communications for the State Bar in Sacramento, said “we are aware of the problem and will be following up on it.”

De Yoe said it doesn’t matter whether or not jail mail continues or is ruled inappropriate by the State Bar.

“I’ll survive with it or without it,” he said. “I’ve still got my full-page Yellow Pages ad.”