Drunk Driver in Fatal Accident Back in Jail : Sentence: Sheriff will review procedures that led to release of Renee Reid, 19, to home surveillance program.

As a tearful Renee Reid returned to jail Thursday afternoon, Sheriff Jim Roache ordered a review of the procedures that govern the electronic monitoring program that allowed Reid to return home after 31 days of a one-year jail sentence.

A Municipal Court judge ruled Wednesday that the release of Reid, 19, to home surveillance after being convicted for killing someone while driving drunk did not constitute “custody,” likening it to the grounding of an ill-behaved teen-ager for breaking curfew.

Although Roache strongly disagreed in court, he said Thursday that he would move to strengthen the guidelines that govern the electronic surveillance program. He stopped short of spelling out what reforms he had in mind.

“Obviously, by virtue of sitting through the court hearing, I have some ideas that might well warrant further reflection and analysis,” he said. “It might be prudent to make program modifications. I will have (my) staff analyze certain areas at my direction.”

In court, representatives of the state attorney general’s office said the Sheriff’s Department had violated several of its own regulations in allowing Reid to join the home detention program, including failing to notify the prosecutor that Reid was to be released.

Reid was sentenced to a year in jail after killing a 34-year-old bicyclist in Lakeside with her car. Her blood alcohol level was nearly twice the legal limit.

The state attorney general’s office prosecuted the case because Reid’s father is a member of the San Diego County district attorney’s office, a situation that would have posed a conflict of interest.

Corrections officers testified that they had neither the time nor the staff to notify the prosecutor in each of its cases.

Although the state had argued that Reid was a “serious violent offender,” a classification of criminal who should not be placed on electronic surveillance according to the sheriff’s own guidelines, Roache and his employees testified that they had great latitude to place inmates in the program.

In essence, inmates are considered for the program if it is believed that they will not repeat their offense, correctional counselors said. In Reid’s case, they did not think it likely that she would drink and drive again.

The Sheriff’s Department is in charge of electronic surveillance for female inmates. The Probation Department handles men.

Yet, state attorneys argued, there are no guidelines that allow counselors to decide how much of a female inmate’s sentence should be served before she is admitted to the program as there is in the men’s program, which requires that at least half the sentence be served.

Sheriff’s counselors admit that there is no hard-and-fast rule to dictate acceptance in the program and testified that Reid was considered for home surveillance days into her yearlong sentence at Las Colinas.

Gary Schons, a deputy attorney general, said such a policy allows counselors to become “prosecutor, probation officer and judge” in cases such as Reid’s and gives them unlimited influence over jail inmates.

Schons predicted that, because of the hearing, judges might begin to require notification from the Sheriff’s Department before their sentenced inmates are released to home detention.

Municipal Court Judge Terry J. Knoepp, who ordered Reid back to jail, could not be reached for comment. Nor could H. Ronald Domnitz, the presiding judge of the Municipal Court.

On Thursday afternoon, Reid was handed to correctional officers by her mother and father “in a very emotional moment between parents and a child,” said Capt. Benny McLaughlin of the Las Colinas women’s jail.

“There was a lot of emotion, a lot of tears,” said McLaughlin, who watched as Reid walked through the front door at 1:15 p.m.

As of late Thursday afternoon, McLaughlin still had not decided where Reid would be housed but knew she would be isolated at first from other inmates. She would either be sent to the psychiatric facility, where she had stayed during her 31 days in jail, or to other housing where she would be required to work in the jail for pay, he said.

Reid had stayed in psychiatric housing in January because relatives of law enforcement officials are usually separated from the other inmates for their own safety and because she had legitimate psychological problems, counselors testified in court Wednesday.

Neither Reid nor any of her family attended the hearing.

But Roache said that, even if she had stayed in Las Colinas, she eventually would have been moved out because the beds would be needed for other inmates with psychological problems.

Because of publicity of the Reid case, her attorney said he fears that she is in even more danger than before.

Knoepp’s ruling “has upset the Reid family very much,” attorney Lee C. Witham said Thursday. “They are very disappointed.” The family does not plan to appeal, he said.

Reid will be temporarily released from jail for several medical procedures, such as grafting bone from her thigh to her jaw and then replacing most of her teeth, which were knocked out in the accident, Witham said.

He said the family did not wish to discuss the case. “It’s painful and private,” Witham said.