Sheriff Gets 60 Days to End Overlong Jail Stays

A federal judge has given the Sheriff’s Department 60 days to stop the practice of keeping inmates locked up--sometimes for days--after their release dates, ruling that it violates their constitutional rights.

The injunction issued by U.S. District Court Judge Dean D. Pregerson gives the department “enormous motivation to stop holding people,” said Stephen Yagman, the attorney who brought the case. “If they don’t follow it, they’ll be in contempt and could end up in jail themselves.”

The late Sheriff Sherman Block had acknowledged the practice, but said it was unavoidable. The department, he said, needed time to check for outstanding warrants but was hobbled by an antiquated inmate tracking system and lack of money for a new one.

At least 700 people were held past their release dates in 1997. The department paid 548 of them a total of $200,000 in exchange for promises not to sue.

Pregerson’s Nov. 5 ruling was in response to motions in a civil lawsuit filed by Yagman against the department. The four plaintiffs were seeking an end to extended detention, which Yagman said the injunction essentially accomplishes.

Pregerson also ruled that the more than 20,000 county jail inmates may be considered members of a legal class in suits against the department.

Lt. Tom Laing, head of the department’s civil litigation unit, said it would be “inappropriate to comment” on the rulings until the county counsel finishes reviewing them.

Block, who died in October, had said in January that the problem of extended detentions has existed for six to eight years. Block also said that he had not been able to correct it, because the Board of Supervisors refused to give the department money for new computers. He said then that he intended to fix the problem within 30 days.

Merrick Bobb, a special counsel who monitors the department for the county Board of Supervisors, said, “The department has taken steps, but as is obvious in Judge Pregerson’s ruling, the [over-detention] problem persists.”

Bobb said the injunction “looks like a fair and reasonable ruling that provides the county very strong incentives to create and strengthen electronic links” to other law enforcement agencies.