Sacramento public defenders go to appeals court to fight for more jail releases
Public defenders are demanding a state appeals court release seven Sacramento County inmates, accusing Sacramento Superior Court judges of refusing to act to protect inmates’ and the public’s health during the coronavirus crisis.
“A failure to release petitioners during the present crisis risks their life and health (and) subjects their families to increased risk of infection or death,” Sacramento County Assistant Public Defender John W.H. Stoller argued in the Thursday filing. “Rarely in the history of the state have individual decisions concerning custody or release posed such grave potential consequence to the community at large.”
The emergency petition was filed Thursday in the Sacramento-based Third District Court of Appeal, two weeks after public defenders’ first calls for a Sacramento Superior Court hearing to release hundreds of inmates to blunt the spread of coronavirus behind bars.
The first petitions in March — seven in all — were accompanied by the signatures of more than 90 health professionals, including doctors who worked inside Sacramento County’s jails supporting the inmates’ release.
The Public Defender’s attorneys Thursday said the Sacramento court has refused to hear the motions and is putting the inmates and those who guard, care for and represent them at risk of contracting the virus.
The filing came a day after Sacramento County Public Defender’s officials confirmed one of their deputies had tested positive for the virus. The attorney is self-isolating at home.
“With our entire community at risk, this court must order the release of (the inmates), hold its own hearing, or at the least, require the lower court to act,” Stoller argued in the Thursday filing.
A hearing date has not been set. Sacramento Superior Court officials would not comment Friday, citing the litigation before the appellate court.
The seven detainees include an inmate held awaiting a felony auto theft charge. Another is part of a group facing misdemeanor charges. Both remain held because they cannot afford bail, Stoller argued.
The others are serving sentences in county custody and are scheduled to be released in 2020 or early 2021.
Stoller wants the pre-trial inmates who cannot afford bail to be freed, given the court’s shutdown and the COVID-19 crisis. He is calling for the sentenced inmates to be released because of the conditions those in confinement face due to the virus.
Sacramento County released 541 inmates in March, all non-serious, non-violent offenders who were close to finishing their sentences on fears of a coronavirus outbreak in the crowded confines of the county’s two jails.
Counties across the state have released hundreds of inmates in recent weeks as they try to shrink the populations of its overcrowded jails to respond to the outbreak.
Counties include Alameda County, which released 314 inmates as of this week. Orange County, where at least three inmates have been stricken by the virus, said District Attorney Todd Spitzer earlier this week, 130 inmates have been released.
In Los Angeles County, home to the nation’s largest county jail system, 1,700 inmates have been released and hundreds more may soon be freed.
“We looked at our overall health management issues in the jail. We’re looking at doing even more (releases),” Los Angeles County Public Defender Ricardo Garcia said in late March following that county’s first inmate releases. “We’re trying to … make decisions as quickly as possible.”
In San Francisco, where at least 26 county detainees have been released; Public Defender Mano Raju and District Attorney Chesa Boudin sent a joint letter to Gov. Gavin Newsom offering a suggested roadmap for safely releasing state prison inmates while balancing public safety concerns.
Meantime, California’s superior courts have either shut down for all but emergency matters and in-custody hearings or closed their doors entirely. Sacramento and other counties have switched to videoconferencing its hearings, holding proceedings remotely after the state’s chief justice ordered courts to begin using the option.
California Chief Justice Tani Cantil-Sakauye voiced her concerns for inmate and public safety at a March 28 emergency meeting of the state’s Judicial Council, saying she could not be assured county jails were doing enough to slow the virus’ spread.
This story was originally published April 3, 2020 at 6:40 PM.
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