Santa Barbara Supervisors Review Three In-Custody Deaths

The county supervisors showed little appetite for the grim minutia unearthed by three blistering reports on jailhouse deaths that last year’s grand jury concluded could or should have been prevented. It’s little wonder. The family of one of the victims, a Santa Ynez woman with a history of suicidal thoughts who hung herself with a 12-inch telephone cord in an observation room within eyeshot of the jail intake desk, has put the county on notice it intends to sue for multiple millions of dollars.

The other two decedents were an alcoholic going through withdrawal who fell and fatally hit his head and a female opioid addict who screamed in agony for two days before dying; jail medical personnel mistakenly believed her gut-busting pain was a function of her addiction. 

The supervisors were informed that most of the detailed recommendations offered by the grand jury had either been implemented or soon would be. They heard how the jail’s private medical care provider, Wellpath, had hired 22 additional medical personnel at a cost to the county of $7 million, how more rigorous oversight has been implemented, how more cases are subjected to medical audit, and how Wellpath will be financially penalized if they don’t follow protocol. The County Public Health Department will be providing greater oversight, as will the Behavioral Wellness Department. 

While no supervisors asked specifics about the gory details of the deaths, some expressed considerable enthusiasm for a bill authored by State Assemblymember Gregg Hart — a former county supervisor — that would require a third-party review of all in-custody deaths. In the past, Sheriff Bill Brown dismissed this idea as a solution in search of a problem. In Santa Barbara County, the sheriff and the coroner are one and the same, a situation that applies in most California counties. In Ventura, by contrast, in-custody deaths are reviewed by an independent medical examiner. 

Hart’s bill — inspired by a Santa Barbara jail death detailed by a previous grand jury — recently passed the Assembly and the Senate and now awaits the governor’s signature. 

The supervisors also heard a smorgasbord of new options that can now be made available to inmates experiencing mental-health challenges sufficiently serious to elicit concern of self-harm. The number of acute-care beds — where individuals can be held against their will — increased by 39 percent in the past nine years. The number of crisis beds went up by 400 percent, and the number of subacute beds increased by 25 percent in the past two years.

In addition, the supervisors were informed that the results of an extensive snapshot profile of every inmate in the county jail, their criminal histories, and their suitability for diversion will soon be publicly available and before the county supervisors October 21. The grand jury was thanked for the thoroughness of its work and the 20 interviews it conducted.