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| $15 million deal on jail searches |
| By Sacramento Bee |
| Published: 06/14/2004 |
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In the largest settlement in the history of the Sacramento County (Calif.) Sheriff's Department, officials agreed last Friday to pay up to $15 million to resolve lawsuits over strip searches at the county jail. The agreement, which will cost the cash-strapped county $2 million and two of its insurance carriers $13 million, could affect more than 16,000 people strip-searched at the jail between March 14, 2000, and June 6, 2003. "This practice was ruled unconstitutional as early as 1984, yet there seemed to be no attempt to conform to the law," said attorney Mark Merin, who filed the suits. "People were stripped naked and dehumanized before arraignment. It was standard procedure." The settlement, which still must be approved by the court, stems from state and federal lawsuits Merin filed after six environmental demonstrators were arrested at the state Forestry Board office on March 14, 2000, and jailed on misdemeanor charges. All six were subjected to visual body-cavity searches - commonly called strip searches - as part of the booking process, and were searched in front of each other. It was later discovered that such searches were routinely videotaped, a practice which has been discontinued. Those protesters and a seventh plaintiff who had been jailed on a misdemeanor battery charge filed a suit naming the county and Sheriff Lou Blanas as defendants, saying such searches were grossly inappropriate for people accused of minor crimes. The Sheriff's Department fought the suit vigorously. "Our number one concern has been the safety of the institution, the safety of the officers and even the safety of the inmates themselves," said David Lind, a department chief deputy and attorney, in an interview last Friday. But the department's efforts to fight the suit began to unravel in January 2003, when Sacramento Superior Court Judge Thomas M. Cecil ruled that people jailed on minor charges and strip-searched over a four-year period were entitled to $1,000 each. The ruling stunned sheriff's officials, who changed their strip-search policies later that month. Two months after Cecil's ruling, Merin followed up with a more sweeping suit in U.S. District Court, and the agreement revealed last Friday will settle both cases. The agreement still must be approved by Sacramento Superior Court Judge Richard Park, and creates a multi-tiered system of payments to each person ranging from $1,000 on up. People who were under 21 or over 60, for instance, or women who were pregnant when searched, could receive up to $3,500. The seven original plaintiffs will split $410,000 from a fund of $11.5 million set aside for payments to class members. Another $3 million will go to Merin, and $500,000 will be set aside to pay the administrative costs of the claims process. The settlement calls for the county to pay $2 million of the total. County officials already have filed a claim for $2 million with the state Board of Corrections, saying the board certified the jail's strip-search procedures biannually for decades. |
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