This morning the Humboldt County Grand Jury released a report pretty critical of Sheriff Mike Downey’s policies when releasing certain people from jail.
California law, the Grand Jury writes, unambiguously states that when an “indigent” person is released from jail, and if that jail is over “25 airline miles” away from that person’s place of arrest, then that person has the right to demand to be transported back to his place of arrest.
So if such a person is arrested by the Sheriff’s Office in Willow Creek or Garberville or Orick, say, then he has the right to demand that the Sheriff’s Office get him a ride back to Willow Creek or Garberville or Orick.
The Grand Jury’s beef with Downey, it says, is that it is his office’s official policy to refuse to inform indigent arrestees that they have such a right. From the report:
Humboldt County Correctional Facility Officers do not, as of the date of this report, inform those that qualify that they have the legal right to request transportation assistance. The Humboldt County Sheriff further attests that the Humboldt County Correctional Facility will not inform those that qualify for that assistance since, in his opinion, Correctional Officers are not legally mandated to do so.
Is Downey’s strategy, here, legal? The report says that perhaps it is, but “…a ‘normal person’ would conclude that the Sheriff was not acting in good faith by evading the issue and not informing those who qualify of their legal rights.”
This is not the first time the Grand Jury has tackled the subject. The subject of jail release policies became a hot topic last year, after an arrest was made in the murder of Father Eric Freed in downtown Eureka. The person arrested and accused in the crime — Gary Lee Bullock — had been released from the jail in the dead of night, a few hours before Freed’s death.
Though Bullock was not indigent, the case brought all sorts of scrutiny to the Sheriff’s Office release policies. Last year’s grand jury also looked into the indigent transportation requirement — California Penal Code Section 686.5 — but apparently the discovery that some qualified people are, in fact, being briefly jailed and then released into Eureka, plus the Sheriff’s Office’s alleged refusal to inform people of their rights, prompted the current crop of grand jurors to issue this supplemental.
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