Millions spent on settling jail abuse claims

Deals are still costly even after $450 million are used for reforms

In the years since Michael Tyree was murdered by three correctional deputies, the Santa Clara County sheriff’s office continues to grapple with incidents of mentally ill people suffering debilitating injuries while in custody, saddling taxpayers with massive legal payouts despite millions spent to reform jails.

In March 2020, newly acquired records reveal, the county quietly approved a $10 million settlement to the family of Andrew Hogan, a mentally ill man who became severely disabled after repeatedly injuring himself while riding unrestrained in a jail transport van.

A comparable or larger settlement could be on the horizon, if the county accedes to a claim from Juan Martin Nunez, who alleges he became a quadriplegic after deputies and paramedics failed to take action when he suffered a fall in his jail cell. The county also has paid a $3.6 million settlement to Tyree’s family.

The injuries came despite the $450 million the county has poured into jail reforms after Tyree’s 2015 killing and a federal court agreement to fix decrepit jail conditions. Troubling allegations of neglect persist, including the recent gang beating of an inmate that went on for several minutes without any intervention from guards.

Asked about the settlements, the sheriff’s department touted its reforms in mental health treatment and improvements in overall jail conditions. The agency also said Hogan and Nunez should never have been in their custody.

“Both were in custody for minor charges and should have been placed in treatment facilities, not a jail,” the statement said.

The sheriff’s office did not answer a question about whether any deputy faced discipline in either the Hogan or Nunez cases.

Paula Canny, an attorney who represented the families of Tyree and Hogan in litigation against the sheriff’s office and county, said the settlements illustrate the lack of accountability for jail misconduct.

“The people that cause the problem aren’t the people that pay,” Canny said. “The people most responsible for the injury are essentially insulated from the consequences of their decisions.”

In August 2018, Hogan was transported from the Elmwood jail to the psychiatric ward at the Main Jail in San Jose after a mental health emergency in which he hit his head repeatedly against a cell wall.

During a ride, which was supervised by sheriff’s correctional deputies, Hogan was not fully secured in the vehicle. He banged his head multiple times against the walls of the van, inflicting serious injury.

His family’s legal claim contends that his head was not protected in the van and that he “was banging his unprotected head against the van walls literally banging the brains out of his now broken skull.” Deputies documented the injuries with photos and video but “did nothing to help him,” the claim says.

When the transport van arrived at the Main Jail, none of the jail staff or their supervisors opened the van until paramedics arrived, allowing several minutes to pass before Hogan got any attention, medical or otherwise. Doctors removed part of Hogan’s skull because of brain swelling.

The $10 million settlement will largely go toward helping Hogan’s parents care for their son, who lost his ability to produce new memories and cannot live without around-the-clock assistance.

The county is now currently in talks with attorneys for Nunez, who allege he was not given adequate supervision while in jail custody in August 2019 and was ignored after he suffered a fall in his cell that injured his spine.

Though Nunez — who also suffers from mental illness — screamed for deputies’ help and said he feared he might be paralyzed, his lawyers say, several deputies lifted him onto his bed without stabilizing his spine. Jail staff then waited more than 24 hours before calling paramedics, who also failed to properly stabilize Nunez, according to his lawyers.

By ignoring his pleas and moving him without regard to his injury, the claim states that Nunez “sustained severe and permanent injuries, including spinal cord injuries that have left him a quadriplegic, unable to communicate, and in need of a ventilator to breathe.”

County sources familiar with the case believe Nunez could get a payout from the county that tops the $10 million that Hogan’s family received. Matthew Davis, an attorney representing Nunez who also helped secure the settlement with Tyree’s family, did not respond to requests for comment.

Don Specter, executive director of the Prison Law Office, which is monitoring the federal consent decree that settled a class action lawsuit over decrepit jail conditions, credits the sheriff’s department with putting more resources toward mental health care but said broader changes are slow to come.

“Some of these problems we’ve been working on for years, and the changes have been incremental,” Specter said. “It’s an odd situation because you have people who recognize the problem and want to fix it, but for whatever reason it takes forever.”

There’s still not enough supervision of people with acute mental health needs, he said, and jail mental health facilities continue to be filthy despite promises to clean them up. He has also found issues with deputies resorting to force too quickly to make the jail’s psychiatric patients take medications rather than deferring to medical staff to encourage compliance.

For Canny, those issues are a result of an inherent incompatibility between a jail setting and the needs of people with serious mental illness.

“It’s wrong to task a jail with addressing the needs of someone who is seriously mentally ill,” she said. “We owe a duty to help them … that duty isn’t to incarcerate them as criminals, but to hospitalize them as patients.”

The sheriff’s office continues to resist oversight by the Office of County Law Enforcement Monitoring, a civilian watchdog role created by the county after

Tyree’s murder. Michael Gennaco, who fills that role, has spent the last year and a half fighting to get access to the agency’s records.

“Anytime there’s an incident at the jail that presents potential liability, we should be involved,” Gennaco said.

He said he has had no access to records in either Hogan’s or Nunez’s case beyond what’s in the public record; he learned of the more recent jail gang beating, in November 2020, from a story published by this news organization, six months after the incident.

“The real question is when these incidents occur, how robust is the response of the entity,” Gennaco said. “I hope the sheriff’s office is asking this of themselves, but I don’t know.”

Contact Robert Salonga at 408-920-5002.