Guards’ sentence just, but closure remains elusive

The brutal beating death of Michael Tyree by three guards in the Santa Clara County jail in 2015 set off aftershocks of outrage and a movement for jail reform that persists to thisday.

It drew national attention to the plight of mentally ill prisoners like Tyree, who end up in jail because no treatment facilities have room for them. Arrested for a minor drug offense, Tyree was kept in jail because — oh, the irony — it was thought to be the safest option for him until a mental health bed was open.

Judge David A. Cena’s sentence of Jereh Lubrin, Matt Farris and Rafael Rodriguez for killing the 31-year-old inmate was just: 15 years to life in prison, the maximum allowed under the law. But for awhile last week, it seemed like a slap on the wrist was possible.

California’s baroque laws limiting judicial discretion in sentencing left Cena only three options: probation, a year in county jail or the maximum. And while the judge acknowledged the first two were inappropriate, he clearly had misgivings about the maximum. Sympathizing with the defendants’ supporters, he said the sentence didn’t mean the former guards who beat and stomped Tyree to death are “bad people.”

The guards’ attorneys argued that Tyree had fallen, or somehow beaten himself up. It was ludicrous. Medical experts testified that he suffered an excruciatingly painful death.

So we’ll reserve our sympathy for the victim’s family. Anything but the maximum sentence in this case would have severely weakened the impetus for change in the jails. It would have been wrong.

Locally, at least, the crime has prompted change — largely because of a highprofile citizens’ commission empowered to hold public hearings and make recommendations after the slaying. But there’s still much to be done. And it’s unclear how reforms will fare when prosperity wanes and money becomes scarce.

Sheriff Laurie Smith had regained control of the jails several years before Tyree’s killing after a failed, decades-long experiment in civilian management. She had begun clamping down on the jail culture before Tyree’s killing, and since then she has supported reforms — including an independent inspector-general to oversee jail operations, which the county supervisors are expected to approve this year.

Now there are cameras throughout most of the jails. Training has improved, and more money is allocated for mental health care. These are things that should be happening in all jails.

The guards’ maximum sentence was a relief. But it was not closure. Far from it.

Closure won’t come until the mentally ill are routinely funneled into treatment rather than jail in California — and that is a massive challenge: The state Department of Corrections says 37 percent of inmates are mentally ill.

And it won’t come until the culture of jails and prisons becomes more civil and humane.

The fight for both goes on.