Board won't split sheriff, coroner

Supervisors rebuff calls for separating offices to avoid conflicts of interest

Riverside County supervisors on Tuesday agreed to keep the Sheriff's Department and coroner's office under one roof while supporting measures intended to ease concerns of families whose loved ones have died in jails or through deputies' use of force.

The 5-0 vote rebuffed requests, including advice from a former supervisor, to separate the offices to solve what critics maintain is a conflict of interest when it comes to the coroner investigating incustody and use-of-force deaths.

Sheriff Chad Bianco opposed splitting the offices. And a report from the county executive office, which handles county government's daily affairs, said a split would create more problems than it would solve.

“I'm not certain that the separation that was requested … at this point in time gives us a better result than the refinements and efforts and changes in policies that are being recommended today,” Supervisor Chuck Washington said.

Supervisor Kevin Jeffries, who with Supervisor V. Manuel Perez suggested a feasibility study on splitting the two offices, noted that many jail inmate deaths are drug-related, with Washington lamenting what he called the near-impossible tasks of stopping drugs from being smuggled into jails.

“I'm not completely on board that what the executive office is recommending is the best path,” Jeffries said. “But I'm not sure I know of a better path just yet.”

Bianco's department, the largest law enforcement agency in the nation's 10th most-populated county, has come under scrutiny following a wave of inmate deaths — 18 alone in 2022 — in its five jails that have led to lawsuits against the county.

In addition, the California attorney general's office is conducting a civil rights investigation of the department to determine whether it “engaged in a pattern or practice of unconstitutional policing … relating to conditions of confinement in its jail facilities, excessive force, and other misconduct,” according to a state justice department news release.

The board ordered the executive office in December to look into separating the coroner and sheriff.

While the sheriff and coroner have been separate for much of the county's history, supervisors combined it with the sheriff in 1999 amid concerns about mismanagement and a lack of training of coroner employees. Today, 48 of California's 58 counties have combined sheriff's/coroner's offices.

The ACLU of Southern California and the Sheriff's Accountability Coalition, a group of criminal justice reform advocates, argue that there's a conflict of interest in having a coroner's office that reports to the sheriff and is trusted with autopsies and investigations of jail inmate and police-involved deaths.

“An independent examiner would conduct autopsies from a medical standpoint, without the undue influences of protecting the officers or departments involved,” the ACLU wrote in an October letter to the board.

Those calling for separate offices include former Supervisor Bob Buster, who was on the board when the offices were merged. Instead of a coroner, the board could appoint an independent medical examiner to conduct death investigations, Buster told supervisors.

“You can't allow the biggest department (in county government)