Attorneys this week asked a judge to halt “inhumane” solitary confinement rules in Sacramento County’s jails, saying conditions have not improved at the facilities despite officials’ own acknowledgment of the crisis.
There is no need to wait for a trial in a lawsuit filed seven months ago, attorneys said Tuesday, because even Sacramento County’s own expert witnesses have said the county needs to improve how it handles people in jail who have a serious mental illness.
Since “the facts are not in dispute,” attorneys representing inmates in the county’s jails asked the judge to order officials create a remedial plan of correction.
“This harm is too serious and too urgent to wait for the normal course of business,” said Margot Mendelson, an attorney with the Prison Law Office, in an interview with The Sacramento Bee.
The Prison Law Office and Disability Rights California in July filed the federal lawsuit over jail conditions. But discussions have gone on for years with the Sacramento County Sheriff’s Department, which runs the jails, and elected officials have balked at settlement options and costs.
Mendelson said the new court filing in U.S. District Court in Sacramento was the most significant development in the case since summer.