A federal judge in San Jose has granted class certification in the ongoing litigation over conditions in the Monterey County Jail. According to the ruling issued on January 29, 2015, “all adult men and women who are now, or will be in the future, incarcerated in Monterey County Jail” will be included in the class, as well as a subset of prisoners with disabilities. The order is published in full here: Order Granting Motion to Certify Class, 1-29-15
The lawsuit, which was filed by Monterey Public Defender Jim Egar, the ACLU, and RBGG in May 2013, asks the court “to protect prisoners from substantial risk of harm from other prisoners, to provide minimally adequate health care to prisoners, and to cease discriminating against and failing to provide accommodations to prisoners with disabilities and violating their due process rights.”
The next milestone in the case will be the court’s ruling on plaintiffs’ motion for a preliminary injunction. RBGG’s Mike Bien was quoted about the potential preliminary injunciton in an article in the Monterey Herald on January 30, “Monterey County Jail inmates class action suit gets go ahead”:
“Bien said the quick remedies could include steps like improvements to the jail’s suicide prevention measures, drug and alcohol detoxification practices, policies on continuing medications after arrest, and adding tuberculosis screening and sign language interpreters for deaf inmates”
RBGG’s Gay Grunfeld was quoted in the Daily Journal on February 1, 2015 about the upcoming ruling on the preliminary injunction ruling, “We’re very concerned about the conditions prevailing there and would like to get an injunction as soon as possible.”