A federal judge in San Diego has denied a request from attorneys in a class-action lawsuit to bar the Sheriff’s Office from housing people with serious mental illness in administrative separation, a form of solitary confinement. The request for a preliminary injunction was filed in federal court i n October, after two men died in administrative separation. Lawyers representing people in San Diego County jail custody in the case known as Dunsmore v. San Diego County asked the court to limit the sheriff’s use of administrative separation to 72 hours. They provided more than a dozen sworn declarations from people who’d been housed in administrative separation in San Diego jails. The declarations described getting little to no mental health treatment, and almost no human contact. They described trash piling up and toilets regularly overflowing, causing a foul stench and filthy conditions. In his ruling, Judge Anthony Battaglia said plaintiffs failed to prove why the injunction was immediately needed. “Plaintiff has not established a causal link between the recent deaths (or any prior deaths) and defendants’ alleged policy or practice failures,” he wrote in his 24-page ruling. “Instead, plaintiffs assume that deaths occurred because of deficient policies, including the use of ad-sep, and that individuals in ad-sep necessarily decompensate due to inadequate clinical care,” he added. “That is a significant overstatement.” The Sheriff’s Office has made significant and continuing efforts to improve conditions in county jails, Battaglia wrote. “Although it could be argued that defendants should be making greater changes, or that changes should be implemented more quickly, the record reflects ongoing, concrete efforts to address mental health risks,” the ruling says. There are currently some 250 people detained in ad-sep, about 6% of the jail system’s population. Some have been there for months. One man who submitted a declaration said he’d been housed in administrative separation for more than four years. The Dunsmore attorneys requested the injunction three months after Corey Dean died covered in his own feces in a Vista jail cell and Karim Talib was found dead in similar conditions at the Central Jail. Dean had a history of mental illness, and Talib had dementia. Both men died after deputies and jail medical staff repeatedly ignored their pleas for help, according to lawsuits filed recently by their families and sworn testimony from men in nearby cells. “The day after Mr. Talib entered Unit 7/E, the entire unit began to smell like feces,” Maurice Vasquez wrote in his declaration. “Other incarcerated persons in the unit were yelling that they were concerned that the new person who had entered the unit was unwell.” The Dunsmore attorneys argued in the petition for an injunction that keeping seriously mentally ill people in isolation for 23 hours a day or more is dangerous, leading them to become safety risks to themselves or others. “People with mental illness housed in solitary confinement are vulnerable to deterioration and decompensation of their mental health condition,” they wrote. “Placing such individuals in isolation intensifies their symptoms and puts them at substantial risk of psychosis, self-harm and suicide.” San Diego County opposed the request, pointing out that Sheriff Kelly Martinez has made numerous changes to policy and practice since she was sworn in three years ago. The county offered testimony from several jail officials who said that people in administrative separation are closely monitored and that deputies are trained to respond when help is needed — evidence the judge relied on in his ruling. “During wellness checks, safety checks or any rounds in the housing units, including ad-sep, if a deputy, sergeant or other sworn staff observes an incarcerated person who appears disheveled or un-showered, interventions are made to offer mental health services, provide hygienic opportunities and clean the housing space,” Battaglia wrote. Battaglia cited a sworn declaration by Jesse Johns, commander of the Detention Services Bureau, who wrote that when anyone “has evident feces in their cell and/or flooding of their cell with water, it is protocol to remove the Incarcerated Person to another location temporarily (such as a shower) while the cell is cleaned and a change of bedding/clothing is provided before rehousing him/her.” State regulations require that people in administrative separation receive 10 hours of out-of-cell time every week. That includes at least seven hours of dayroom time and three hours in an exercise area. But nearly every person who submitted a declaration to the court said they are rarely granted that much time outside their cell. Even when they are let out of their cells, it is often late at night or early morning, making it difficult for them to contact their family members, attorneys or others, they said. County lawyers also questioned findings from one of the plaintiffs’ expert witnesses, correctional health professional Pablo Stewart. Stewart visited three county jails in 2024 and found major lapses in medical and mental health care. “Conditions in the San Diego County jails’ administrative separation units are among the harshest and most restrictive forms for solitary confinement I have ever seen in over 35 years of practice,” Stewart wrote in his evaluation. The county’s expert, Joseph Penn, a psychiatrist and clinical professor at the University of Texas medical school in Galveston, challenged Stewart’s qualifications and questioned whether he had ever been directly responsible for psychiatric care in a jail or prison. “It is my opinion that (Stewart) is not qualified to render the opinions in his report, and that his opinions are devoid of any sound methodology,” the ruling quotes Penn as saying. In July, plaintiffs’ attorneys asked Battaglia to strike Penn’s expert report, arguing his methodology was flawed and that he had reused portions of a report he wrote for a separate lawsuit involving Arizona prisons. A federal judge in that case found Penn’s work to be “deeply flawed.” For years, experts in correctional health have warned that keeping people in isolation for even a short period of time can cause psychiatric harm and increase the risk of suicide or self-harm. Last week, New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani directed jail officials to develop a plan to comply with a ban on solitary confinement at Rikers Island within 45 days. A prohibition on solitary confinement was adopted by the New York City Council in 2023 after a spate of in-custody deaths at Rikers, but Mayor Eric Adams declined to implement it. Lawyers for both sides in Dunsmore v. San Diego County are meeting Jan. 16 for a settlement conference, court records show. If the parties fail to reach an agreement, a pretrial conference is scheduled for late May. ...read more read less