SACRAMENTO — Gov. Gavin Newsom rejected a bill inspired by a local ex-inmate who died after being released from Santa Rita Jail in the middle of the night.
Senate Bill 42, called the “Getting Home Safe Act” was introduced by state Sen. Nancy Skinner, D-Oakland, and was designed to end late-night county jail releases.
Jessica St. Louis, 26, was found dead at the Dublin/Pleasanton BART station on July 28, 2018, just hours after being released from Santa Rita Jail in Dublin. She had been released at 1:30 a.m. and headed to the nearest BART station, which is more than a mile from the jail. Although she made it there, the station wouldn’t open for several more hours. She was found dead in the parking lot of a suspected overdose.
Her death sparked outrage, not only by her family but also from advocacy groups and Skinner herself, who called the woman’s death preventable.
Santa Rita releases inmates on a 24-hour basis, but advocacy groups such as the Young Women’s Freedom Center and the Sister Warriors Freedom Coalition called on an end to late-night releases. On Aug. 19, 2018, the groups held a vigil and walk, in the dark, from the jail to the BART station, taking the same route St. Louis would have taken when she was released.
Skinner’s bill would have given people being released in the evening or at night the option of remaining at the jail until morning — not behind bars necessarily, but in a safe area until daylight hours.
In Newsom’s veto memo, he stated support for the purpose of the bill, but cited concerns about the potential cost of holding inmates inside the jail for longer than their sentence.
“Jails should not be releasing people onto the streets during overnight hours. This is simply an unsafe practice, resulting in many tragic and preventable outcomes over the years,” Newsom wrote.
Allowing inmates to stay in the jail until morning hours, if they so choose, would “creating a significant state reimbursable mandate.”
Instead, he said the bill could be accomplished through a more “tailored approach that does not put the state treasury on the hook for local jail operations costs,” Newsom said.
Skinner said in a tweet that she was “not happy” that the sheriff’s association opposed the bill, and “frustrated” that Newsom vetoed it. She continued in another tweet: “…Putting vulnerable folks on the street in the dead of night is cruel and inhumane.”
“I’m committed to doing everything I can to allow for safe release from county jails,” she said in an interview Thursday.
“I want to work to prevent deaths like Jessica St. Louis’ … and I will work with the administration to do that.”
She said sheriff’s offices who run the jails have the power to do the right thing, without legislation — provide a safe space for former inmates to wait for daylight.
However, if the Legislature requires local governments to provide a safe space, then counties could charge the state to cover possible costs, she said. For example, if a county says it needs to build a designated safe space in its jail, and staff it 24/7, the cost could bounce back to the state.
“We have, unfortunately, lots of examples where local governments manipulate those costs,” she said.
Advocates such as the Young Women’s Freedom Center also voiced their frustration over the bill’s veto.
“We are disappointed in this outcome. But while a veto means the governor has rejected our bill, it does not mean that he has dismissed our cause,” the organization said in a statement.
St. Louis’ story isn’t the only one in the state where a jail release has gone wrong. In Los Angeles County, Mitrice Richardson, 24, went missing in 2009 after being released from jail in the middle of the night without any form of communication or transportation. Her body was found almost a year later in a ravine.
In Santa Clara County, Vladimir Matyssik was hit and killed while walking on Interstate 880 in Milpitas in 2015 shortly after he was released from jail. An Alzheimer’s patient, he wandered for about 10 hours before ending up on the roadway. His family sued the county on the basis that he should not have been released because of his condition, and reached a settlement in March 2018.
