Sheriffs in the Crosshairs — How Some States Have Sought Accountability

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Editor's Note

We return once again to California and open with an op-ed in CalMatters by Assemblymember Gregg Hart on his AB 1108, the California Forensic Accountability, Custodial Transparency and Safety (FACTS) Act, signed into law last year by Gov. Newsom. FACTS ends the practice of allowing sheriffs to oversee medical investigations into deaths that occur in their custody.

Hart is also behind AB 2257, which would allow counties to continue with sheriff-operated jails or appoint an alternative official to oversee operations — a measure we covered last week.

As our subscribers know, deaths in California jails are not rare. We have reported extensively on deaths across the state's 58 counties, with particular attention in recent years to San Diego County, which has recorded the highest number of in-custody deaths of any California county, and the ongoing struggle between the sheriff, county supervisors, and the Citizens' Law Enforcement Review Board (CLERB).

Los Angeles County has also seen its share of jail deaths, as the next two articles make clear. Following 10 deaths so far this year, the Board of Supervisors has moved to demand greater accountability. Supervisor Janice Hahn has emphasized not only the human cost but the financial burden on taxpayers — an argument Hart also made in advocating for AB 2257.

On the subject of FACTS, a parallel from Texas is instructive. The Sandra Bland Act, passed in 2017, similarly removed sheriffs from investigating in-custody deaths, assigning that responsibility to the Texas Commission on Jail Standards. However, a recent ruling by Attorney General Ken Paxton narrowed the law's reach, holding that a death must occur inside the jail itself to trigger independent investigation — meaning someone who dies while being transported to a hospital there is no need for an independent investigation. We include this example as a cautionary tale: the intent of reform legislation can shift dramatically depending on who interprets it. It remains to be seen whether California's law will fare better.

The next two articles — one from Washington State and another from Alabama — are included to illustrate that efforts to rein in sheriff authority extend well beyond California. In Washington, Senate Bill 5974 would empower the Criminal Justice Training Commission to decertify sheriffs or police chiefs, effectively removing them from office. As the USA Today story from Walker County, Alabama makes clear, removing sheriffs is extraordinarily difficult. Sheriff Nick Smith remains in office despite a detained man having frozen to death in a cell in his jail, correctional officers beating a man so severely that their clothes were soaked in blood, and correctional officers bribing an inmate to serve as their enforcer.

Returning to Washington, the final article offers another example of a state legislature attempting to create jail oversight — one that fell short. Senate Bill 5005 died in committee after facing opposition from the Washington Association of Sheriffs and Police Chiefs. As in California with Hart's argument for AB 2257, proponents pointed to the millions counties pay annually to settle wrongful death lawsuits — a phenomenon our subscribers know is hardly unique to any specific state. But as these articles make clear, even when sheriffs find themselves in the crosshairs of state legislation, they remain a formidable force to be reckoned with.

FACTS

Assemblymember Greg Hart writes: While California’s statewide jail population has declined in recent years, the number of people dying in jails has increased. Too many of these deaths are preventable — including suicides, drug overdoses, and homicides. In 48 of California’s 58 counties, however, the elected sheriff simultaneously serves as the coroner, overseeing medical investigations into suspicious and unattended deaths. Alarmed by this conflict, I authored Assembly Bill 1108 — the California Forensic Accountability, Custodial Transparency and Safety (FACTS) Act. Governor Newsom signed the bill into law in October, ending the practice of allowing sheriffs to oversee medical investigations into deaths that occur in their custody. AB 1108 represents an important step toward greater accountability in our jail system. But this work is not finished.

Los Angeles County

Responding to a surge in jail deaths over the past year, the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors called on the Sheriff’s Department and other agencies to implement a series of wide-ranging reforms. Ten inmates have died in custody so far this year. That follows 46 deaths in 2025, the second deadliest in the past two decades. The measure also directs Correctional Health Services to work with the Chief Executive Office to request funding for an electronic health system to track medical appointments, reduce delays in treatment and to more efficiently follow up on inmates’ health requests.

Today, the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors approved a comprehensive proposal authored by Supervisor Janice Hahn aimed at reducing deaths in Los Angeles County jails through stronger accountability, improved safety practices, and increased transparency across multiple County departments. In the motion, Supervisor Hahn emphasized that the human toll of in-custody deaths is compounded by a significant financial cost to taxpayers. Over the past five years, Los Angeles County has spent millions on settlements and judgments related to deaths in custody—funds that could otherwise support prevention, housing, healthcare, and social services.

Removing Sheriffs

A controversial bill that could allow the state to remove an elected sheriff moved closer to becoming law after it passed the Washington House following hours of debate. Senate Bill 5974 passed in a party-line vote in the House of Representatives after nearly eight hours of debate. The bill would give the Criminal Justice Training Commission the ability to decertify sheriffs or police chiefs, effectively removing them from office. The passage of the bill drew swift rebuke from several elected sheriffs. Supporters of the bill say it modernizes decades-old standards for sheriffs, police chiefs, and town marshals across Washington. “Why not hold law enforcement leaders appointed or elected to the standards of accountability and professionalism that their subordinates are held to?" said Sen. John Lovick. Lovick, who was a Washington State Patrol trooper and the sheriff of Snohomish County, was one of the co-sponsors of the bill.

In Walker County, Alabama Anthony "Tony" Mitchell slowly froze to death in a concrete cell in January 2023. In this same jail a group of guards beat a man until one of their uniforms was soaked with his blood, according to court records. Nearby, deputies bribed a prisoner to serve as their enforcer. In the infirmary down the hall, jailers pummeled a man so hard they broke bones. But none of these incidents have prevented Sheriff Nick Smith from continuing in his job. In Alabama, it’s extraordinarily difficult to oust an elected sheriff, and Smith is determined to cling to power as long as he can.

Washington State & Oversight

The most recent attempt to create an independent statewide jail oversight body in Washington has faltered after facing opposition from law enforcement groups and local officials. Washington is one of 12 states without enforceable statewide jail standards or oversight. Senate Bill 5005 would have changed that, but a watered-down version — stripped of nearly all references to "oversight" — died in the Ways and Means Committee. Counties are paying out millions annually to settle wrongful death lawsuits. In January, Kitsap County and jail medical provider NaphCare agreed to pay $2.75 million to the family of Nicholas Rapp, who died by suicide at the Kitsap County Jail in 2020. NaphCare has since pulled out of several Washington jails, including in Spokane, Lewis and Cowlitz counties, citing "unreasonably large civil verdicts."

Follow Ups

YesCare/Tehum Care/Corizon

Editor's Comment: Here we go again! Yes, we are once again kicking off the Follow Up section with everyone's favorite healthcare chameleon, YesCare! As we noted last week, YesCare/Tehum Care/Corizon — the company that has cycled through more names than a witness protection program — had reached a settlement to cure a payment default with creditors, only to promptly land itself in another default. They were given until March 4 to get their act together. Spoiler alert: they did not. As Bloomberg Law reports, the deadline came and went, and the multiply rebranded YesCare has now lost its bankruptcy protection from creditors.

There is an interesting parallel between how proprietary correctional healthcare vendors use bankruptcy to shield themselves from creditors, and how those who run correctional facilities believe they are protected from liability simply by contracting with a proprietary healthcare vendor. As we have often pointed out, however, this assumption is frequently wishful thinking. A recent Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals decision holds that a county may still be liable if its policy of retaining an incompetent contractor amounts to deliberate indifference to the constitutional rights of incarcerated people.

Insiders and affiliates of prison health-care company Tehum Care Services Inc. lost legal protections acquired through a court-approved bankruptcy plan after failing to make timely settlement payments to a creditor trust. YesCare Corp., a successor to former provider Corizon Health, and other entities tied to Tehum’s Chapter 11 bankruptcy are no longer entitled to immunity from legal claims that were settled during the case, including hundreds of personal injury and wrongful death lawsuits, according to a notice filed Wednesday in the US Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of Texas.

Arizona

Editor's Comment: Arizona Center Square reports continued pushback against U.S. District Court Judge Roslyn Silver's decision to place healthcare at the Arizona Department of Corrections into receivership. Last week, Governor Katie Hobbs complained that the state had already spent over $1 billion on healthcare improvements. This week, Arizona Senate President Warren Petersen joined the chorus, pointing out that the state has made "significant progress" in recent years "through increased staffing, expanded mental health services, and more than $1.3 billion invested to improve care."

AZ Mirror provides some useful history leading up to Judge Silver's decision. A class action suit, Parsons v. Ryan, was filed in 2012 and resulted in a $44.9 million settlement with then-Corrections Director Charles Ryan in 2014. U.S. Magistrate Judge David Duncan subsequently found Ryan in contempt of court, imposed sanctions, and had to threaten Ryan with further consequences to stop him from retaliating against prisoners who spoke out about the lack of medical care. An Arizona Capitol Times article brings the story forward to 2026, reporting that inmates with serious mental illnesses remain stuck in isolation, subjected to limited and dubious offers to leave their cells along with threats and violence by staff.

As we suggested last week, and as we have noted in other jurisdictions like Illinois where large sums have similarly been spent without apparent improvement — perhaps dollars spent is not a reliable measure of actual progress.

Arizona Senate President Warren Petersen, R-Gilbert, pushed back against a judge’s decision to provide federal oversight of health care at the state's prisons. Last month, U.S. District Court Judge Roslyn Silver ruled in Jensen v. Thornell that the state’s prison health care system will be placed under a federal receiver, who directly answers to the court. Petersen said putting a federal receiver in charge of the health care system “creates the risk of significantly higher, uncapped spending, especially if the court mandates enhancements that exceed what many working families can afford for themselves.”

A class action originally called Parsons v. Ryan, was filed in 2012 by the Arizona Center for Disability Law on behalf of 13 inmates of Arizona prisons. It was joined by the ACLU and the Prison Law Office. It reached a $44.9 million settlement with then-Corrections Director Charles Ryan in 2014. But keeping the Corrections Department — and Ryan — on track was contentious. U.S. Magistrate Judge David Duncan found Ryan in contempt of court in 2017 and imposed a sanction of $1.4 million; Ryan appealed and tried to get Duncan removed from the case. Duncan became so outraged with Ryan that he let go a stinging 10-minute rebuke in open court. Duncan had to warn the Department of Corrections not to retaliate against prisoners who spoke out about the lack of medical treatment. In 2018, Duncan took testimony from a physician who resigned from her job at the prisons when superiors told her to cancel consults with specialists and to let a heart-attack victim die if he presented with new heart symptoms. T

Inmates with serious mental illnesses in state prisons are stuck in isolation due to limited and illegitimate offers to leave their cells and threats and violence by staff, according to a new filing by attorneys in the long-running health care and conditions lawsuit. A court injunction bars the Arizona Department of Corrections, Rehabilitation and Reentry from keeping inmates with serious mental illness in isolation for more than 22 hours a day, given an “elevated risk of harm.” Attorneys for the plaintiffs claim mental health housing units are effectively functioning somewhere close to solitary confinement, in direct violation of the court’s order. Though improvement in the department’s health care system may be on the horizon with a court-ordered receivership, problems pertaining to conditions fall outside the scope, leaving plaintiffs counsel to continue to monitor, report and push for compliance.

Mississippi

Editor's Comment: Back to Mississippi and Rep. Becky Currie's attempts to reform healthcare delivery in that state's prison system. In our February 10, 2026 Follow Up, we reported on a Mississippi Today article noting that her legislation — creating a hepatitis C and HIV program in Mississippi prisons, providing prisoners with protective equipment, and transferring the power to award health contracts away from the Department of Corrections — had survived legislative deadlines. This week, however, two Mississippi Today articles report that, with the exception of the protective equipment requirement, Senator Lydia Chassaniol is moving to kill the remaining bills by refusing to advance them. Rep. Currie says she has nothing to lose and will re-introduce the legislation.

That the hepatitis C and HIV program failed to advance is especially poignant. As our subscribers will recall, it was a visit to a state prison where Rep. Currie encountered an incarcerated person who had gone untreated for hepatitis C — prompting her to ask: “Why are people getting sicker when we’re paying millions for medical care?” It should be noted that Mississippi pays those millions to VitalCore Health Strategies.

A legislative push to improve health care in Mississippi prisons is still alive even after some lawmakers appeared ready to kill it. Rep. Becky Currie, the House Corrections chairwoman spearheading the reform package, used a procedural maneuver to keep the measures alive after Senate leaders moved to block them. Hours before a deadline for committees to act, Currie, a Republican from Brookhaven, inserted her proposal's language into a Senate bill on prisons and probation — a move prompted by Senate Corrections Committee Vice Chairwoman Lydia Chassaniol announcing she planned to kill nearly all of Currie's bills without a vote. "I just decided, what do we have to lose? They've killed the bills, we'll force them to have to do it again," Currie said. "I'm just continuing the fight." Among the proposals Currie kept alive are bills to require hepatitis C and HIV treatment programs in prisons, and a measure that would shift authority over health care contracts from the Department of Corrections to the Department of Finance and Administration. The current medical contractor, Kansas-based VitalCore Health Strategies, received more than $315 million in emergency, no-bid contracts from 2020 to 2024 and has since faced legal challenges and allegations of routinely denying or providing inadequate care in Mississippi prisons.

A state senator says she is unlikely to advance bills aimed at improving medical care in Mississippi prisons and redirecting control of the state prison health care contract. The proposals Chassaniol is poised to let die include a bill to require the creation of a hepatitis C program and an HIV program aimed at improving the treatment to prisoners. Chassaniol did advance a bill authored by Rep. Justis Gibbs, a Democrat from Jackson, that would require MDOC to develop policies for supplying protective equipment when incarcerated people use strong cleaning chemicals.

New York

Editor's Comment: In New York, the events of last year in that state's prison system are becoming a political football in the upcoming gubernatorial race. Gubernatorial candidate Bruce Blakeman has criticized Governor Kathy Hochul both for not repealing the HALT Act and for deploying the National Guard in prisons instead of hiring more correctional officers.

The next New York article picks up a theme from this week's Editor's Note on accountability in corrections. Assembly Member Erik Dilan has proposed Assembly Bill A6599A, which would establish a Chief Medical Officer position within the state Commission of Correction to investigate deaths occurring in state or local facilities. Critically, this position would be independent of the Department of Corrections and Community Supervision. As the article suggests, the momentum behind this bill is driven by the murder of Robert Brooks in 2024.

Nassau County Executive and Republican gubernatorial candidate Bruce Blakeman today joined corrections officers in Elmira to blast Kathy Hochul for prison policies they say have left New York’s correctional facilities dangerously understaffed and increasingly violent, putting correction officers, civilian employees, and inmates at risk. As previously reported in Long Island Life & Politics, members of the GOP Assembly Minority called on Hochul last year to repeal the Humane Alternatives to Long-Term Solitary Confinement (HALT) Act in her 30-day budget amendments.

State lawmakers want to create a new state entity to perform independent autopsies of incarcerated people and reduce unexplained deaths in New York prisons and jails. Assembly Member Erik Dilan, chair of the Assembly Correction Committee, wants the state Commission of Correction to have concurrent jurisdiction with county coroners to investigate deaths that occur in state or local facilities. He carries a bill to establish a dedicated Office of the Chief Medical Examiner within the commission, which would be independent of the state Department of Correction & Community Supervision. Recent homicides in state prisons – including the fatal beatings of Robert Brooks and Messiah Nantwi by correction officers – have given the proposal momentum.

Opioid Epidemic

Prisons are supposed to be drug-free spaces, but illicit drugs have become so rampant in New Jersey’s state lockups that staff administered the overdose-reversing drug Narcan more than once a day, on average, in recent years, a new report reveals. Correctional officers and medical staff used Narcan in 406 separate incidents in the 2025 fiscal year, and 544 times the year before, according to an annual report on prison health care the Department of Corrections released last month. Twenty-two people died of overdoses or “drug-related accidents” between 2018 and 2024, according to the report.

Measles

The Trump administration is reportedly closing a controversial immigration jail in Texas where three detainees have died and a measles outbreak has forced more than a dozen others into quarantine. Plans are advancing for the shuttering of Camp East Montana, part of the Fort Bliss army base, less than eight months after it opened.

The New Mexico Department of Health reported an additional case of measles at the Doña Ana County jail, bringing the total number of cases this year to six, all federal inmates in state detention facilities. The most recent case involved a federal inmate, a news release said, and may have involved exposures to others at the U.S. District Court in Las Cruces.

Juveniles

The Minnesota Disability Law Center recently released a report detailing the use of “seclusion rooms” that constitute a form of solitary confinement in Minnesota schools. Images and testimony shows these rooms are often “concrete, closet-sized, and feature thick four-inch magnetic-locking doors, like a jail cell.” While the practice was banned for children in grades K-3, there are still at least 194 seclusion rooms in 100 schools across 50 Minnesota school districts.

County Probation brought together more than 70 community and healthcare partners at the Youth Transition Campus to strengthen coordination for youth reentering the community under the statewide California Advancing and Innovating Medi-Cal (CalAIM) Justice Involved (JI) Initiative. The goal is to improve coordination and build stronger working relationships so youth receive medical, behavioral health and other services immediately after leaving custody. CalAIM requires counties to provide structured pre-release services, Medi-Cal enrollment support, Enhanced Care Management and behavioral health linkages.

Correctional Officers & Deliberate Indifference

Kevin Wingo, held at Cobb County, Georgia jail, repeatedly complained of stomach pains. He requested hospital care. After a nurse concluded he was detoxing without further assessment, he was moved to the infirmary. A deputy was required to conduct physical checks on Wingo every 12 minutes; the record reflects those checks were not performed as scheduled. When a deputy checked at 8:49 a.m., Wingo was unresponsive and in serious trouble. He died shortly thereafter. His daughter sued WellStar Health System, the nurses, and sheriff's personnel. After WellStar settled, the court cleared the deputies of personal liability, finding that non-medical officers who reasonably rely on medical staff's judgment are not liable for deliberate indifference.

Webinar

In this webinar, a representative from the U.S. Department of Justice's Office of Justice Programs' Bureau of Justice Assistance (BJA) will review the FY 2025 Public Safety and Mental Health Initiative (PSMHI) program application process. This Notice of Funding Opportunity (NOFO) provides an anticipated 14 awards in the amount of up to $3,000,000 each to state governments, units of local government, federally recognized Native American Tribal governments, and other designated mental health agencies for a 36-month project.

State Roundup

Pennsylvania

As budget hearings got underway last week, Pennsylvania state lawmakers questioned officials with the state Department of Corrections about why they deserve a budget increase, even after deciding to close two prisons in Centre and Clearfield counties. Gov. Josh Shapiro’s record-setting $50.3 billion spending proposal for the year ahead requests $3.4 billion for the state Department of Corrections, which oversees the incarceration of nearly 40,000 people and employs some 15,000. The Corrections department ranks third in the state’s costliest agencies, though it is billions behind the $20.6 billion spent on education and the $21.9 billion that covers human services.

Missouri

Last year, nearly 7,000 incarcerated people across Missouri were diagnosed with opioid use disorder. In its budget request for fiscal year 2026, correction department officials reported that per person drug treatment costs between $6,500 and $14,200 a year. At that cost, officials estimated the department would be able to scale the MAT program from 121 people in 2024 to a total of 841 people by summer 2026. In a 2025 amendment to its contract with Centurion, the healthcare provider for the prisons, the department noted it has nearly $7 million from the opioid settlement fund to spend on expanding the MAT program this fiscal year. In a prison system awash in drugs, the suit alleges incarcerated people are given a host of reasons they can’t receive treatment, including not having overdosed recently enough or not displaying severe-enough signs of addiction.

New Jersey

New Jersey corrections officials are trying a new approach to reducing prison suicides: a buddy system. Department of Corrections officials launched a “peer companion” program last August that pairs incarcerated people with prisoners who are on suicide watch and tasks them with “supportive observation and interaction.” The program is modeled after a federal Bureau of Prisons program now in place in California and Colorado, Greeder said. Peers sit outside the monitored person’s cell to observe and talk with them, record their observations in unit logbooks, and debrief with clinical staff after other peers come to relieve them, he added.

Reentry

Both research and clinical practice often fail to accurately capture how formerly incarcerated Black men identify their own mental health needs. That’s in part because implicit bias and anti-Black racism shape how mental health is assessed and treated in both correctional and community facilities. Most of the men I spoke with said the mental health evaluations they received while incarcerated were designed only to “check the boxes” and conveyed a sense that no one really cared.

Correctional Healthcare Vendors

Wellpath

Since the county’s Department of Public Health hired two full-time medical professionals to bird-dog the medical care provided in the two county jails, the quality of that care — provided by the private company Wellpath — is “demonstrating significant improvements,” according to a Public Health report card submitted to the Board of Supervisors this week. Despite these improvements, the new North County jail failed to meet the four safety cell protocols. In the main jail, it failed three out of four times. In the Santa Barbara jail, Wellpath met its goal for post–suicide watch follow-up 56 percent of the time when the goal was 90 percent. What has triggered this higher level of medical oversight was not only the poor handling of mental health and addiction issues, but also the discovery that the county was paying for services that Wellpath wasn’t providing.

NaphCare

A former inmate at the Mesa County Detention Facility (CO) is suing two employees of NaphCare, the private health care contractor the county uses for health care services in the jail, alleging negligence and mistreatment. After an altercation Jeffrey Davis’s hand was “severely swollen” and in need of immediate medical attention, the complaint states, adding that Davis had a broken unset bone in his hand. The complaint states Davis underwent surgery in February 2025, but has been left permanently disfigured and without the use of three fingers. NaphCare released a statement saying, “NaphCare is currently reviewing the lawsuit. We take allegations regarding patient care seriously and are reviewing the circumstances outlined in the complaint. We are committed to providing timely medical care consistent with community standards, supported by established clinical protocols. The health and well-being of our patients remains our priority.”