A court battle over sealed reports detailing conditions at Monterey County Jail escalates.

Since settling a class-action lawsuit over poor conditions at Monterey County Jail in 2015, the county and Wellpath, its health care provider at the jail, have been required to allow court-appointed neutral monitors at the facility. Those monitors have written reports documenting the state of medical and mental health care at the jail, as well as other safety, security and welfare issues.

Yet up to now, these documents have all been sealed and heavily redacted, limiting what the public knows about conditions inside the jail—where four inmates have died this year, and 25 have died since the settlement eight years ago. Attorneys representing the inmates claim that the county, the Sheriff’s Office and Wellpath are not living up to the terms of the settlement, and are seeking to have the monitor reports unsealed and released to the public to exhibit that failure.

That request is the subject of an ongoing, escalating court battle. On Friday, July 21, a U.S. District Court judge in San Jose ordered the release of the monitor reports with only limited redactions—denying arguments made by the county to keep the documents under seal. Later that day, attorneys for Wellpath filed a notice of appeal with the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, as well a motion to stay the judge’s ruling. While a decision has not been made as of press time regarding Wellpath’s motion for a stay, if granted, it could potentially delay the release of the reports for months on end.

“This information is extremely relevant and important to our clients, the people who are incarcerated in the jail,” says Van Swearingen, a partner at San Francisco-based law firm Rosen Bien Galvan & Grunfeld, which represents the incarcerated people who are covered by the settlement. “They want to know what the reports say. They want to know if the county and Wellpath are living up to their promises in managing a jail that is not deliberately indifferent to the plight of people who are incarcerated there.”

Monterey County Counsel Les Girard declined to comment. Attorneys representing Wellpath did not return requests for comment. 

County Sheriff Tina Nieto told the Weekly earlier this year she is “laser-focused” on meeting the terms of the settlement, which she estimated costs taxpayers $800,000 per year.

Whether the documents are unsealed or not, a hearing is set for Aug. 24 in which attorneys for the inmates will ask the court to find Wellpath “noncompliant” with the settlement, and seek fines of $25,000 for each one of 44 alleged violations of the agreement.

The Weekly has joined the legal effort seeking to unseal the monitor reports in the interest of public transparency. Alongside the First Amendment Coalition and the families of Mark Pajas Sr. and Rafael Ramirez Lara, two men who died while incarcerated in the jail, the Weekly is part of a group that filed as proposed intervenors in the case on Thursday, July 20. 

The group of proposed intervenors is being represented by Public Justice, a Washington, D.C.-based nonprofit legal advocacy organization. A ruling has not yet been issued on these parties’ status as intervenors.