Attorneys for inmates who sued in a landmark case say Monterey County Jail is slow to change.

Over the course of two days in May, psychiatrist Kerry Hughes, a nationally recognized expert in the field of correctional mental health, took a video tour of the mental health facilities and programs at the Monterey County Jail. On May 27, Richard Bryce, a nationally recognized expert in the field of corrections and security, took a tour in person.

The two are among five neutral monitors appointed by the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, and the neutral monitors have a singular mission: To investigate if and how Monterey County is abiding by the settlement terms of a landmark federal lawsuit filed by inmates against the Monterey County Jail and jail medical provider California Forensic Medical Group, now known as Wellpath, a for-profit entity that provides corrections medical and mental health care across the country.

The class-action suit, filed in 2013 by Jesse Hernandez and four other inmates, contended the jail was unconstitutionally unsafe, rife with extreme violence and “broken in every way” due to overcrowded housing conditions, poorly designed facilities and inadequate medical, dental and mental health care.

Six years after the case settled, and the jail was required to implement plans to reform policies and procedures by which they provided security, medical care, mental health care and disability accommodations to inmates, attorneys for the plaintiffs say the jail has been slow to comply.

“The defendant’s track record has been very poor. Some areas they achieve compliance and then fall out of it, and in some areas they’ve never met compliance with the obligations,” says Van Swearingen, an attorney with the San Francisco firm Rosen Bien Galvan & Grunfeld, which along with the Monterey County Public Defender’s Office and the American Civil Liberties Union, filed the suit.

Last year in May, both sides met along with the five neutral monitors for a two-day summit. Then at the end of May 2020, they went to court to further codify an agreement under which the jail was to develop – under the guidance and direction of the monitors – corrective action plans (or CAPs), to remedy all the problematic areas.

The clock was ticking; the jail was to develop initial drafts of the corrective action plans by June 29, 2020.

“So far, we have a medical CAP in place and a safety and security CAP,” Swearingen says, adding the sides are close to finalizing the others. “Our position is the defendants are slow to draft and slow to agree to CAPs that the neutral monitors have said are necessary to come into compliance. This is something the neutral monitors have told them they need to do.”

Monterey County Deputy Counsel Susan Blitch, who represents the sheriff’s office in the suit, writes by email that, “Substantively, the care is there.” Some of the work, she adds, was delayed by the Covid-19 pandemic, when custody and jail staff had to focus solely on prevention measures.

“What we are primarily working on right now is various processes such as inmate and medical forms, audit tools and proper documentation,” Blitch states. “We have a new monitor that wanted things done differently and that has taken some time. We also spent considerable time on arguments as to what the implementation plans entailed.”