With COVID-19 Cases at Santa Rita Jail on the Rise, Federal Magistrates Reconsider Detention Decisions

Amid a growing number of cases of COVID-19 diagnosed at Santa Rita Jail in Dublin, California, federal magistrate judges are beginning to reconsider decisions to detain certain defendants pretrial.

The Alameda County sheriff’s office reported Thursday that 12 inmates at Santa Rita, California’s third-largest jail facility and the fifth-largest in the nation, had tested positive for COVID-19, with six other tests outstanding. The positive tests were up from just one positive inmate test just five days earlier.

U.S. Magistrate Nathanael Cousins cited the increase in cases of infections at the jail Thursday in granting temporary release to Jeremy Daniels, a federal defendant indicted for one count of felon in possession of a firearm and ammunition in December 2019 the judge had previously ordered detained in January.

Cousins, who is also overseeing a separate class action brought on behalf of prisoners at Santa Rita, found that Daniels’ obesity, previous head wounds, and post-traumatic stress disorder render him at risk for serious complications if he were to contract COVID-19. Cousins wrote that “unprecedented, extremely serious health risk posed by continued detention, exacerbated by Daniels’s health conditions, constitutes a compelling reason for temporary release to a custodian under 18 U.S.C. § 3142(i),” which allows for release of pretrial detainees when necessary to prepare their defense or “for another compelling reason.”

U.S. Magistrate Judge Nathanael Cousins. (Photo: Jason Doiy/ALM)

Cousins rejected the government’s argument that being in jail did not put Daniels at a “meaningfully higher risk” of contracting the virus.

“There is no evidentiary, expert witness, or commonsense support for the Government’s assessment that Daniels’s risk of infection at Santa Rita Jail is ‘likely low and manageable.’” Cousins wrote. “To the contrary, jails and prisons present extraordinarily dangerous conditions for the spread of the virus.”

While the Alameda County sheriff and local prosecutor’s offices have so far released hundreds of inmates to decrease the in-custody population at Santa Rita from more than 2,600 when local “shelter in place” orders went into effect to 1,979 as of Thursday, the population of federal pretrial detainees has remained relatively steady. Cousins granted one additional temporary release Thursday in the case of another Santa Rita detainee that was originally assigned to U.S. Magistrate Judge Donna Ryu. U.S. Magistrate Judge Kandis Westmore had a handful of detention hearings on her daily duty calendar for Friday as well.

In Daniels’ case, Cousins ordered that the defendant be released on the condition of 24-hour home detention at his fiancé’s apartment, which a representative of the court’s pretrial services department toured virtually before Cousins’ order. Although Cousins had previously found Daniels a danger to the community, the judge said the defendant had good reason to abide by the conditions of his release during the pandemic.

“Not only will Daniels be incentivized to comply with the conditions of his release to temporarily remain out of jail, Daniels is further incentivized to remain in place and avoid social contact lest he contracts COVID-19. These changed conditions mitigate Daniels’ risk of danger,” Cousins wrote.

Daniels is currently set to return to jail on June 9, but that date is subject to further extension if necessary.