This case arises out of an incident beginning on January 29, 2016, when a 50-year-old, disabled, homeless man from Sacramento was arrested and accused of second-degree burglary of an uninhabited dwelling. He was taken to the Sacramento County jail and told that he would only be released if he paid $10,000. The same day, the Plaintiff filed this class action lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of California. The case was assigned to Judge Troy L. Nunley.

The plaintiff sued the County of Sacramento, Kamala Harris in her official capacity as the Attorney General of California, and the Sacramento County Sheriff under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 and 28 U.S.C. §2201, alleging violations of the Fourteenth Amendment Due Process and Equal Protection Clauses. The Plaintiff, represented by the Equal Justice Under Law organization, moved to certify a class of “all arrestees who are or will be in the custody of the County of Sacramento County who and are or will be detained for any amount of time because they are unable to pay money bail.” He sought a declaratory judgment that Defendant Sacramento County’s wealth-based detention scheme violated the his constitutional rights. He also sought a temporary restraining order and a preliminary and permanent injunction enjoining the County of Sacramento and Sacramento County Sheriff from using money bail to detain any person due to his or her inability to make a monetary payment and requiring that all release/detention be based on factors other than wealth-status or ability to make a monetary payment.

The Plaintiff claimed that the Fourteenth Amendment’s Due Process and Equal Protection Clauses prohibit jailing a person because of his or her inability to make a monetary payment and that the County and the Sheriff’s policy of implementing the money bail system pursuant to California Penal Code § 1269(b) amounted to unconstitutional wealth-based detention. Specifically, he claimed that:

1. The Defendant’s wealth-based detention system was excessive in relation to its purpose of ensuring court appearances. At any given time, there were approximately 4,400 inmates in the county jail, roughly 57% of whom were being detained pretrial. Furthermore, the Complaint indicated that while tying pretrial freedom to wealth-status was the norm Sacramento, many other jurisdictions throughout the country employed non-monetary conditions of release and release arrestees with pretrial supervision practices that could help increase court attendance and public safety without requiring detention.
2. The detention system failed to provide for individualized risk assessment levels, leading to consistent imprisonment of poor people and release of rich people regardless of whether the individual was dangerous or a flight risk.
3. Subjecting the poor to unnecessary pretrial detention caused instability in employment, housing, and care dependent relatives and leads to worse outcomes at trial when compared to those released pretrial.

On February 4, 2016, the Court denied the motion for a temporary restraining order. The Attorney General then moved to dismiss the case, and the County joined the motion and moved alternatively for a more definite statement of law. On October 11, 2016, the Court granted the Defendants’ motion to dismiss as to Plaintiff’s Equal Protection claim and granted the motion for a more definite statement of law for the Due Process claim. The Court also denied the pending motion for class certification as moot. The Plaintiff then filed a First Amended Complaint as a putative class action, proposing the same class definition.

Shortly after, the Attorney General moved to dismiss the case and the County and Sheriff jointly filed a separate motion to dismiss. The Defendants moved to dismiss under four main arguments: first, that the Plaintiff’s claims were barred by the Eleventh Amendment, second, that the County was not liable for the Sheriff’s conduct because the Sheriff was acting on behalf of the state; third, that the County was not liable because its involvement with the bail law amounted to ministerial compliance with state law instead of a deliberate choice; and fourth, that the Plaintiff failed to state a claim.

On October 26, 2018, the Court ruled on the Defendants’ motions together and granted the motion in part and denied the motion in part. Specifically, the Court held:

1. The Eleventh Amendment did not bar the suit because the claim fell within an exception for the putative class members seeking injunctive relief against state officers in their official capacities for alleged violations of federal law
2. The County was not liable for the claim challenging the Sheriff’s actions because the Sheriff was acting on behalf of the State rather than the County
3. The Plaintiff had stated plausible claims that the bail law was either facially invalid or excessive in relation to its purposes under the Due Process Clause.

343 F. Supp. 3d 924 (E.D. Cal. 2018). As of March 2019, the Defendants have not filed an answer to the First Amended Complaint and the Court has granted several deadline extensions.

Sara Stearns - 03/31/2019


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