After years of deaths and warnings, settlement aims to overhaul mental health care in San Diego County jails

On the day Lester Daniel Marroquin died inside a San Diego County jail, the mental health clinician responsible for his care had no idea he’d been moved from the jail’s psychiatric observation unit into an isolation cell.

Jennifer Alonso had met with Marroquin repeatedly while he was on suicide watch and believed he needed close monitoring. But on her day off, custody staff transferred him into administrative separation.

Hours later, he died by suicide.

“I still cry when I think about what happened to Mr. Marroquin; he should not have died,” Alonso later wrote in a sworn declaration.

That declaration became a cornerstone of a federal class-action lawsuit alleging systemic failures in how San Diego County jails treat people with mental illness. It helped drive a sweeping settlement announced earlier this month.

When Alonso learned of that settlement, she said she felt relief and emotion. She’d worked as a clinician in the jails for three years before leaving. She lov...