Judge refuses to limit San Diego County jails’ use of isolation cells

A federal judge in San Diego has denied a request from attorneys in a class-action lawsuit to bar the Sheriff’s Office from housing people with serious mental illness in administrative separation, a form of solitary confinement.

The request for a preliminary injunction was filed in federal court in October, after two men died in administrative separation.

Lawyers representing people in San Diego County jail custody in the case known as Dunsmore v. San Diego County asked the court to limit the sheriff’s use of administrative separation to 72 hours. They provided more than a dozen sworn declarations from people who’d been housed in administrative separation in San Diego jails.

The declarations described getting little to no mental health treatment, and almost no human contact. They described trash piling up and toilets regularly overflowing, causing a foul stench and filthy conditions.

In his ruling, Judge Anthony Battaglia said plaintiffs failed to prove why the injunction was immediately needed.

“Plaintiff has not established a causal link between the recent deaths (or any prior deaths) and defendants’ alleged policy or practice failures,” he wrote in his 24-page ruling.

“Instead, plaintiffs assume that deaths occurred because of deficient policies, including the use of ad-sep, and that individual...