Santa Clara Co. Sheriff Defies Calls To Resign, Defends Actions

SANTA CLARA COUNTY, CA — Facing calls to resign over alleged mismanagement of county jails, lack of transparency and several bribery and corruption scandals, Santa Clara County Sheriff Laurie Smith defended her actions in a news conference Tuesday, describing calls for her resignation as “nuts.”

Smith, who has served as sheriff since 1998 and is in her sixth term, supported investigations into her office by the Department of Justice, the state attorney general’s office and a civil grand jury that were called for in a referral unanimously approved by the county’s board of supervisors.

Smith said she would not resign "at this time," adding: “We’re going to do these investigations. Let’s see what the truth is.”’

Smith’s news conference came a day after San Jose Mayor Sam Liccardo joined the calls for her to resign, and the same day that the county Board of Supervisors approved the referral by Supervisors Joe Simitian and Otto Lee that was highly critical of the sheriff’s office.

Inmate Incidents

The referral listed recent settlements the county has made over injuries that occurred to inmates suffering from mental illness in the jail system, which has been run by the sheriff’s office since 2010.

One of them was the case of Andrew Hogan, an inmate who sustained a traumatic brain injury while being transferred between jails in 2018. He received in excess of $10 million from the county in a settlement.

In August of 2015, three correctional officers murdered Michael Tyree by beating him to death. The county paid $3.6 million to Tyree's family after an excessive force lawsuit.

Earlier this year, Juan Martin Nunez sued the county claiming that in August of 2019, he injured his spine while running head-first into his cell door and was then left in his cell for an extended period of time. Nunez alleged in the lawsuit that correctional officers moved him in a way that worsened his injuries, despite him screaming in pain and telling officers that he might be paralyzed.

“We had one incident and it’s a tragedy,” said Simitian at the board meeting Tuesday. “You have a second and you can perhaps suggest that it’s a coincidence. You have a third incident and you just have to acknowledge that there’s a pattern that calls out for attention and action.”

Paula Canny, the attorney for the families of both Hogan and Tyree, defended Smith at the news conference, calling the incarceration of those suffering from mental illness the result of a “fundamentally broken system” and praising Smith for being quick to arrest the officers in Tyree’s death.

“Because there are not enough mental health beds, the only place for mentally ill people is the county jail,” Canny said. “And that's just fundamentally wrong. The sheriff isn’t responsible for who is put in her jail. The police are. The prosecution is.”

Transparency And Reforms

The sheriff's office is in charge of more than 700 correctional officers, according to the referral. The supervisors said that the sheriff's office has consistently not been cooperative in requests to provide information and that political influence may be impacting decisions.

Smith claimed that her office has been cooperating with county auditors and providing “hundreds of thousands of pages of documents through may public records act requests,” and that she would support a California Fair Political Practices Commission investigation into her office.

The sheriff has also come under criticism for a bribery criminal investigation that led to indictments of her top aides and a campaign fundraiser and a pay-to-play scandal involving $300,000 in union contributions for Smith's 2018 re-election.

Smith invoked her Fifth Amendment right to avoid self-incrimination, declining to cooperate with the grand jury investigation of her own staff over bribery charges related to her re-election.

When asked on Tuesday whether she knew that her top aides were demanding campaign contributions in exchange for concealed carry permits, Smith said the allegations had not been proven and refused to answer directly, quickly pivoting to another reporter.

Smith, who said that her department is “severely understaffed,” also refuted claims that her office has squandered the nearly $450 million invested by the county to improve jail conditions. She said that $162 million was spent by the county on construction, $68 million on custody health services and only $21 million spent by the sheriff’s office itself.

Simitian and Lee also accused Smith of ignoring many of the reforms recommended by a blue ribbon commission following the death of Tyree. Of the 80 recommendations consolidated from a list of 623, only 10 have been fully implemented to date, according to Lee.

Smith said that some of the recommendations were ignored because of legal issues, “but other than that we’re continuing to address it.”

'This Is Inhumane'

County supervisors, who discussed the referral hours after Smith’s news conference, expressed concern about jail conditions and inequity due to the fact that a majority of inmates in the county are people of color.

Lee, who recently visited the Elmwood Correctional Facility in Milpitas, said that he was horrified at the visibly filthy living conditions with paint peeling in many areas. The jail also had many blind spots out of the view of cameras, he said. And he was concerned about several COVID-19 outbreaks at the jail in recent months.

“It’s heartbreaking and this is inhumane,” Lee said.

Supervisor Susan Ellenberg called for a restructuring of how the county’s jails are operated, and to explore how the county might remove the sheriff’s office from running the jails.

“The way in which the department is structured — and the county’s reliance upon the sheriff’s office as the central overseer of jail functions — leaves wide open further opportunities for people to be harmed while in our custody,” Ellenberg said.

Smith, 69, accepted that reforms have not been made as quickly as she would have liked. But as she sidestepped questions and left the news conference with reporters shouting at her, Smith made no indication that she would step down anytime soon.

“I’m working because I love this organization,” Smith said. “We have a lot that we have to accomplish. I'm not one that will go sit by the cabin.”

Bay City News contributed to this report.