County to Pay Out Settlement to Man Beaten in Jail

The county will pay $722,000 to settle a civil right claim filed by a black man who alleged jail sheriff's deputies stood by in 2006 as Latino gang members stabbed him 23 times, it was announced today.

"Every settlement is a compromise," said attorney R. Samuel Paz, who represents plaintiff Dion Starr. "He's waited patiently for some form of justice."

County attorney Roger Granbo confirmed the settlement amount, which includes legal fees.

"Both sides balanced the risks of a trial and reached a settlement," Granbo said.

The county Board of Supervisors voted 3-1 last week to settle the case. Supervisor Don Knabe was not present. Supervisor Gloria Molina, the sole dissenting vote, explained her reasoning today.

"I feel that the board needs to stop enabling the Sheriff's Department," Molina said, adding that the department "continues to see excessive force claims as just another cost of doing business."

Starr sued the county and Sheriff Lee Baca personally. The long appeals process turned on whether Baca could be held liable for the alleged racially motivated behavior of his deputies.

The lawsuit alleged that on Jan. 27, 2006, a sheriff's deputy opened Starr's cell door to let other inmates in to attack him.

"They stabbed Starr 23 times while Starr screamed for help and protection," read the allegations detailed in a 2011 opinion by a three-judge panel of the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals. "After the attacking inmates left the cell, several deputies went to Starr (who) lay on the floor of his cell, seriously injured, bleeding and moaning in pain."

Using a racial slur as they yelled at Starr to "lay down" and "shut up," the deputies allegedly kicked him in the face and body, fracturing his nose, according to the court document.

Granbo disputed the allegations, saying that medical records showed that Starr had only shallow cuts to his face.

Citing 10 incidents of inmate-on-inmate violence from July 2002 to October 2005, Starr and his attorneys argued that Baca was "deliberately indifferent" to incidents of racial violence between Latino and black inmates.

Problems in the jails were already the subject of federal investigation and had been documented in a 2005 report by special counsel Merrick Bobb.

A federal judge ruled in 2008 that Baca couldn't be held personally liable for deputies' racial discrimination. But the 9th Circuit Court panel reversed that decision in 2011, sending the matter back to the lower court.

A request to have the matter heard by the full 9th Circuit and then the U.S. Supreme Court were both denied.

In the years since the suit was filed, there have been new federal probes of county jails and a Citizens' Commission on Jail Violence has recommended dozens of reforms to end a culture of deputy-on-inmate abuse. From 2009-2012, the county paid out more than $100 million in judgments, settlements and legal costs related to claims against the Sheriff's Department, according to Molina.

A lawyer appointed to track the implementation of reforms has told the board that the bad apples responsible for promoting or ignoring violence in the jails have left and that new training and other changes, like video surveillance, have made a difference.

"It is a completely different approach to custody operations," Richard Drooyan told the board last week.

Molina, who, along with Supervisor Ridley-Thomas, has pushed for a permanent citizens oversight commission, said today she still wasn't satisfied.

"Saying you embrace change is not enough," Molina said of Baca.

-- City News Service