Last month’s article — Part 1 — discussed how to read a Humboldt County Civil Grand Jury report when you are a member of the public. We talked about how the civil grand jury spends approximately nine months investigating a specific county/city process before writing a final report. How before the civil grand jury can present a finding in one of their reports, they must be able to substantiate facts; and in order to be considered a fact, they must triangulate a minimum of three sources providing the same information.
Remember our analogy to “the sky is blue”? Before the civil grand jury can make that statement, it must find a minimum of three verifiable sources identifying the sky to be blue. These sources can be interviews, published material, source data, and even first-hand observations. We discussed how, in many cases, the civil grand jury does not limit itself to three sources.
Now let’s say you are reading the civil grand jury report because you are required to submit a response to the Superior Court regarding the findings and recommendations. You most likely are part of the process the civil grand jury investigated, and reside at the management end of the process. You have read the report, and find that you are in agreement with some of the findings and recommendations, but take exception to others. You have now reacheda crossroads as to how to proceed. Before you take that next step, you need to know how to read a civil grand jury report.
It’s important to understand the civil grand jury likely interviewed over 100 people (all under admonishment of secrecy), read upwards of 300 published procedures/articles, and even walked through the processes. For you to disbelieve a civil grand jury finding is to say that interviewed individuals did not tell the truth, that publications were in error, and that 19 citizens were wrong in what they observed and deduced from their investigation. It would be better for you to perform your own investigation before arbitrarily arriving at a negative response to a civil grand jury report.
Let’s take a look at a specific example of how a respondent can get caught up in the moment and not truly research their response. Take a look at the 2018-2019 civil grand jury report titled “The Last Resort.” This report addresses the civil grand jury investigation into the delivery of mental health care within the Humboldt County jail. Finding No. 7 of this report states “There is a lack of direction to clinical staff about who has the legal authority to prescribe treatment orders for inmates in need of mental health treatment.”
The Board of Supervisors, the Director of the Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS), and the Director of DHHS Mental Health all disagreed with this finding in its entirety. These required respondents justified their negative response by saying “All staff hired to work in the jail are trained in their scope of practice during the onboarding process. The scope of practice guidance is clear around this matter.”
Now consider this. The civil grand jury, in all likelihood, interviewed numerous county employees who work in this process. They read procedures that apply to this process, and they triangulated the responses to determine factually that direction to clinical staff is lacking. The response from our county leadership was that when they hire staff they train and instruct them during their onboarding process. Does this answer the concern brought forward by the civil grand jury? No! The response makes no sense.
In this response, the respondents took the easy road by indicating that staff are instructed one time in how the process works. There appears to be no concern by the county that staff working the process today are unsure of their responsibilities in spite of the training they’re given. It appears the respondent did not understand how the civil grand jury arrived at this finding or, shall we say, did not know how to read a civil grand jury report.
The Grand Jurors’ Association believes inmates with mental health needs would be better served if county leadership had taken the opportunity to talk to the clinical staff about why the civil grand jury arrived at this conclusion. What do you think?
Eureka Times Standard
Wayne Ventuleth authored this monthly column on behalf of the Humboldt County Grand Jurors’ Association.
May 3, 2020
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