San Francisco sheriff puts ankle monitoring program on hold ahead of trial

San Francisco’s ankle monitoring program for defendants is on hold due to a dispute over a federal judge’s ruling.

About 400 people are currently wearing these monitors while they await trial, but the San Francisco Sheriff’s Department will not distribute any more monitors until the dispute is resolved.

“For this reason, our office and the District Attorney’s Office have made it clear repeatedly from the beginning of this case that we could not safely conduct this valuable program without the warrantless search condition,” Sheriff Paul Miyamoto told a news conference Thursday.

The sheriff requires that anyone who agrees to wear an ankle monitor, often as an alternative to jail time, must consent to a warrantless search. A federal judge has ruled that this is a violation of the right to privacy and freedom from unreasonable search.

Now the mayor, city attorney and district attorney are taking a unified position, all saying the decision is not in the interest of public safety and poses a threat to a criminal justice reform tool.

“Unfortunately, as you have heard, this will potentially mean more people will have to be incarcerated because the court will not have that option,” said District Attorney Brooke Jenkins.

However, some point out that the sheriff suspended the program of his own accord.

“First, I want to point out that it is not the federal court order that required the sheriff to stop operating his program,” said Emi Young, an attorney with the ACLU of Northern California. “It’s the sheriff who decided to shut down operations [the program] due to the disagreement with the court order.”

The ACLU brought the case on behalf of three defendants.

“The problem here is that the sheriff is attempting to invoke a warrantless search warrant in cases where a criminal judge has already determined that this condition of supervision of a released person is unreasonable and unnecessary,” Young explained. “Approximately half of the people currently released on electronic monitoring in San Francisco or who were released under the program or are not facing any violence charges.”

“Even though 50% may not be serious violent crimes, we still have a large portion of our fentanyl dealers on ankle monitors,” Jenkins said.

So the program is on hold for now, and the sheriff says his department is making room.

“We expected increases, not only because of this decision, but also in view of whether or not certain proposals will be adopted soon,” Miyamoto said of the prison population.

The public defender’s office has now also criticized the decision. They said the sheriff chose to sacrifice a valuable public safety tool rather than comply with a federal court order.