‘Samuel Martinez … deserved better’: Brentwood man with mental illness died in jail amid lengthy legal battle that may have freed him

MARTINEZ — The day after Christmas 2019, 61-year-old Samuel Martinez was cuffed and led out of a hospital by a Contra Costa Sheriff’s deputy, headed back to the Richmond jail where he’d spent almost two years while his mental competence was debated in a pending arson case.

He was due back in court soon as his attorneys argued that his psychosis was so severe, he’d never be deemed competent to stand trial. But Martinez never made it back to the courtroom. Only a few steps outside the hospital, he collapsed to the ground, suffering from a seizure. Medical staff rushed to help him, but he died there on the pavement, according to testimony at an October inquest hearing into his death.

The circumstances leading up to his death, including long stints in jail between hospital stays, are part of what experts and advocates call a disturbing pattern in Contra Costa affecting those with serious mental illness, who are often caught in legal limbo while they’re criminally prosecuted.

“Samuel Martinez, like so many other incarcerated people suffering from mental illness, deserved better,” his attorney, deputy public defender Stephanie Regular, said in an email to this newspaper. She blamed prosecutors for not seeking mental health treatment for Martinez, but added she was still hopeful for improvement through “shared efforts toward reform.”

Contra Costa District Attorney’s Office spokesman Scott Alonso said in a statement it was unfortunate the office failed to secure a conservatorship — legal appointment of a guardian to essentially manage another person’s life, a move that would have bolstered efforts to remove Martinez from criminal prosecution — before he died.

“When handling cases involving gravely disabled offenders, the office of the District Attorney takes a thoughtful and holistic approach to handling these cases, which are of a very sensitive nature,” Alonso said in the email.

Samuel Martinez developed schizophrenia after suffering a serious head injury in a 1989 motorcycle crash. He was arrested for allegedly starting a fire at a family member’s house, something he’d done before because “he said demons would tell him to do these things,” his sister, Aurora Martinez, said in a recent interview. After starting the fire, he stood there, “very stoic, no emotion,” and unaware of what he’d just done, she said.

After he was found incompetent to stand trial in 2018 and committed to the Department of State Hospitals, a doctor there eventually concluded Martinez would likely not ever be restored to competency, according to court records. That doctor recommended Martinez be referred for a conservatorship investigation.

But as that matter kept getting put off in 2019, prosecutors did not file any petition to begin the conservatorship investigation. After obtaining an indictment with identical charges that year, prosecutors asked the court to proceed with a conservatorship on his original criminal complaint but also contested Martinez’s competency on the separate but identical indictment. Another doctor in October 2019 found again that Martinez was incompetent to stand trial.

In court, prosecutor Melissa Smith defended her office’s attempt to litigate Martinez’s competency when criticized by Regular, saying, “we are doing our best within the confines of our office.”

Aurora Martinez took little comfort in that effort: “Both (attorneys) assured us that he was going to get help, they were going to put him in a facility where he could get rehabilitated, but that was never done,” she said. “They dragged their feet on all of this.”

During this time, Samuel Martinez spent time at a mental health facility in Southern California where he began to show marked improvement. By contrast, when he returned to the jail, his condition deteriorated, Aurora Martinez said.

“Toward the end, I could tell he was giving up,” Aurora Martinez said, later adding, “We knew there was not going to be a return from his mental illness, but we wanted him somewhere where he could enjoy a quality of life.”

While it’s impossible to know how Samuel Martinez’s case would have played out, others in similar situations were eventually released. In early 2018, county prosecutors agreed to dismiss a case against a young man named Keith who was charged with a felony for allegedly pushing over his mother’s chair. He was also declared incompetent, then restored to competency after a stay at a state hospital, and sent back to jail multiple times over two years.

The Bay Area News Group is declining to publish last names for Keith or another man, Makana, who faced prosecution despite having a mental disorder.

Charges against Keith were eventually dismissed after a hearing where Judge Patricia Scanlon opined that “it would be cruel and unusual to continue in this matter” if Regular’s description of the case was accurate.

“Part of the problem I see is the hospital is sending back people who haven’t actually been restored,” Regular said. “A lot of times … it is more likely than not the Department of State Hospitals has gotten the person stabilized with medication and gotten them to memorize terms about the legal process, but not actually able to make decisions.”

That’s what happened with Makana, a man in his early 20s who was charged with assaulting his grandmother, Mary Ziegler. He suffered from schizophrenia, likely caused or worsened by a brain injury from a bicycle accident.

Ziegler called 911 as he attacked her in April 2017, thinking police would help find him treatment. Instead, her grandson was arrested and spent the next three years in jail with pending felony charges. Like the others, Makana was sent to a hospital, deemed restored to competency, and sent back to jail with no discernible improvement in his condition, Regular said.

“He needs to be in a place where they can help him, not to be pushed in a dark cell somewhere,” Ziegler said. “These people are human beings.”

Makana was released last March through a misdemeanor plea deal.

Contra Costa County has been criticized in recent years for its jail conditions. A consent decree approved by the court late last year requires that the jails be monitored for the next three years, following a complaint in 2016 by three inmates who alleged the county’s jails don’t meet constitutional standards, including for mental health care.

The county is also spending millions to renovate the Martinez Detention Facility, which will involve resizing the cells to create “mental health cells” for people who, like Martinez, linger in jail as they await a spot at a state hospital.

Martinez’s court hearing was held in January 2020 despite his death a week and a half earlier. There, Superior Court Judge Clare Maier said she was empathetic to the individuals coming through her courtroom for the mental competency cases: “I don’t think our society provides the level of care required.”