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Juvenile offenders from Del Norte County are not given adequate time, nor the appropriate space, to meet with their attorneys before court appearances, the Del Norte County Grand Jury has stated.

It’s an assessment the oversight committee arrived at in its 2023-24 report and one that Chief Probation Officer Lonnie Reyman takes issue with.

Though his staff are transporting incarcerated youth from either Eureka or Redding, where they are housed, Reyman said standard practice is they’re given at least an hour from the time they arrive in Del Norte County to when they’re due in court to meet with legal counsel. There is also a holding room, an interview room and a pre-booking room where an attorney can meet with their client, Reyman said.

The chief probation officer, who is preparing a direct response to the Grand Jury, said he was disappointed in the way it conducted its investigation.

“They were dealing with a very specific complaint,” he told the Wild Rivers Outpost on Thursday. “And when they interviewed me, they were asking very generic questions. They would not tell me what the complaint was. I didn’t have an adequate opportunity to respond to what the complaint was and to provide them with specific information that addressed those concerns.”

The Grand Jury released its report on July 22, about a year and a half after Del Norte entered into an agreement with Humboldt County to house its juvenile offenders in Eureka. Del Norte renewed a similar agreement with Shasta County in December 2023.

On Sept. 12, 2023, the Board of Supervisors eliminated the juvenile hall division, paving the way for the new Youth Opportunity Center, which offers programs for at-risk youth. Reyman had recommended closing juvenile hall in October 2022, stating he wasn't able to meet state staffing requirements.

When reached for comment regarding the Grand Jury investigation — and Reyman’s response to it — Foreperson Tamra Fallman-Berling said she was unable to provide information about the investigation into the Del Norte County Probation Department.
According to the report, Fallman-Berling, a local attorney, recused herself from the investigation.

“All Del Norte County Grand Jury members are bound by a lifetime oath of secrecy and confidentiality pertaining to investigations,” she told the Outpost via email.

Fallman-Berling cited the county’s Grand Jury webpage, which states that each member swears an oath of office not to disclose any evidence brought to the Grand Jury as well as discussions or deliberations that occur during an investigation.

“This oath ensures protection for those who come before the Grand Jury and maintains the independence and validity of the Grand Jury,” Fallman-Berling said.

According to the Grand Jury report, a formal complaint from a county resident sparked its investigation into the Probation Department. The complaint alleged that juvenile offenders weren’t given sufficient time to discuss their case with legal counsel before they appeared before a judge and after for an exit interview.

According to the report, exit interviews allow incarcerated youths to meet with their attorneys after appearing before a judge to explain what happened so they can consider their options and prepare for their next hearing.

The complaint also alleged that incarcerated youth weren’t being adequately informed of their rights before court appearances and conferences, and raised concerns about whether there was “sufficient and appropriate space” for meeting with their attorneys.

In its report, the Grand Jury recommended Del Norte County probation to arrive at juvenile hall with “adequate time before court, which is agreed upon by both probation and legal counsel.” This would allow enough time for attorneys to prepare their client for court.

The Grand Jury also recommended returning incarcerated youth to Del Norte County Juvenile Hall after court “where they will not be returned to the Facilities [Humboldt or Shasta County juvenile hall] until the attorney has sufficient time to discuss what happened in court.”

According to the report, Grand Jury interviewed the complainant as well as Reyman and “various other people relevant to the case.” Grand Jury members also toured Del Norte County Juvenile Hall, though it’s no longer serving as a detention center.

Reyman said he was interviewed in April or May, which is about the time the Grand Jury did its walkthrough at juvenile hall. While it’s the Grand Jury’s mandate to investigate detention facilities in the county, including the county jail, Alder Conservation Camp and Pelican Bay State Prison, Reyman said he was surprised when they reached out to him this year since juvenile hall is closed.

There are 14 youth under formal supervision through Del Norte County probation, Reyman said. There are youth who are on informal probation, he said.

Currently, there are two youth in custody at the Humboldt County juvenile detention center and one at the Shasta County facility, Reyman said. Humboldt and Shasta County have the right to refuse housing to a Del Norte County youth due to capacity issues or if the offender is acting out to the point where either county is unwilling to deal with the liability further, he said.

The juvenile offender at the Shasta County facility had been transferred from Humboldt County because he was acting out, Reyman said.

According to Reyman, if a youth has pending criminal charges, they have a “pretty regular” court schedule — hearings are usually held every two to three weeks at least.

Occasionally a youth can appear before a judge via Zoom. But if there's evidence that needs to be presented or something significant has occurred in their case, probation staff has to take them to court.

That's a five-hour drive for someone coming from Redding, Reyman said. The probation chief said his office can't hold youth overnight because Del Norte isn't certified nor staffed for it, which means those kids have to go back to Humboldt or Shasta counties.

“If we’re transporting multiple kids on our end — ideally we’re transporting them all together — now we have two kids waiting to get through court before we consider turning around and getting back on the road,” Reyman said. “We stop either before or after to make sure we grab food from the juvenile building and holding, so they’re not hungry. We make sure everybody has a chance to use the bathroom and then it’s a five hour drive back. So that kid’s on the road for 10 hours … it’s a minimum of 12 hours for that kid that’s housed in Shasta to have a court hearing for 10 minutes.”

The chief probation officer also pointed out that his staff are working with youth who already have behavioral issues. If a court hearing doesn’t go their way, lashing out is often their way of dealing with stress, anxiety and bad news, he said.

“Now, not only do I Have transportation considerations, [there’s] a kid I’m going to have to wrestle with,” he said. “I have a kid I maybe have to consider putting in a higher level of restraints so they don’t act out violently to hurt somebody else or themselves during a multiple hour transport.”

One of the challenges Reyman said his office is dealing with is a lack of communication with the attorneys working with incarcerated youth. It’s a challenge the Grand Jury mentions in its report.

According to Reyman, it’s his supervisor of juvenile services who’s managing cases for incarcerated youth. This means it’s her job to talk with an attorney, inform them when their client is due in court and if they’d like to meet with them at a specific time.

Sometimes an attorney will get a request, but there’s often no follow up or they speak with the wrong person, according to Reyman. To try to remedy that, Reyman said standard practice has been to ensure incarcerated youth roll into Del Norte County at least an hour before they’re due in court.

However, he said, he’s also planning on establishing a standardized form for attorneys, families or guardians — anyone who wants to visit with a youth in his department’s custody.

“It’ll be a publicly available form that should be up by the end of this week,” Reyman told the Outpost. “They can fill out the form. It’ll get dropped into an inbox [where] everybody on our end has access to see what the request is, who it came from, what day or time, how long they want to visit, and we’ll do our best to facilitate those. Hopefully it might solve our communication issues.”

That form for attorneys, families or guardians to set up a meeting with an incarcerated youth was not available online as of 2:40 p.m. Monday.

Reyman disputed the allegation in the Grand Jury report that there’s no adequate place for an incarcerated youth to meet with their attorney. He also said there’s no such thing as an exit interview with an attorney and their client after court.

“There’s nothing in statute, nothing in regulation — an exit interview doesn’t exist,” he said. “But if an attorney wants to talk to their client after court, they can talk to us about that, not create some false expectation — ‘do this because I want you to,’ — it doesn’t work that way.”

Since closing Del Norte’s juvenile detention facility, the Youth Opportunity Center are working with youth who are at-risk of entering the juvenile justice system. They also a venue for those who are credit deficient to catch up with school. But, Reyman said, it’s a challenge because the number of youth on probation is low.

However, Reyman said, his staff hit a milestone this week.

“They’ve been doing walkthroughs with kids and families of the opportunity center,” he said, adding that if a parent and their child agrees to participate, they work out a case plan outlining the issues they want to address. “We had our first one fully sit down and go through and put down a case plan this week.”

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