A California lawmaker wants to strip Riverside County Sheriff Chad Bianco of his authority to investigate deaths inside his own jails, introducing legislation that would dismantle a governance structure that has stood for 25 years. Senate Bill 1379 would abolish the Riverside County Coroner's Office entirely and hand its duties to a newly created, independent medical examiner's office, separating a role currently combined under the sheriff's command.
State Sen. Sabrina Cervantes, who represents Riverside, introduced the bill and has said she drafted it because of concerns about how the county investigates deaths of people in its custody, according to CBS News. The bill has already cleared the Assembly Appropriations Committee and must pass both the Senate and Assembly floors by August 31 in order to reach Governor Gavin Newsom's desk for consideration, per the same outlet's reporting.
The legislation would require the new medical examiner's office to publish detailed information online about in-custody deaths, including incident reports, a centralized public database of deaths at each facility, demographic data on the deceased, and notes on serious incidents like overdoses, medical distress, and suicides. Under SB 1379, only the county medical examiner would be permitted to sign documents such as death certificates or any portion of a postmortem examination, per CBS News's account of the bill's text.
Tighter Deadlines Than State Law Currently Requires
The bill also sets reporting deadlines far stricter than existing state law. According to bill text reviewed by LegiScan, SB 1379 would require Riverside County to publish an initial incident report of an in-custody death within 24 hours and a preliminary report within 72 hours — a dramatic acceleration compared to California Penal Code Section 10008, which currently gives correctional agencies up to 10 days to report such deaths.
A New York Times report found that Riverside County's jail system had the second-highest number of in-custody deaths in the nation between 2020 and 2023, per CBS News. A separate CalMatters investigation similarly concluded that some of California's deadliest jails are located in Riverside County. The county represents about 6 percent of California's population but accounts for roughly 10 percent of the state's in-custody deaths, and Latinos represented about 43 percent of Riverside County in-custody deaths from 2005 to 2024, according to figures cited in the CBS News report.
The financial toll has also been steep. Lawsuits filed by families of people who died in county custody resulted in almost $100 million in settlements paid by Riverside County taxpayers between 2014 and 2024, per CBS News.
A Case That Became a Flashpoint
Legislators pointed to specific cases to justify removing death investigations from sheriff oversight. A 2026 California Senate committee analysis highlighted the 2020 death of Christopher Zumwalt in a Riverside jail, in which the sheriff's department attributed his death — which followed an altercation with a deputy — to cardiac arrest, while the coroner's unit classified it as a justified homicide, according to the California Senate Committee on Public Safety.
The 2022 in-custody death of 29-year-old Richard Matus Jr. at the Cois Byrd Detention Center also sparked federal civil rights litigation, and his family became prominent advocates for legislation like SB 1379, citing delays in releasing his body and receiving autopsy findings, according to Patch. Hoodline previously reported on a related federal wrongful death lawsuit filed against the sheriff's department by the family of 21-year-old inmate Alicia Upton after her 2022 suicide at Robert Presley Detention Center, in a lawsuit over a 2022 jail suicide.
Bianco Pushes Back on Job Losses
Sheriff Bianco has publicly opposed the bill, arguing that separating the offices would greatly diminish service to the county, per CBS News. He also said more than 600 jobs would be impacted if the legislation moves forward. The Riverside Record reports that Bianco, who was elected in 2018 and reelected in 2022, has denounced SB 1379 as an effort driven by political opponents, arguing that singling out Riverside County imposes unique administrative burdens without proving systemic misconduct.
Bianco's department has faced sustained scrutiny beyond this bill. California Attorney General Rob Bonta launched an ongoing civil rights pattern-or-practice investigation into the Riverside County Sheriff's Office in February 2023 following a spike in jail deaths and allegations of excessive force, according to the LA Times. Separately, in September 2023, a Riverside County correctional deputy was arrested after law enforcement seized over 44 pounds of narcotics during a freeway traffic stop, a case that escalated public scrutiny over how illicit drugs enter county jails and contribute to in-custody overdoses.
Local Officials Already Weighing Oversight Changes
SB 1379 arrives alongside parallel local efforts to reform sheriff oversight. The Riverside County Board of Supervisors voted unanimously in July to create a six-month ad hoc committee to evaluate options for independent sheriff oversight, following a critical report by the Riverside County Civil Grand Jury, according to KVCR. That came after the board approved outsourcing autopsies for people who die in county detention facilities to neighboring counties back in March 2024, a step taken after a December 2023 internal study advised against fully separating the sheriff and coroner roles due to potential costs.
If SB 1379 passes, the Riverside County Board of Supervisors would be required to separate the offices of sheriff and coroner by July 1, 2027. The bill would not affect San Bernardino County or Orange County, both of which currently keep their coroner functions under sheriff oversight — a structure shared by 48 of California's 58 counties, according to ACLU California Action, which notes California is one of only three states allowing sheriffs to perform coroner duties without medical credentials. By contrast, the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department and medical examiner, along with their counterparts in Ventura County, already function independently of one another.
This is not California's first attempt to address the issue statewide. A broader effort, Assembly Bill 1608, sought to separate sheriff and coroner duties across all 58 counties but failed to pass the Legislature in 2022, according to Courthouse News Service. SB 1379's narrower, single-county approach reflects lawmakers' shift toward targeting the state's highest-fatality detention systems individually rather than pursuing sweeping statewide reform.
