60,000 Can Join Lawsuit Over O.C. Jails

More than 60,000 current and former inmates will be allowed to join a class-action lawsuit saying they endured civil-rights violations in Orange County jails, under a federal ruling released last week.

Sheriff’s Department officials have maintained that inmates, though not pampered, are treated fairly and are not abused.

Laguna Beach attorney Richard P. Herman filed the October 2001 suit that led to the ruling on behalf of four inmates who at the time were awaiting trial and had not been convicted.

The suit alleges that tens of thousands of inmates have routinely been denied at least 15 minutes per meal or a place to sit inside holding cells. It also alleges that handicapped prisoners do not get their entitled exercise time because portions of the jail facilities are not accessible to wheelchairs.

Herman, who represented inmates in the landmark 1978 order that limited overcrowding at Orange County’s jails, hopes U.S. District Judge Gary L. Taylor’s decision to grant class-action status to the suit will lead to further jail system reforms.

“There’s a lot of passive-aggressive non-implementation of the old order,” Herman said Sunday. “That order was intended to make things decent and give people their basic constitutional rights.”

He said that individual inmates probably wouldn’t receive significant amounts of money but that the case could incur great cost to the county.

“The federal judge has accepted that these are matters which require serious inquiry in the federal courts,” Herman said. “There is a potential for tremendous exposure on the part of the county for the wrongs that have been done.”

The suit is scheduled to go to trial early next year.