Judge Steps Up Pressure on State Prison System

A federal judge who has been a relentless critic of California’s prison system Tuesday threatened more court intervention if managers retreat from aggressive investigations of misconduct by guards.

In a letter to Acting Corrections Secretary Jeanne S. Woodford, U.S. District Judge Thelton E. Henderson said he was “deeply disappointed” with a memo Woodford sent employees after the sudden resignation of her predecessor, Roderick Q. Hickman, last month.

In the memo, Woodford listed priorities facing the troubled Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation but failed to mention its inmate healthcare crisis or the goal of abolishing the “code of silence,” an unwritten canon that has prevented some officers from reporting misconduct by colleagues.

Henderson called those omissions “disturbing.”

In response, he said he was canceling a regularly scheduled meeting at Woodford’s Sacramento office next week, in effect withdrawing from talks on managers’ efforts to police prison staff.

Henderson said he was considering other measures to ensure the state’s continued progress on employee discipline.

The judge also ordered a court monitor to step up scrutiny of the department’s investigations of abuses by staff behind prison walls and to report any “deterioration” of quality.

Copies of the judge’s letter, dated Tuesday, were sent to Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and the governor’s appointed watchdog over prisons, Inspector General Matthew Cate.

Schwarzenegger appointed Woodford acting secretary on Feb. 26 after Hickman abruptly resigned, saying that he believed that the commitment to improving the prison system was flagging in the Legislature and governor’s office.

Henderson’s letter suggests that he may share that view. Lawyers who know him characterized it as a warning from someone who has been a relentless critic of the prison system for more than a decade.

“I see it like a yellow card [in soccer],” said Donald Specter of the nonprofit Prison Law Office, which represents inmates in a lawsuit over healthcare. “It’s intended to let Ms. Woodford and the governor know that they’d better be diligent and vigilant on these issues, because he’s watching.”

A spokesman for Woodford said neither she nor other top managers have wavered from their determination to improve inmate medical care and to ensure that the code of silence does not disrupt disciplinary investigations.

Spokesman J.P. Tremblay said the memo to employees was meant to be “general in tone” and omitted many priorities and reforms that are important to Woodford.

He added that over the last two years, the department has overhauled its employee disciplinary system and institutionalized many changes. Those include ethics training and the creation of a team of independent watchdogs to ensure that punishment is meted out free of the cronyism and improper influence that had tainted the process in the past.

“Those things are in place and will not change because of the departure of one person,” Tremblay said.

The letter marks the latest of many volleys fired at the beleaguered corrections department by Henderson, who sits on the bench in San Francisco.

Last month, he seized control of the prison system’s $2-billion healthcare operation and handed it to a federal receiver, concluding that the state was incapable of fixing the crisis.

When he starts work in April, receiver Robert Sillen will have extraordinary powers to hire and fire, set budgets, suspend laws and regulations, and do whatever else he deems necessary to mend a healthcare system that kills one inmate in an average week through incompetence or neglect. He will report to Henderson.

In 2004, the judge slammed the system on another front, accusing the Schwarzenegger administration of ceding too much management power to the prison guards’ union. At the time, Henderson warned that he might place the entire prison system into receivership.

The corrections department also took heat from another source Tuesday, as the inspector general reported that violent convicts who should be isolated in maximum-security cells are instead often mixed with the general prison population upon arrival in the system, creating dangers for staff and other inmates.

Despite new policies designed to improve screening, dangerous felons continue to be improperly housed at five prison “reception centers” that process the majority of California’s convicts, Cate said.

The findings come about one year after the fatal stabbing of Correctional Officer Manuel A. Gonzalez at the state prison in Chino. The death of Gonzalez, a father of six from Whittier, marked the first time in 20 years that an on-duty guard had been killed in one of California’s 33 adult prisons.

A review of the slaying by the inspector general found that the alleged killer had a psychological disorder and a history of in-prison violence -- and should have been housed in a segregation cell. Instead, he was placed in the general population, where security is not nearly so tight.

After the killing, the Chino prison’s warden and two deputy wardens were replaced. The department also altered its rules to ensure that inmates who had been paroled from segregated housing would be automatically returned there if they were re-arrested.

But last fall, the inspector general found 66 erroneously housed inmates during a one-day snapshot of the system. In four cases, those inmates later attacked staff or other prisoners.

Cate said that number points to a problem of “serious magnitude” because thousands of inmates pass through the system each year. In 2004, the reception centers processed 173,437 inmates.

Informed of Cate’s findings, department officials reviewed the 66 cases and immediately transferred eight inmates to segregation.

The remaining 58 inmates no longer needed to be separated from the general population, the officials decided.

Department spokeswoman Elaine Jennings said immediate steps are being taken to correct remaining problems highlighted in the report, including problems with a computer database.

The full text of the inspector general’s report can be found at https://www.oig.ca.gov/.