Court Penalizes Orange County for Jail Crowding

A federal judge in Los Angeles on Monday found the Orange County Board of Supervisors and Sheriff Brad Gates in criminal contempt for violating the judge’s 1978 order requiring that all county jail inmates be provided beds. He fined the county $50,000.

U.S. District Judge William P. Gray also said he would fine the county $10 a day for each inmate who sleeps on the floor more than one night. But he stayed the $10 fine for 60 days to give Gates and the county time to comply with his previous order.

Additionally, Gray said he will appoint a special master to monitor operations at the men’s jail. The $50,000 fine will be used to defray the cost of the special master, the judge said.

Exceeds Capacity

The men’s jail has an official capacity of 1,191, but its daily inmate population has been about 2,000 and more for several years, according to jail officials. At present nearly 500 inmates at the county men’s jail have been sleeping on mats on the floor because not enough bunks are available.

Gray said he found the situation “intolerable.”

“As a condition of the right to detain (the inmates), we must give them a reasonably humane place of incarceration,” Gray said. “The sheriff and the Board of Supervisors intentionally violated the court’s order.”

American Civil Liberties Union attorney Richard Herman, who brought the latest action before Gray, predicted that the judge’s ruling would mean immediate improvements in living conditions at the Orange County Jail.

Deputy County Counsel Edward Duran argued that the county has tried to comply with Gray’s 1978 order by planning a 380-bed intake and release facility next to the present county jail in downtown Santa Ana, a 180-bed expansion at the Theo Lacy facility in Orange and increases at the county’s James A. Musick honor farm.