Prisoner Stabs Another Inmate at Courthouse

An Orange County Jail inmate was stabbed with a handmade knife Friday morning by a fellow prisoner in a basement holding cell at the main county Superior Court building in Santa Ana.

James C. Byham, marshal of county courts, said the inmate suspected of wounding the other prisoner was convicted of murder and serving a state prison sentence of life without parole. The 33-year-old suspect is serving his sentence at the state prison in San Quentin and was in Orange County Jail awaiting a hearing in his case, Byham said.

The victim, a 22-year-old man facing multiple felony counts including assault with a deadly weapon, burglary and related charges, was reported in stable condition following surgery at UCI Medical Center in Orange, Byham said.

Investigators with the marshal’s office, which supervises prisoners while they are at the courthouse, and the Orange County Sheriff’s Department, which oversees the jail and the inmates while they are there and in transit, would not identify the victim or suspect, citing the safety of the stabbed man and at least some uncertainty about the suspect’s culpability.

A motive in the stabbing had not been determined by sheriff’s investigators, who Friday afternoon were still interviewing about 50 inmates who witnessed the attack, Byham said.

Makeshift Knife

The inmate was stabbed with a six- to eight-inch makeshift knife at 11:30 a.m. in one of the courthouse’s seven holding cells, Byham said. The blade was fashioned with a piece of metal that had been sharpened to a point, “with cutting edges” on either side, he said.

A deputy marshal working in the detention facility “observed the attack and intervened immediately, thereby saving the life of the victim, who did suffer two stab wounds,” Byham said.

Employees of the marshal’s office administered first aid and Santa Ana Fire Department paramedics stabilized the victim before taking him to the medical center. There are nine holding cells in which prisoners may be kept while they wait to make court appearances, Byham said. Prisoners charged with felonies and serious crimes are kept separately from those facing lesser charges. Men and women and inmates in protective custody are also isolated from the others, he said.

Byham said he did not know how the inmate was able to arm himself with the weapon and could not comment on what occurred before the inmates arrived at the courthouse.

Searches Vary

“Pretty much, (inmates) are screened before they leave the jail, and then as often as possible we will run them through again over here,” Byham said. “But we don’t strip-search them here. We do try to put them through a metal detector. I don’t know if that was done this morning,” he said. “It depends on the time we have. The jury and the judge and the prosecutor and the defense are all waiting to get things started. But we try to give them a quick pat-down and run them through metal. . . . Friday is historically our righteously busy day.”

A spokesman for the Sheriff’s Department could not be reached for comment regarding whether inmates had been screened Friday morning before they were bused to the nearby courthouse.

Four years ago, an inmate was beaten to death by another prisoner in a holding cell at the same courthouse. The prisoner testified during his murder trial that he had attacked the inmate because he ate two of his candy bars and smoked some of his cigarettes. The death prompted officials to install windows in the cells through which deputy marshals could better monitor the prisoners’ movements.