Imposed for Jail Overcrowding : County Will Ask Judge to Lift Burden of Fines

Unable to meet Friday’s court-ordered deadline to relieve overcrowding at the Orange County Jail, the Board of Supervisors voted Tuesday to ask a federal judge to suspend further fines or, failing that, let the county use the money instead to improve jail conditions.

Chairman Thomas F. Riley told the board that the fines of $10 per day for every inmate who goes two days without a bed in the jail will automatically take effect Friday but that a further court order is needed to require the county to pay those fines.

Riley said U.S. District Judge William P. Gray will not return to Los Angeles until June 3, at which time another hearing will be set to report on the county’s compliance with the judge’s order.

“I want the board to direct counsel to ask the court to consider the county’s good-faith efforts to comply with the order of March 18, 1985, and therefore request a modification of the fine, or at least allow the county to apply the money toward alleviating the expense of complying,” Riley said.

Gray’s March 18 order found the supervisors and Sheriff Brad Gates in criminal contempt for not complying with his 1978 order to improve conditions at the jail.

Gray imposed a $50,000 fine, which is being used to pay for a special master to monitor efforts to relieve overcrowding at the jail in Santa Ana. The judge also added the $10-a-day fine for each inmate forced to sleep on rubber mats on the floor for more than one night but stayed imposition of the fine for 60 days to give the county time to improve jail conditions.

Riley’s letter did not specify how the county would “apply the money” if it is allowed to retain the fines, but the supervisors last week ordered that $198,000 be spent to buy and install bunks and beds at the jail and at the James A. Musick honor farm near El Toro. County officials have also estimated that it will cost hundreds of thousands of dollars more to increase staffing at Musick and the Theo Lacy jail facility to supervise inmates transferred to those two branch jails from the main jail.

Large Daily Fine

The jail supposedly has a “capacity” of 1,191, but it currently has bunks for 1,530 inmates. When the supervisors ordered the triple-bunking and other measures last week, there were 1,866 inmates in the jail. If the number stayed constant, that could mean a one-day fine of $3,360, and Sheriff Brad Gates said last week it could take up to six months to comply with the judge’s order.

The special county task force appointed to study how to fulfill Gray’s order reported more than a week ago that the county could not meet the deadline. On Monday, Richard Herman, the lawyer who represented the American Civil Liberties Union at the March 18 hearing, said the county had not done what it could to improve matters and should be fined.

Last week the supervisors ordered that triple-tiered bunks be installed in the jail and new facilities be added at the Musick honor farm to accommodate nonviolent inmates now housed in the jail.

A prototype of the triple bunk that was displayed at the jail Monday and Tuesday was found to be too wide for some of the cells, jail officials said, although they added they were not overly concerned by the problem.

Capt. George King of the Sheriff’s Department, the jail commander, said the bunks were “very large and difficult to handle,” but could be trimmed enough to fit in the cells, or could be brought to the jail in pieces and assembled there.

“It’s not going to be a big deal,” King said.