Judge Is Key Figure in Jail Controversy

‘It’s very, very humbling. It impels a person to do his damndest to be right.’

Former Orange County Assistant Sheriff Thad Dwyer well remembers when he escorted U.S. District Judge William P. Gray on a tour of the Orange County Jail eight years ago.

“He never said a word,” Dwyer recalled. “He wanted to see everything, but never asked a question, never made a comment.”

Judge Gray, however, has had plenty to say since. And it has been from the bench.

The square-jawed, distinguished-looking Los Angeles judge, who will be 74 on Wednesday, has issued a handful of orders this past year to alleviate overcrowding at the county’s main jail in Santa Ana, converting what was virtually a human warehouse of 2,000 inmates--500 sleeping on floor mats in dayrooms and toilet areas--into a manageable facility nearing its official capacity of 1,219.

Under intense legal pressure from Gray, the county has erected a mammoth “tent city” for inmates at the James A. Musick branch jail near El Toro, and then a 400-bed modular jail next to it. And despite angry opposition from citizens and city officials, the Board of Supervisors last week quickly put together plans to spend $138 million for an additional county maximum-security jail in Anaheim, just half a mile from Anaheim Stadium.

Gray, interviewed Thursday following a hearing in Santa Ana, is keenly aware of the stir he has caused.

A federal judge, he said, often has much power.

“It’s very, very humbling,” he said. “It impels a person to do his damndest to be right.”

And Gray is not always right.

He has had his share of appellate court reversals. Prosecutors have criticized him for being too lenient in sentencing, something Gray himself concedes.

But Gray, who now has senior judge status, still is so highly respected that Orange County officials knew better than to ask the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals to overrule his strict outline--which calls for the main jail population to be below 1,400 by April 1--for easing overcrowding at the Orange County Jail.

“We think he has made some mistakes, but most of them are technical,” said Deputy County Counsel Edward Duran. “He is held in such esteem, we knew we couldn’t win any substantial appeal. Besides, he’s really been very fair with us.”

Fair and Honest

After 20 years as a federal judge, Gray has established a reputation in the legal community as being honest and fair.

One Orange County Municipal Court judge who watches with interest as Gray guides Orange County through controversial and vast changes on jail matters is James P. Gray, 41. The older Gray happens to be his father.

“I admire what he’s doing, but I have always admired my father,” the younger Gray said. “He is the most honest, most hard-working, fairest judge you’ll ever find.”

The senior Gray, a longtime Republican, embarked on his judicial career due to a political quirk of fate during the Johnson Administration in 1966.

Harvard Law Graduate

Gray, a Harvard Law School graduate, had built a thriving practice in downtown Los Angeles after World War II that eventually employed 13 attorneys. He had been president of the Los Angeles County Bar Assn., and later state Bar president.

In 1958, he was tapped by Laughlin E. Waters, who was then the U.S. attorney in Los Angeles and now is a colleague of Gray’s on the federal bench, to act as a special assistant to the U.S. attorney general. Federal officials wanted Gray to pursue the government’s claims against oil companies whose operations had caused the ground beneath the Long Beach Naval Shipyard to begin sinking.

The shipyard sat atop a vast oil field, and petroleum companies had been pumping in the area for years, causing the shipyard to sink at the rate of a foot a year.

$18-Million Check

In a settlement, Gray got the oil companies to agree to help rebuild the shipyard’s base, and pay $18 million in damages.

Gray recalled taking that $18-million check to Washington and turning it over to Ramsey Clark, then-assistant attorney general in charge of land divisions.

A few years later, in 1965, when Clark was attorney general, the Johnson Administration found itself in an embarrassing position. Johnson had nominated Francis X. Morrissey, a Boston municipal judge who was a longtime friend of Joseph Kennedy, for a federal judgeship. But the American Bar Assn. vehemently opposed Morrissey’s appointment, and the nomination was withdrawn.

Gray is convinced that when the furor subsided, Johnson decided to find a federal judge more palatable to the national bar when the next judgeship became open in 1966.

Views on Imprisonment

“Ramsey Clark thought of me,” Gray recalled. “They figured they could bury a Republican out in California about as well as anywhere else.”

Once on the bench, Gray developed a philosophy in criminal cases that probably affects his views on jail overcrowding issues.

“I acknowledge I am not a tough sentencer,” Gray said. “I’ve always had the gnawing feeling that a person is likely to be a worse person and a greater danger to society when he comes out (of jail) than he was when he went in.”

Most people who commit crimes, Gray is convinced, have a “mental-emotional imbalance” of some kind.

“The way we treat people in prison is not well-designed to correct that imbalance,” he said.

Jail Litigation

Gray’s views have also been shaped by years of hearing cases involving the Los Angeles County Jail.

Frederick R. Bennett, principal deputy counsel for Los Angeles County, said, “My guess is that Judge Gray has heard as much jail litigation over as long a period of time as any jurist in the country.”

Bennett often defended Los Angeles County against American Civil Liberties Union claims about poor jail conditions. Consequently, he was on the losing end of many of Gray’s decisions. But his admiration for Gray is immense.

“I have to say he found the appropriate solutions and applied the appropriate remedies,” Bennett said. “Courts have long recognized that the problems of jail management are not easily resolved by judicial decree. Judge Gray has recognized that and has worked with the parties.”

Death Penalty Case

Federal judges rarely have to impose a death sentence, but the issue came before Gray once. It’s almost too upsetting for him to talk about. He opposes the death penalty.

The case involved a Native American from Montana serving time in federal prison at Lompoc, who had stabbed another inmate in an argument over a marijuana plant. “To my relief, he pleaded to second-degree murder,” Gray said, avoiding the need for a death sentence.

The appellate courts have not always been pleased with Gray’s decisions.

A Times survey last year showed that less than 3% of his cases were reversed, but the reversal rate for his cases that were appealed was 27% (four cases out of 15), fourth-highest among 24 judges on the Los Angeles bench.

Successful Appeal

“You cannot necessarily draw any conclusions about a judge from the fact that there was a reversal in the case,” said Assistant U.S. Atty. Richard E. Drooyan, who successfully appealed a Gray decision in 1980.

In that case, Gray had dismissed murder charges against two Lompoc prison inmates but the dismissal was overturned on appeal.

“I have the greatest respect for Judge Gray, and I was battling with him for years” on that case, Drooyan said.

An important case in which Gray was upheld by the 9th Circuit was his order two years ago forcing the Social Security Administration to reinstate payments to thousands of disabled recipients whose benefits had been cut.

Dan Stormer, a former attorney for the Western Center on Law and Poverty who was involved in the case, sees that case as similar to the ACLU case that Gray has been handling against the Orange County Jail.

Sided With Oil Companies

“The parties involved (in both cases) don’t have any power,” Stormer said. “The only thing they have on their side is legal rights. And Judge Gray is not afraid to take steps to force legal entities to guarantee those rights.”

Gray’s judgeship also brought him back in touch with the oil companies in Long Beach. In one major dispute he sided with the oil companies. He laughs now about a quote he saw from state Controller Ken Cory.

“Cory said one of these days, Judge Gray will retire and we’ll get a real judge,” Gray recalled, smiling.

Gray hasn’t retired, but he has eased his schedule in recent years, as senior judges are allowed to do.

He now has more time for outside interests. He enjoys golf, plays the piano daily and loves to travel with his wife, Elizabeth. Gray has spent much of the past few years sitting on various federal benches across the country, including a recent four-month stint in Hawaii on an organized crime case.

Interest in Family History

One of Gray’s passions is his family history.

His son pointed out that his father has painstakingly put together seven large scrapbooks of family history to pass on to his grandchildren. “It’s the most invaluable gift he could give them,” the younger Gray said.

The Gray family has always been extremely close. Daughter Robin Frazier is a former teacher who is now a psychological counselor for parents facing court appearances in child custody cases. For James Gray, his father’s judicial career holds two proud moments.

One was six years ago, when his father naturalized 7-year-old Edward K. Gray, the Vietnamese boy that James and Kathy Gray adopted as an infant. Gray presided over naturalization for more than 1,000 others that day.

Father Swore In Son

The other was in January, 1984, when his father swore him in as a Municipal Court judge, a day that James Gray calls the proudest day of his life.

“It was a warming, satisfying feeling,” the younger Gray said. “I had not decided to go into law until I was a junior in college. I think he was proud of my decision.”

The senior Gray recalled that swearing-in too:

“I used to be the coach of Jim’s baseball team. I gloried more when he got a hit and agonized more when he struck out than I ever did playing myself. So people can understand the emotion with which I took the opportunity to swear him in.”

Being a judge, Gray claimed, is the best job in the world.

‘Opportunity and Challenge’

“If you are interested in problems of people, you have a ringside seat involving the problems of people, and you have an opportunity and challenge of helping to try to work them out.”

It’s a job Gray has no intention of leaving, even as he approaches 74.

His health is good. Four years ago he was named a senior judge, which means he only carries the workload he wants. Gray has chosen to work four days a week, and doesn’t see that changing.

“I’m enjoying what I do. And I think I can still make a contribution,” he said. “I think I am needed. One of the greatest things in life is having the feeling that you are needed and (that) you fulfill a need.”