Deadline Extended for Reducing Jail’s Population to 1,400

The federal judge who gave Sheriff Brad Gates until April 1 to reduce Orange County Jail’s population to 1,400 extended that deadline Wednesday for 30 days.

“The judge is very patient, and another 30 days doesn’t matter that much,” said attorney Richard Herman of the American Civil Liberties Union, which sued to force improvements in the main men’s jail in Santa Ana.

Edward N. Duran, lawyer for the county, said U.S. District Judge William P. Gray granted the extension to May 1 in a telephone conference call in which Herman took part.

“It comes to a point where we’ve got no place to transfer these people” in the jail, Duran said.

He said that when Gray asked why more inmates could not be transferred from the main jail to branch jails in Orange and near El Toro, “I said in the sheriff’s opinion they would be a security danger” and escape risks.

Judge Asks for Data

But County Counsel Adrian Kuyper told the Board of Supervisors Wednesday that the judge “indicated that he does not accept at face value the statement that all felony inmates must be kept in the main jail. . . .”

Kuyper said Gray ordered the county to give Herman copies of the Sheriff’s Department’s analysis of the classification of inmates “and the rationale as to why these inmates cannot be transferred to branch facilities or released.”

At a press conference two weeks ago, Gates said that of 1,438 inmates in the jail on one day in March, 1,226 were accused or convicted of felonies, which are more serious charges punishable by a year or more in state prison. The other 212 were accused or convicted of misdemeanors, which carry sentences up to one year in a county jail, Gates said.

But Herman expressed skepticism about the figures, saying state studies have shown that usually three-quarters or more of the prisoners in jails in major counties in the state were accused of misdemeanors.

Gray found Gates and the five-member county Board of Supervisors guilty of criminal contempt of court a year ago for not complying with his 1978 order to improve conditions in the jail.

New Jail Site Chosen

The judge imposed fines, appointed a special master to oversee jail conditions, and ordered that the number of inmates be reduced from approximately 2,000 last year to 1,500 by last December and 1,400 by April 1. Gray previously had delayed imposition of the 1,500 limit to last Jan. 15.

Last week, the supervisors chose a site in Anaheim for a new maximum-security jail to hold up to 1,500 inmates and relieve the pressure on the Santa Ana facility. But it will be several years before a new jail is built, and opposition from Anaheim officials and residents to the site is strong.

The inmate population at the Orange County Jail has been about 1,350 on most weekdays, Duran said but has exceeded 1,400 on weekends because courts were closed and unable to process and set bail for people who were arrested.

Last week Gray declined to hold Gates in contempt for not meeting his earlier 1,500 population limit. Gates admitted the jail population exceeded the judge’s limit three times in February but said he thought he had met the judge’s order.

Gray told Herman and Duran that another hearing will be held sometime in April on the 1,400 limit. The rated capacity of the jail is 1,219 inmates.