Court Eases Curbs on Isolating Convicts : Says Prison Administrators, Not Judges, Must Run Facilities

Saying that “prison administrators, not courts, must run prisons,” an appeals court on Tuesday substantially weakened a federal judge’s restrictions on placing and keeping inmates in the lockup units of San Quentin and Folsom state prisons.

The U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that prisoners have no right to a formal hearing to challenge their lockup, can be housed in lockup based on an official’s subjective assessment of dangers in the prison and cannot be removed by court order if there is “some evidence” to justify the placement.

The court overturned a 1984 decision by U.S. District Court Judge Stanley Weigel giving a monitor whom he had appointed the power to order prisoners released from lockup, subject to an appeal to Weigel, if the monitor found their placement unjustified. The monitor has ordered release of about two dozen inmates into the general prison population, but nearly all have remained in lockup pending the state’s appeal.

Also reversed was a Weigel order that inmates in lockup be given access to work programs. The appeals court said “enforced idleness” is not a constitutional violation.

‘Discretionary State Functions’

Weigel’s rulings gave prisoners more protection than they were entitled to, said the opinion by Judge Robert Beezer for a three-judge panel. He said the need to restrict court orders to “enforcement of minimum constitutional rights is especially great when federal judicial relief threatens to usurp such highly discretionary state functions.”

The ruling “will return control of segregation units at San Quentin and Folsom to administration officials,” Deputy Atty. Gen. Paul Gifford said.

Bernard Zimmerman, one of the lawyers representing prisoners in the 13-year-old suit, said he and his colleagues particularly disagree with the ruling’s cutback of hearing procedures and the authority of the prison monitor. He said an appeal is planned.

The ruling affects between 2,000 and 2,500 prisoners who spend nearly all their time in high-security, 50-square-foot cells that are separated from the main prison population. Inmates are placed in lockup for various reasons, including prison infractions, gang affiliation and personal protection.

Weigel, who had previously forbidden placement of more than one man in a lockup cell, ruled in October, 1984, that conditions in the cells violated the constitutional ban on cruel and unusual punishment. He ordered a series of improvements, which the state largely did not appeal.

But the state challenged other parts of Weigel’s order that put the system of placing and keeping inmates in lockup under close judicial supervision.

Notice of Charges

Weigel said prisoners facing lockup were entitled to advance notice of the charges, a hearing within 72 hours of lockup in which they could question their accusers, call witnesses and get legal help from prison staff if necessary and judgment by an impartial panel that would issue a written decision.

The judge also appointed his former law clerk, Robert Riggs, as a monitor to review lockup placements, as well as the court-ordered improvements in prison conditions. Riggs angered prison officials by ruling, among other things, that suspected gang membership did not justify involuntary lockup.

But the appeals court said Weigel’s rulings, in general, asserted “too much control over the day-to-day affairs of the prisons.”

Beezer said Supreme Court rulings upholding other states’ lockup systems have established a principle of deferring to official management, particularly in prisons like San Quentin and Folsom, which house the state’s “most violent and anti-social offenders.”

He said placement in lockup requires only an “informal, non-adversary hearing” some time after the fact at which prisoners are notified of the charges and allowed to present their views. They have no right to call witnesses, get legal help, learn the identities of their accusers or get a written decision.

Beezer said a judge must defer to a prison official’s decision to place a prisoner in lockup if it is supported by “some evidence, including the administrator’s experience and awareness of general prison conditions.”