The State - News from Oct. 1, 1986

“Prison administrators, not courts, must run prisons,” an appeals court said in substantially weakening a federal judge’s restrictions on placing 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 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 Judge Stanley Weigel giving a monitor he appointed the power to order prisoners released from lockup, subject to an appeal to Weigel. The monitor ordered the release of about two dozen inmates into the general prison population, but nearly all have remained in lockup pending the state’s appeal. The ruling affects 2,000 to 2,500 prisoners in high-security, 50-square-foot cells separated from the main prison population.