Inmate Sues to Remove Jail Shackles From Sick

An Orange County Jail inmate has filed a class-action lawsuit against county officials in an attempt to stop sheriff’s deputies from routinely shackling sick or dying inmates to their beds while they are in locked, guarded rooms in hospital wards.

The lawsuit was filed Thursday directly with a clerk for Superior Court Judge Francisco P. Briseno by a representative of inmate Thomas Frank Maniscalco, a former lawyer who has been in the jail for more than four years, awaiting trial on charges stemming from a triple murder.

Maniscalco has complained to jail officials about the shackling policy since May, when a 41-year-old inmate who was comatose and in the last stages of liver cancer died shackled to a bed in UCI Medical Center’s jail ward.

The suit is on behalf all inmates at the jail awaiting trial, but it specifically names Maniscalco, the dead inmate, Donald Arbiso, and another inmate the lawsuit says was shackled to a bed at the medical center last month.

The suit names as defendants Sheriff Brad Gates and all five county supervisors. It asserts that the shackling policy violates state and federal laws and the Eighth Amendment to the Constitution, which prohibits cruel and unusual punishment.

The suit seeks no monetary award. Rather, it asks the court to issue a writ of habeas corpus, an action under which the Sheriff’s Department would be ordered to immediately free the hospitalized inmates from the shackles.

Because it is requesting the writ, the suit was filed in Briseno’s courtroom, rather than with the Superior Court clerk, said JoAnne Harrold, who represents Maniscalco in his criminal case.

Maniscalco said Thursday at the main men’s facility of Orange County Jail in Santa Ana that sheriff’s deputies “don’t even take you to the hospital unless you are in pretty serious shape. It’s a shame that they practice this on the people who are least likely to be able to endure it. It’s total inhumanity.”

Gates said Thursday that he could not comment directly on the lawsuit because he had not seen it. He added, however, that he thought it was “a gambit by him (Maniscalco) to get out of his own case.”

Maniscalco, 43, of Westminster was charged in 1984 with masterminding the 1980 Memorial Day slayings of motorcycle gang member Richard (Rabbit) Rizzone, Thomas Monahan and Rena Arlene Miley. Prosecutors have said the slayings resulted from a dispute over drugs and counterfeit money.

County Counsel Adrian Kuyper, who represents the supervisors and other county officials in legal matters, said he has not read the lawsuit so he cannot comment on it.

Lt. Richard Olson, the spokesman for the Sheriff’s Department, told the Times after Arbiso’s death that the shackling policy is a routine security measure intended to prevent inmates from escaping. County officials denied allegations by Maniscalco and Arbiso’s family that the practice constituted improper treatment.

In Los Angeles County, hospitalized County Jail inmates are shackled to their beds only in exceptional cases where they have to be put in wards with non-inmate patients and cannot be watched at all times, said Capt. William Hinkle of the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department.

“It’s not a routine practice,” Hinkle said. “Each case is evaluated by a mid-level supervisor and manager.”

Maniscalco said Thursday that the Orange County Sheriff’s Department’s security concerns are legitimate but that shackling sick inmates to their beds inside locked rooms that have guards outside is not the way to achieve that goal.

“The courts have determined that certain procedures may be used, but cruel or inhumane treatment is not permissible,” said Maniscalco, who added that state and federal laws prohibit jails from routinely shackling inmates to stationary objects.

Maniscalco discounted Gates’ assertion that he was using the suit as a ploy to escape punishment in his own case, saying that his only interest is to protect his civil liberties and those of other inmates.

“I have a gallbladder condition that may mean I will have surgery or be hospitalized in the future,” Maniscalco said.

‘Become Abrasive and Painful’

The shackles, routinely placed on a prisoner’s ankle, also “become abrasive and painful and tend to cut off circulation,” the lawsuit says, adding that some prisoners find it hard to get comfortable or to sleep with them on.

As far as he could determine, Maniscalco said, the shackling policy in the hospital ward has been in force for at least 10 years.

He said his suit specifically names as plaintiffs inmates who are awaiting trial because they are the least deserving of such punishment since they have been convicted of no crimes.

At the main jail, even violent inmates who have been convicted and sentenced are put in padded cells rather than shackled to their beds, Maniscalco said.

An inmate named in the suit, identified only as Martin Champeau, was in the hospital ward June 19, 20 and 21 with an aggravated ulcer, Maniscalco’s lawsuit says. During that time, according to the lawsuit, he was shackled by the ankle to a steel frame.

Another Inmate Shackled

The room he was in is described as a four-bed ward with a door that had no latch. Another inmate was also shackled to a bed in the room, the lawsuit says.

According to the lawsuit, Champeau on one occasion had an attack of diarrhea but could not get up to clean himself.

Arbiso, the inmate who died May 17 in the UCI Medical Center jail ward, was a victim of “institutional murder,” according to Maniscalco. In his final days, his family said at the time, he could barely sit up or speak.

UCI Medical Center this month told the county that on Dec. 31, it will end its $2.5-million contract to operate a 10-bed jail ward, partly because of the shackled inmates.

Medical officials said other patients were uncomfortable when they saw inmates in manacles.

The county was negotiating with Western Medical Center to operate a jail ward. UCI Medical Center had operated the jail ward since 1974.