Appellate Court Upholds Keeping 2 Inmates in Cell

A state Court of Appeal on Monday overturned a blanket ban on the controversial practice of confining two inmates in a single, 48-square-foot cell at San Quentin State Prison.

The panel, rejecting a ruling by a Marin County trial judge, held 3 to 0 that so-called “double celling” was not cruel and unusual punishment in violation of the Eighth Amendment.

“In and of itself, double celling is not unconstitutional,” Appellate Justice Robert W. Merrill wrote for the court. “ . . . Double celling may be undesirable, harsh and restrictive, but it does not inflict unnecessary and wanton pain or violate contemporary standards of decency.”

The court found that there was insufficient evidence that the practice contributed to an increase of violence that previously had plagued the state’s oldest prison.

And the panel struck down an unusual order by the judge, instructing state officials to seek legislation providing for early release of inmates to ease overcrowding. That requirement violated the constitutional separation of powers prohibiting judges from seeking legislative action, the court said.

The ruling, the latest chapter in a seven-year legal struggle over conditions at the 135-year-old prison, drew praise from state officials.

“We think this is a significant case,” said Deputy California Atty. Gen. Morris Lenk. “This is the first California appellate decision dealing with the conditions of confinement and scope of remedies that can be ordered by a trial court.”

The attorney for a group of prisoners who brought suit challenging conditions at the prison was not immediately available for comment. But it was expected that the decision would be appealed to the state Supreme Court.

Double celling was initiated at San Quentin in the wake of a huge expansion of the state’s prison population in the late 1970s and early 1980s. Between 1977 and 1982, the number of inmates at San Quentin grew from 2,000 to 3,400--or about 150% of its designed capacity. Officials were forced to confine prisoners for much of the day in cramped cells, often lacking adequate heat, light and ventilation.

Marin Superior Court Judge Beverly B. Savitt, ruling in the prisoners’ class-action suit, held in 1983 that the prison was so overcrowded and conditions so deplorable that inmates’ constitutional rights were being violated.

Among other things, Savitt issued an order prohibiting double celling--voluntary or involuntary--within the prison’s general population. Subsequently, an appeal court upheld most of her sweeping order but allowed double celling to continue on a limited basis while officials prepared a plan to upgrade prison facilities.

In 1984, a federal judge, ruling in a separate suit, issued an order barring double celling in the prison’s highest-security units. That order remains in effect, according to state officials. Meanwhile, a major renovation project has been under way at San Quentin that when completed will mark its transformation from a maximum-security institution to one largely handling medium-security inmates. Death Row, where prisoners facing capital punishment are held, will remain.

At present, 3,131 inmates are being held at San Quentin, most of them in the “mainline” section covered by the ruling. Officials say 124 prisoners are being confined two to a cell.

In its ruling Monday, the appeal court agreed with the trial judge’s assessment of the physical and operational deficiencies of the prison, noting that the state was not contesting those findings and that the renovation program to correct the problems “fortunately” was well under way.

But the panel concluded that Savitt had gone too far in finding the practice of double celling unconstitutional and issuing a far-ranging ban on the practice.