Inmate Testifies to Being Denied Water in a ‘Rubber Room’

An Orange County Jail inmate told a federal judge Tuesday that he was repeatedly denied a drink of water during 16 hours in a “rubber room” isolation cell in January and finally resorted to taking water from a hole in the floor that served as his toilet.

This and other new details of the jail’s controversial “rubber rooms” emerged in U.S. District Court in Santa Ana as lawyers for the American Civil Liberties Union sought to show that “outrageous” violations by the county of recent restrictions on the tiny and barren isolation cells should bar their use.

Judge William P. Gray, reflecting on graphic testimony by three inmates Tuesday, said: “There’s something basically inhumane and almost medieval about putting a person naked in one of your rubber rooms. . . . “

Claim Order Violated

ACLU attorneys asserted that the inmates’ stories of being denied clothing, toilet paper, wash facilities and beds in the “rubber rooms” in recent months go against a preliminary order which Gray issued in November. Gray ordered then that all inmates should receive these and other basic essentials, unless county psychiatrists could show a good reason to deny them.

But county officials, sparking the ire of ACLU lawyers and the occasional frustration of Gray, countered in court Tuesday that they have used the flexibility that the judge gave them to properly deny clothing, toilet facilities, eating utensils and other “amenities.” They say the inmates could use such items to hurt themselves.

The intense disagreement over just what Gray’s November order should mean in practice was left unresolved, as the judge put off a final ruling on the future of the rooms, now used to confine about 16 inmates a month for a few hours or days. The ACLU wants the judge to ban any further use of the rooms.

In a freewheeling and often-clashing dialogue with Dr. Eugene R. Dorsey, the jail’s psychiatric director and a witness in the court action, Gray sought to explore the county’s other options for controlling potentially troublesome inmates.

Question by Judge

If jail officials were concerned about an inmate hurting himself or others, Gray asked, why couldn’t they simply keep him in a single cell under tight supervision, rather than putting him naked into a cold, padded room with little or no access to wash facilities or other essentials for hours or days?

Dorsey countered that, even under close monitoring, deputies cannot assure that a violent inmate will not hurt himself and that jail supervisors would rather “err on the side of safety.”

Jail officials think the isolation rooms are a safer and more humane approach than the county’s only other option for dealing with psychotic and violent inmates, which is placing them in physical restraints, Dorsey said.

He also testified that since Gray delivered his November order, jail officials have reduced the number of inmates confined to the isolation cells by up to two-thirds. ACLU attorneys disputed that figure, contending that the decline was more modest.

Dorsey asserted that the inmates placed in the 12 cells now are the most dangerous among the jail population.

But the psychiatrist, confronted with testimony from inmates, acknowledged that deputies on occasion may have wrongly denied items from inmates since Gray issued his order. regarding the absence of toilet paper, for example, Dorsey said:,”We have not been 100% attentive to that.”

The inmates said that they are still subject to what ACLU lawyers called “barbaric” conditions in the rooms.

Inmate Philip H. Reid, in jail since July, 1988, said that jail deputies used his confinement in the isolation cells to taunt and punish him. Their control over the flushing of the hole in the floor, he claimed, was a source of power for deputies.

“If they want to mess with you and they know you’ve gone to the bathroom,” Reid said, “they just don’t flush.”

All the witnesses also complained that the rubber rooms were cold, particularly since those confined there were partially or completely naked.

James Hydrick, who is charged with child molesting, recalled: “You was shaking all the time . . . pacing like an animal” to stay warm.

Hydrick testified that, parched from thirst after hours in isolation in January, he had waited until the guards flushed the toilet device and then used his hands to drink water from a tube in it.

Richard P. Herman, a Balboa Island lawyer who has represented the ACLU for more than a decade on a variety of jail issues, called the day’s testimony “the most degrading that we’ve heard,” and accused county officials of intentionally ignoring Gray’s prior ruling.

Telling the judge that he had been “overwhelmingly too kind” to county officials, Herman said that “there is simply no question the defendants understood the court’s order and evaded it. They have just shucked the court.”

Herman told Gray that “you’re going to have to do away with this abomination. . . . As long as the rubber room is there, it is an open invitation to abuse.”