Landon Will Sue to End Prisons’ Ban on Him

State prison officials have refused to strike their 16-year-old directive barring San Diego attorney Alex Landon from California prisons, so Landon will bring a lawsuit seeking to overturn the directive, his lawyer says.

Allegations tying Landon to a 1972 Chino jailbreak prompted the ban--as well as two recent investigations sparked by then-Assemblyman Larry Stirling (R-San Diego). Stirling, now a state senator, publicized the old allegations last year when county supervisors were pondering whether to award the nonprofit group Landon then headed a $40-million contract to represent indigent criminal defendants.

Although both the San Bernardino County district attorney’s office and the State Bar of California closed their recent inquiries without action against Landon, the state’s prisons chief told Landon in a July 5 letter that “the ban should remain in effect.”

No Reason Given

Department of Corrections Director James Rowland provided no reason in the three-sentence letter for his decision, made 16 months after Landon requested that the ban be lifted, Landon’s attorney, John T. Philipsborn, said in a phone interview Wednesday night from his San Francisco office.

“So, obviously, we’re going to file suit and intend on having the ban lifted,” Philipsborn said. He expects to file within 30 days, he said.

“I’m sure, incidentally, that a court is going to agree with us,” he said. “It’s sort of silly that we’re going to have to take this step.”

Calls Thursday to Rowland were referred to Corrections Department lawyers. “The director decided not to lift the ban,” said staff attorney Ken Huez. “That’s the extent of our public comment, though, because Mr. Landon does have privacy rights under both the state Constitution and state statute, and it’s a matter between the Department of Corrections and Mr. Landon.”

Landon, 42, a criminal defense attorney who has practiced in San Diego 17 years, said Wednesday that “there’s no basis for (the ban) as far as I’m concerned. Obviously, this whole thing was something that was of a political nature in the first place.”

The ban stems from allegations that have dogged Landon in connection with the Oct. 6, 1972, escape of Ronald Beaty from the California Institution for Men at Chino, charges that Stirling brought to the attention of San Diego County Board of Supervisors last year.

Debating Contract

At the time, the board was debating whether to create a public defender’s office, which it eventually did, or to contract for indigent defense services with Community Defenders Inc., a nonprofit group then headed by Landon.

Stirling said Thursday during a phone interview from Sacramento that, despite the results of the two recent investigations, Rowland “made the right decision” because the other inquiries involved “different levels of proof.”

“In our society, we have an overwhelming requirement, beyond a reasonable doubt, for anybody to be convicted,” Stirling said. “ . . . The D.A. had questions with the age of the case, with witnesses, and he was entitled to make a judgment not to prosecute . . . The same is true of the Bar Association.”

Beaty escaped when a vehicle being used to transport him to a San Bernardino court hearing was run off the road. One guard was shot to death and a second wounded.

In 1973, Beaty, who turned state’s witness and helped convict others implicated in the plot, said Landon had smuggled hacksaw blades in to him and had ferried out escape plans. Beaty later reversed himself and said variously that Landon had nothing to do with the escape or had carried out the plans unwittingly.

Landon, who was representing Beaty in a civil rights matter at the time, has consistently denied any involvement in the escape.

Imposed Ban Anyway

In a report given last May 2 to the Bar, Beaty is quoted as saying that he could not recall anything about whether Landon was knowingly involved in the escape, Philipsborn said.

A 1973 investigation by the San Bernardino County district attorney’s office ended with no criminal charges filed against Landon. The Bar also conducted an inquiry at the time and found insufficient evidence for disciplinary action. On June 25, 1973, however, prison officials imposed the ban.

Except for the ban, Landon’s role in the incident had been largely forgotten by January, 1988. That month, San Diego County supervisors, deciding who should take over the task of providing representation to criminal defendants unable to afford their own attorney, initially endorsed Community Defenders.

Landon had been chosen the year before from among 130 applicants nationwide to head the group.

As the supervisors debated, Stirling sent them a pack of documents that included records of 39 phone calls to Landon’s home and office in the weeks preceding the escape, from those involved in the plot. It also told the board of the prison ban.

Landon has said he received the phone calls because of his involvement in prison rights issues and his efforts to help ex-convicts get settled after prison.

In March, 1988, he asked prison officials for the first time to lift the ban.

Taking a New Look

The next month the Legislature’s Joint Committee on Prison Construction and Operations took the unusual step of recommending that the California attorney general and the Bar take a new look at what role Landon might have played in the break. Stirling was vice chairman of the panel.

The attorney general’s office supplied agents but referred any decision back to San Bernardino prosecutors.

In May, 1988, Landon resigned as head of Community Defenders in an effort to salvage the county contract. Later that month, however, the supervisors voted to launch the in-house public defender’s office.

In October, San Bernardino County District Atty. Dennis Kottmeier announced he had found no evidence supporting criminal charges against Landon. In May, the Bar closed its inquiry without disciplinary action, Philipsborn said.

Times staff writer Ralph Frammolino contributed to this report.