Countywide : ACLU Attorney Files Gates Complaint
American Civil Liberties Union attorney Richard P. Herman, who last year got federal court approval to investigate prisoner complaints at County Jail, has filed a complaint alleging that Sheriff Brad Gates has not given him access to the jail.
Herman filed an application Tuesday with the U.S. District Court in Santa Ana, complaining that the Sheriff’s Department will not grant him access to the Central Men’s Jail or Intake and Release Center, both in Santa Ana, to investigate complaints by prisoners.
U.S. District Judge William P. Gray last December ordered that Herman be admitted to the jail with 24 hours’ notice to investigate specific complaints. That decision arose from a suit alleging abuse in padded isolation cells at the jail.
Herman, in his petition, is asking that Gates be held in contempt of the court order.
Gates could not be reached for comment Wednesday. But county attorneys, in letters written to Herman in the last month, disputed Herman’s contention that the judge’s order granted him permission to make “unannounced” visits to the jail.
“It must be emphasized that you are not a monitor,” Deputy County Counsel Stefen H. Weiss wrote to Herman in one letter last month.
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