County Rights Activists Renew Complaints on Jail Conditions

Civil rights advocates renewed some of their complaints Tuesday about conditions at the Orange County Jail, alleging that the Sheriff’s Department is failing to comply with a federal judge’s order by not allowing them to fully investigate prisoner grievances.

Lawyers for the American Civil Liberties Union asked that either the Sheriff’s Department be ordered anew to grant them access to the jail to investigate complaints--ranging from discarded prisoner mail to 24 hour-plus waits for bunks--or that Sheriff Brad Gates be found in contempt. The lawyers also asked that prisoners be given more exercise and meal time.

“The defendants continue to narrowly interpret this court’s access order in a way which makes patently reasonable investigation of complaints . . . impossible,” ACLU attorney Richard P. Herman said in a 75-page document filed in federal court here.

U.S. District Judge William P. Gray in 1988 gave ACLU attorneys permission to investigate specific complaints at the jail and ordered the Sheriff’s Department to grant them access within 24 hours.

That order was the latest in a series of refinements of Gray’s 1978 ruling in a lawsuit brought by the ACLU that the Sheriff’s Department must relieve overcrowding and improve living conditions for prisoners at the Central Men’s Jail in Santa Ana. A key provision to reduce crowding was an order that prisoners be given bunks within 24 hours of their booking.

Herman contends that sheriff’s deputies sometimes assign jail bunks on paper only to comply with the 24-hour rule before prisoners--so-called “ghost bodies”--are actually moved to their cells.

To investigate such complaints, Herman has asked to be allowed into the jail so that he can ask prisoners how long they had to wait for beds.

“Not only was this not permitted, but defendants now refuse the ACLU any access to the Men’s Jail to investigate violations of this court’s 24-hour order and “Ghost Bodies,” he asserted.

Asst. Sheriff John (Rocky) Hewitt, who oversees the Central Men’s Jail, denied Herman’s allegations and said that he and his staff take Gray’s order “very, very seriously.”

“We do everything physically possible to meet his order every single day,” Hewitt said. “Every inmate gets a bed within 24 hours.”

Hewitt also said that prisoners receive at least three hours of exercise a week as required by state law. Herman has asked that they receive more, but Hewitt said that jail overcrowding simply doesn’t allow for that.

“We can’t increase that right now,” Hewitt said. “The bottom line is that . . . we need a new jail.”

The ACLU allegations will be discussed at a Feb. 28 court hearing.