Juvenile Hall Lawsuit Comes to Trial Today : Human rights: Lawyers will argue that these have been taken from young detainees who are tied down, strip-searched or confined in padded rooms.

When the stories from Juvenile Hall became public in 1987, they were disturbing: Troubled adolescents were being tied down or thrown into padded rooms for seemingly minor infractions. They appeared to have lost many of their basic rights, even though most were not proven lawbreakers.

Today, Superior Court Judge Linda H. McLaughlin will begin hearing evidence in a 3-year-old lawsuit that puts the county on trial for the way it handles teen-agers in Juvenile Hall and three other youth facilities.

At stake are the policies and practices of the Orange County Probation Department, which oversees the county’s admittedly overcrowded youth detention facilities and cares for the 6,000-plus adolescents who trudge through those gates each year. McLaughlin’s decision could ratify or radically change the way minors in custody are treated in Orange County.

County officials find themselves in the unusual position of defending practices that surprise and shock many people. County lawyers note that kids in Juvenile Hall are hardly innocent angels. They argue that some teens turn so dangerous at times that they have to be tied down or subdued in padded rooms for their own protection and for the safety of those around them.

The American Civil Liberties Union and San Francisco’s Youth Law Center say such treatment is an affront to human decency, however. Orange County is much tougher than other counties on kids in custody, and it should be ashamed that such practices continue, the civil rights lawyers say.

In proceedings expected to last six weeks, McLaughlin will listen to the tales of teen-agers whose misdeeds or misfortune landed them in Juvenile Hall to await trial or serve commitments. Some will describe how they paid for emotional outbursts by having their hands and feet bound to their bedposts, sometimes for as long as 14 hours. Others will tell of being shoved into “rubber rooms,” where the only toilet facilities were open holes in the floor.

The plaintiffs’ lawyers, who represent all current and past Juvenile Hall detainees in a class-action case, complain that the minors’ rights are being violated in many other ways: The teens are strip-searched after every trip to court or visit with an outsider. Staffers eavesdrop on their phone calls and family visits. Their mail can be read and censored. Overcrowding allegedly deprives them of adequate outdoor exercise and mental health care.

According to lawyers for the juveniles, the misuse of rubber rooms and soft-tie restraints allegedly occurred only at Juvenile Hall, where most detainees are awaiting trial. The other allegations apply variously to the hall and three other facilities where teen-agers serve their commitments: Los Pinos forestry camp in the Cleveland National Forest off Ortega Highway, the Youth Guidance Center in Santa Ana and the Joplin Youth Center in Trabuco Canyon.

Gilbert Geis, a juvenile justice expert and professor emeritus of social ecology at UC Irvine, said there is a nationwide trend toward harsher treatment of youthful delinquents, eroding a long-held view that juvenile halls should focus on gentle treatment and rehabilitation in hopes of saving a child headed for a life of crime. Orange County is one of the toughest on its adolescent offenders, he said.

“Orange County is very affluent and very nervous about crime because it has a lot to lose,” Geis said. “But we have to care about what goes on at Juvenile Hall more than any other (penal institution). If they don’t come out of there better people, then we’re all in trouble.”

Responding to inquiries about the lawsuit, Chief Probation Officer Michael Schumacher issued a brief statement saying that the department runs “a quality institution” and that the lawsuit allegations are without merit.

David G. Epstein, a private attorney who is defending the county, refused to let The Times tour the facility, canceled a scheduled interview with its director and ordered all Juvenile Hall officials not to talk with reporters, saying that the timing, on the eve of trial, was “sensitive.”

The 314-bed Juvenile Hall on the City Drive was built in 1959 and expanded in the 1970s. Another 60-bed unit will be added as part of a seven-story, $45.3-million complex of juvenile, family law and probate courts scheduled to open in September, 1991.

In 1989, Juvenile Hall admitted 6,425 adolescents, a figure that includes repeat offenders. Felony accusations ranging from grand theft and serious assault to murder accounted for 54% of the youths there; misdemeanors such as drug violations and petty theft accounted for the other 46%.

The county concedes that the hall is chronically overcrowded but insists that the 12- to 18-year-old boys and girls held there still get the services they need.

When the hall exceeds capacity, staffers are added temporarily to maintain the state-mandated ratio of one for every 10 children, Epstein said. The staff resorts to soft-tie restraints and use of the Hall’s two rubber rooms--which the county calls “safety” or “de-escalation” rooms--only when children are out of control.

“When you have a kid who climbs the walls and starts tearing at the electrical equipment in the ceiling, you don’t have a lot of alternatives,” Epstein said. “In an institution, you’re forced to deal with serious social problems. The staff is dedicated, well trained, and generally does a good job.”

Bruce V. Malloy, who has toured Juvenile Hall many times as administrative officer of the county Juvenile Justice Commission, a court-appointed watchdog group for youth facilities, said the that “atmosphere is pressurized” because the institution is “grossly overcrowded” but that the staff performs admirably under explosive conditions and that the children are not mistreated.

A few elements have combined to make Juvenile Hall a much tougher place for both the children and the staff, Malloy said: More youths are breaking the law, and they are committing more serious offenses. To ease the overcrowding, the juvenile justice system is releasing more children to their families pending trial, leaving only the most serious offenders in Juvenile Hall.

But the Youth Law Center’s Mark I. Soler, the plaintiffs’ lead attorney, rejects the notion that the adolescent detainees are the problem. Juvenile Hall staff members are poorly trained and too quick to employ the most extreme solutions in their arsenal, the rubber rooms and soft-tie restraints, Soler contended.

“Immediate control is the most important factor,” he said. “The staff feels threatened and takes the most restrictive steps they can to handle it. When you have four people hold a kid down and tie his arms and legs to the bedposts, it certainly does immobilize him. It’s barbaric, but it certainly accomplishes the task.”

A well-trained juvenile facility staff member can often win a child’s trust and “talk him down” from an emotional outburst, Soler said. Instead, Orange County’s workers frequently escalate confrontations and create stand-offs that result in tie-downs or other extreme measures, he alleged.

“A staff member orders a child to do something and the child resists,” Soler said, to illustrate a common scene. “The staffer takes a harder position and forces the child, often physically picking the kid up. The child struggles, then the staff says he’s out of control.”

Soler intends to show that Orange County is rougher on its juveniles than most similar institutions. Only two other juvenile facilities in Southern California use soft-tie restraints, Soler said: San Diego, which used them only once during 1989, and Santa Barbara, which used them three times last year and is phasing them out, Soler said. Probation officers from populous counties such as Los Angeles, Santa Clara and Alameda are expected to testify that although their juvenile facilities are overflowing with serious offenders, they do not use soft-tie restraints, he said.

The plaintiffs will present testimony by at least half a dozen young people who have spent time in Juvenile Hall. Papers filed by the defense indicate that the county intends to argue that the teen-agers who were tied down or put in rubber rooms had “a propensity to resist authority (or) engage in assaultive behavior . . . in institutional settings.”

And Soler will insist that less emphasis should be placed on discipline and more on rehabilitation, as Geis believes.

“If you treat a kid like a young thug, he begins to believe he is one,” Geis said. “That’s the scary part.”