Officials May Do Time If Jails Stay Crowded : Courts: Judge sets two-month deadline to comply with order to cut inmates at the downtown jail from 962 to 750.

County officials have until Oct. 29 to reduce the inmate population at the downtown jail by almost 25%, or face the possibility of fines and jail sentences themselves, a Superior Court judge ruled Monday.

At a special hearing Monday, El Cajon Superior Court Judge James Malkus told county leaders to find some way to reduce the number of inmates at the County Jail downtown to 750 by the last week of October in order to comply with a lawsuit the county lost in 1980.

Although the jail population fluctuates daily, figures released by the Sheriff’s Department showed that it housed 1,144 inmates Monday. Malkus recognized several types of inmates as exemptions from that total--for example, inmates in hospital beds or those held for only a few hours--making the adjusted total of current inmates 962.

Malkus offered several suggestions to relieve jail crowding, including use of abandoned property and buildings for temporary confinement, but he did not mandate specific actions for the county to take.

He did hint strongly what his actions might be if the reduction isn’t made by the deadline.

“Maybe we will have to find places in our jails for county officials,” Malkus said. “Maybe we will have to apply financial sanctions.”

Deputy County Counsel Nathan Northup, who represented the county, said compliance with the judge’s order will be all but impossible, because the government lacks the money to relieve the crowding.

Jail officials have explored a variety of means to house the rising inmate population, but those are precluded by a $78-million deficit in the county’s overall budget this year, Northup said.

For example, Malkus suggested that the county set up a temporary holding facility at the site of the East Mesa jail, which is under construction. Northup countered that even a temporary facility would cost $6.1 million to $6.6 million annually to staff and operate.

“It’s not as though the sheriff and the county have been sitting idly while these things have been chasing by,” Northup told the judge. “We’ve been trying to catch the tail of a tiger, Your Honor.”

Alex Landon, one of the attorneys who filed the original suit against the county in 1977, was unsympathetic to Northup’s argument.

“This is not something that just happened overnight,” Landon argued. “That facility is not any better (and) it is 10 years older. . . . It just cannot be tolerated anymore.”

In 1980, Superior Court Judge James Focht ruled that holding more than 750 inmates at the downtown jail qualified as a “cruel and unusual” punishment--a violation of the U.S. Constitution.

Malkus was later given the responsibility of enforcing Focht’s ruling--and he has held numerous hearings with jail officials and the opposing parties’ lawyers during the past decade.

In May, 1988, the American Civil Liberties Union, which sponsored the lawsuit on behalf of the jail’s inmates, agreed to allow a temporary cap of 1,250 inmates while the Vista jail was closed for renovation. In June, with the Vista jail again operational, Malkus reset the cap downtown at 1,000.

Landon urged Malkus to mandate a return to the original ruling immediately, rather than give the county more than two months of lead time. He called the current situation at the jail “a crisis.”

Landon and Betty Wheeler, an ACLU attorney, also urged the judge not to allow exemptions for inmates staying in medical beds at the jail, or for inmates classified as “transients.” Transient inmates are those who are awaiting release and those brought into the jail for processing before being transferred to another jail, Landon said.

Focht considered both medical beds and transient inmates in setting the 750 population limit in 1980, Landon said.

But Malkus stuck by an earlier decision to exempt such inmates.

Several county leaders, including Chief Administrative Officer Norman Hickey, County Supervisor Leon Williams and Sheriff John Duffy--were subpoenaed by the ACLU to appear at Monday’s hearing. However, Malkus heard testimony only from Duffy and the lawyers representing each side before issuing his ruling.

During his testimony, Duffy admitted that the jail is crowded and understaffed and poses a safety hazard for inmates and guards. Although he was named as a defendant in the original suit, Duffy described himself after the hearing as “probably the ACLU’s best witness.”

Duffy suggested that the County Board of Supervisors will have to take the initiative to remedy the problem--a sentiment that Malkus also expressed.

“The county, the Board of Supervisors, has to find another place,” Malkus said. “And it has 67 days to do it.”

But Williams, the board’s chairman, had no immediate answer to the question of how the county can meet the population cap.

“I don’t know,” Williams said after the hearing. “The board doesn’t have any additional funds. The board would provide facilities if it had the resources to do it. . . . The board knows its obligation.”

In the past, law enforcement officials have cut the inmate population by keeping some people charged with nonviolent misdemeanors out of jail. But Sheriff’s Cmdr. Mel Nichols, who directs the daily operations of the jails, estimated that 70% of the offenders now in the downtown jail can be classified as dangerous felons.

And Malkus suggested that the county create temporary facilities and speed up staffing at the East Mesa facility, which is scheduled to open next spring, rather than let more inmates go.

“The proper way to address overcrowding is not to release people from the prisons or the jails, but to correct the problem from within,” Malkus said.