Sheriff Could Back Board Into Corner Over Jail Issue

You can almost see the disaster coming: Some guy released early from County Jail is going to rape, rob or kill somebody, probably in a drug-related burst of inspiration.

The public is going to flip out. What was this guy doing out on the streets before his sentence was up? And then watch the merry-go-round begin.

The judge who sentenced him will say that he gave the appropriate sentence but that the sheriff let him out before his time was up. The sheriff will say he had to release him early because he risks federal citations for already overcrowded jails. He’ll say he has begged the county supervisors for a new jail. The supervisors will say they’d love a new jail but don’t know where to put it and, besides, the county can’t afford it.

If this is the best local government can do, we’re all in trouble. And that’s the point, we all are in trouble because this is the best county government has been able to do since 1978, when a federal judge first ruled that its jail system was overcrowded.

Geez, I hope they don’t explain this side of government to the school kids who tour the courthouse.

Last week, the Municipal Court judges announced that they are fed up. They’re in the position of being like the parent who sends a kid to his room only to have the other parent give him the keys to the car and tell him to have a nice night out. Increasingly frustrated, Presiding Municipal Judge Richard W. Stanford said the judges are contemplating action against Sheriff Brad Gates for his program of early release of some prisoners.

Through Assistant Sheriff Rocky Hewitt, Gates repeated his longstanding response that the department is under a federal court order to lessen crowded conditions and that he’s literally required to keep the inmate population down. On any given day, Hewitt said, the jail system houses 4,400 inmates, about 1,200 over its rated capacity.

Sounds like everybody’s got a logical point, right?

Maybe so, but let’s talk strategy. Let’s pretend that the sole objective is to get a jail built that everyone says he wants. And since only the supervisors can pull the trigger on a jail, you’d think the idea would be to force their hand, right?

The municipal judges are handing that opportunity to Gates on a silver platter. Stanford readily concedes that part of the strategy in going after Gates is to force the action.

Stanford says the federal judge has never ordered Gates to release any prisoner prematurely. He has only threatened Gates with contempt. Theoretically, Gates could find out what the limits of that contempt would be by not turning anyone loose before a sentence has been fully served.

But if he didn’t want to risk contempt (and who could blame him?), Gates could attempt to satisfy both the federal judge and the local judges who, by the way, also say he is violating state law by his early-release program. Gates could throw up his hands to the county board and say that he’s caught between two courts and that his only reasonable option is to find makeshift quarters for the overload of prisoners. How about a nice vacant office building with deputies posted outside? And, of course, bill the county for their detention.

Although the inmates would get a few laughs out of such an arrangement, the citizens wouldn’t find it very funny. But they’d be hard pressed to blame Gates for the situation. Therefore, the hot potato would be right where it belongs--in the hands of the supervisors.

But Gates has opted not to do that. Instead, he’s opted for early release.

Why?

Why fall on the sword for the supervisors, who have scratched their heads over this problem for more than a decade?

You can make an educated guess.

An excellent object lesson, coincidentally, may have occurred Tuesday when Gates met with the board about helping him pay punitive damages being sought against him by winners in the gun-permits lawsuit.

In other words, it behooves Gates to be nice to the supervisors. They are his sugar daddies, and you don’t sweeten up your sugar daddy by dumping a hot political problem in its lap.

He has nudged the supervisors with a recent letter on overcrowding that he sent to a federal judge. That irritated some supervisors but for the most part, the good soldier Gates takes his shots over early inmate release and claims that he has no other choice. Undoubtedly, the supes appreciate his valor in the matter.

Hey, it’s just a theory. And don’t worry; I won’t run it by the school kids who visit the courthouse--it would just upset them.

For his part, Hewitt refuses to point any fingers. “Everybody needs to work together to do it,” he says. “The judges and the board, the county CAO (chief administrative officer), the sheriff and the community--everybody wants to solve this problem.”

If I had the time to look it up, I’ll bet someone said the very same thing in 1978.