Judge May Have to Hand Off Suit on Jail Crowding

The Los Angeles federal judge who for 15 years has presided in an Orange County jail-overcrowding suit is recovering from brain surgery and questioning whether he will be retained on the controversial case.

U.S. District Judge William P. Gray, 78, said Friday that he had a small benign tumor removed from his brain Dec. 7 and will not return to the bench for several weeks.

“It is not cancerous,” Gray said from his Pasadena home. “I’m doing just fine. The doctor says it will probably be five or six weeks, or maybe the first of March, before I will be able to be back on the bench. They expect I will be just fine and lead a normal life.”

Gray said he is concerned about his pending cases, and those “that can’t wait” are being reassigned. He said it isn’t clear yet what will happen in the county jail case. A major hearing on a motion to limit crowding in the jail system was postponed in November when the judge had to be hospitalized.

“I have a lot of cases, and some of them need to be handled earlier than I can do it,” Gray said. “We’re just now trying to separate those that need to be done right away. . . .

“Naturally, a concern is the Santa Ana jail (case). I have a lot of background with it, and the question is how long can we wait.”

Handing over such a longstanding, complex case to another judge “would be very unfortunate,” he said.

Gray, who was named to the federal bench in 1966 by President Lyndon B. Johnson, issued a 1978 order capping the inmate population at the Central Men’s Jail in Santa Ana. After once ruling that county officials had violated inmates’ rights because of continuing jail overcrowding, the judge slapped Sheriff Brad Gates with a contempt citation.

In one hearing, Gray called the jail’s practice of confining naked inmates in so-called rubber room isolation cells “inhumane and almost medieval.”

Gray said the other major case he is concerned about involves Long Beach and the state against oil companies in a lawsuit alleging price-fixing conspiracies. That case, which Gray has also been handling for 15 years, is expected to go to court June 15.

Swelling from the surgery has caused Gray some speaking problems. He said he will need several weeks of X-rays to remove parts of the tumor in sensitive parts of his brain that could not be removed surgically.