Contempt Ruled in Jail Releases : Courts: O.C. Sheriff Gates is found guilty on 17 counts tied to his overcrowding furloughs. The judge then lectures foes of Measure J--and county supervisors.

A Municipal Court judge Friday found Sheriff Brad Gates guilty on 17 counts of contempt for illegally releasing prisoners to relieve jail overcrowding, then lashed out at county supervisors for failing to find a solution.

Instead of sentencing Gates to jail or fining him, Presiding Orange County Municipal Judge Richard W. Stanford Jr. ordered the sheriff to come up with a plan by June 21 showing what he would do to cut down on the number of inmates who are released early from their sentences. The Sheriff’s Department has been routinely releasing about 850 prisoners a week to relieve overcrowding.

Gates’ contempt citation--his third since 1985--comes at a crucial juncture in the debate over the Measure J tax initiative, as both sides start their final push toward Election Day. In his order, Stanford echoed what Gates, the measure’s biggest proponent, has been saying for years: Orange County needs more jail beds.

Stanford’s order was quickly criticized by opponents of the proposal for a half-cent sales tax increase to pay for more jail facilities. Anaheim Mayor Fred Hunter called the Gates trial a “setup” to boost passage of Measure J.

During an hourlong lecture from the bench, Stanford praised Gates for his efforts on behalf of the initiative, which will appear on Tuesday’s ballot. But he sharply criticized county supervisors for allowing the jail overcrowding issue to languish since 1978, when a federal judge ruled that overcrowding had created unconstitutionally cruel conditions in the county’s main jail.

“When you and I do our jobs, then we’ll find out who isn’t doing their job, because they’ve been shielded from their responsibility for 13 years,” Stanford told the sheriff.

Stanford added that the lack of adequate jail space leads to a “lack of respect for the court system” because judges were left “without the ability to enforce orders.”

Stanford’s order could have far-reaching effects on management of the county jail system, because it seeks to force the sheriff to revise his release policies and to hold more prisoners in already-crowded facilities for longer periods of time.

Not only did the judge find that Gates willfully and illegally released 17 prisoners charged with violent crimes or other offenses that should have kept them in jail under state law, but he also ordered Gates to stop some early releases of sentenced inmates.

The Sheriff’s Department routinely lops 10% off the sentences of some inmates. Because of severe jail overcrowding, Gates’ department has been releasing many of those prisoners three to five days before their time is up.

Stanford ordered that practice halted, which Gates said could force him to find space for another 100 to 150 inmates a day. The county’s five jails were built to hold 3,203 inmates but typically house about 4,400.

“The judge obviously issued a very serious order,” Gates said. “It’s going to have a very serious impact on our facilities. . . . His directive to me is to go out and find a jail.”

Opponents of Measure J--which would levy a half-cent sales tax for 30 years, largely to pay for a new jail in Gypsum Canyon, just east of Anaheim Hills--reacted angrily to the ruling.

“The judge is wasting the taxpayers’ money with a mock trial,” Hunter said. “It’s a setup. It’s a desperation move by Brad Gates. I think Measure J is going to go down in flames.”

In an interview after his ruling, however, Stanford denied that the contempt action was timed to help the ballot measure.

Municipal Court judges have long been upset with Gates’ release policies and have been talking with him and other officials in the department about such violations since May of last year, the judge said.

The contempt charges stem from the release of 18 prisoners under the sheriff’s cite-and-release policy, in which accused people are booked but released pending court appearances.

The judges complained that even though the Legislature gave Gates the authority to cite-and-release some prisoners accused of misdemeanors, the sheriff had failed to note the exceptions to that authority--such as those arrested for giving false information to police or accused of violent crimes.

Most of the 18 examples cited in the contempt order against Gates involve people accused of giving false information to the police. Other charges included assault with a deadly weapon, resisting arrest and violations of vehicle codes. Thirteen of them failed to appear in court on their scheduled dates and had to be rearrested.

Gates said in his response to the contempt charges that while he had not been aware of the cite-and-release limits when the 18 were released, he moved to correct the problem as soon as it was brought to his attention.

Stanford dismissed the charges on one of the arrests, but on the other 17 he ruled that Gates “had the ability to comply with those valid judicial orders” and “willfully disobeyed” them.

Gates and his attorney had argued that a federal court order limiting the population of the Central Men’s Jail forces the sheriff either to release prisoners or create badly overcrowded conditions at the other facilities.

But Stanford said Gates’ population ceiling on the other four jails is strictly a “voluntary” limit.

“There was sufficient space within the jail system to incarcerate each of the arrestees,” he said.

After Stanford announced his ruling, he delivered a long speech--which he called a “civics lesson”--lecturing county officials for allowing the jail issue to fester.

“Since 1978, everybody in this county has known we have a problem with jail overcrowding,” Stanford said, “and the courts have waited rather patiently for the other branches of government to make a decision about a new jail.”

While he directed most of his frustration toward county officials, Stanford also lashed out at Measure J opponents.

“Those same people who are out there screaming that they don’t want a jail in their back yards are also the same people who would not want a cited and released criminal looking in their window getting ready to pull a burglary,” he said.

Hunter called Stanford’s statement “unethical conduct.”

“I don’t think Rick Stanford or any other judge ought to be campaigning for a political issue,” Hunter said. “I just think it’s a shame that a judge or a sheriff, who are supposedly in nonpartisan offices, are saying things like that.”

In his comments, however, Stanford was unequivocal in endorsing efforts to expand the county jail system.

Someday very soon, he said, “the Board of Supervisors is going to realize that in the long run it’s less expensive to build a jail to house those prisoners than it is to ignore the problem and hope that it’ll just go away,” he said.

The supervisors have long been stymied by political and financial obstacles standing in the way of progress on the jail issue, and one board member Friday accused Stanford of ignoring the efforts the board has made to overcome those problems.

“Apparently His Honor hasn’t been keeping up with the efforts and the difficulty in trying to obtain this goal,” said Supervisor Thomas F. Riley, the board’s senior member and a supporter of the Gypsum Canyon jail. “It’s been a difficult situation.”

Stanford advised the sheriff to “quit worrying about whether the Board of Supervisors are doing their job or failing to do their jobs, but instead we should just go on and do our jobs.

“Your job, sir,” Stanford added, “is to accept into your custody those people we sentence, and house them and keep them and guard them.”

Stanford’s criticisms of Gates and his release policies were tempered by praise for the sheriff’s efforts on behalf of Measure J.

“The majority, if not the totality of persons in the court system, the criminal justice system, hope for the passage of that measure,” Stanford said.

In addition to Gates, the tax measure has the support of many local police chiefs and Dist. Atty. Michael R. Capizzi. Others have lined up on the other side: The Orange County Bar Assn., for instance, has urged its rejection.

No matter what the outcome of Tuesday’s vote, it will be several years before a new jail can begin accepting inmates, and Stanford warned Gates that he expects progress on the release issue quickly.

“I don’t want anyone to be mistaken that that eliminates that problem you and I have with each other,” Stanford told Gates. “I don’t intend to sit here on my hands and watch the criminal justice system go down the toilet.”