Judge Refuses to Reduce O.C. Jail Populations

While acknowledging that Orange County’s main jail is “somewhat cramped,” U.S. District Judge William P. Gray on Thursday rejected a request by inmates to further limit the populations at the county’s five jails.

Gray’s ruling, which will mark his final word from the bench on a jail system that he has overseen for 13 years, rejected a series of requests by lawyers for the inmates, who argued in court last month that overcrowding created unconstitutionally cruel conditions in the jails.

Although future legal challenges regarding jail conditions are expected in the federal courts, Thursday’s ruling takes some of the pressure off the Board of Supervisors and Sheriff Brad Gates to relieve overcrowding and allows them to continue operating the jails without new federal restrictions.

“This is a positive for the county,” said board Chairman Gaddi H. Vasquez. “It shows that the judge, Judge Gray, having visited the facilities personally, understands the efforts we have made toward dealing with our problem.”

Dick Herman, the American Civil Liberties Union lawyer who has long represented Orange County jail inmates, conceded that he was “certainly disappointed” by some aspects of the decision but added that he was pleased by others. In particular, Herman praised Judge Gray, who will retire this month, for consolidating two separate cases on the overcrowding issue, a move that could pave the way for future cases regarding inmate rights.

Still, it was county officials who most eagerly welcomed Gray’s opinion. Many had feared that caps at all five jails could force the Sheriff’s Department to release hundreds of prisoners a week to keep the inmate populations in line. Gates already releases about 850 prisoners a week, and he had speculated that the caps sought by the ACLU would have pushed that number over 1,000.

“There’s some good news this week, at least,” said Gates, referring to the overwhelming defeat Tuesday of a half-cent sales tax measure he supported for jail construction. “The judge is telling us that we’re doing OK, even if the system is overcrowded.”

The county jails were built to hold 3,203 prisoners, but typically hold more than 4,400. While Gray has prohibited the Central Men’s Jail from housing more than 1,296 prisoners since 1985, the other four facilities do not have a court-imposed cap, and thus frequently exceed their design capacities.

In their suit, lawyers for the inmates argued that Gates had avoided exceeding the cap on the Central Men’s Jail population by overloading the other facilities, creating increasingly overcrowded conditions at those sites.

But mere overcrowding does not necessarily mean that inmates are being deprived of their constitutional rights, and Gray declined to lower the cap at the Central Men’s Jail or extend it to the other facilities.

“It is evident that the Central Jail is crowded and that the present ‘cap’ of 1,296 should be maintained,” Gray wrote. “This does involve a somewhat (more) cramped condition than is desirable.”

Gray added, however, that even in crowded dormitory cells, “the adjoining day rooms and the showers are regularly available, and the air conditioner is working satisfactorily. Under these circumstances, I cannot conclude that constitutional violations are involved.”

Although Gray’s six-page decision contained praise for the county’s oversight of the jails, it also included reminders that he expects progress to be made in resolving the overcrowding issue.

If there are more criminals than space in the county jails to hold them, “an alternative is to create promptly additional temporary structures,” Gray wrote. “To the extent that this is not done, it follows that such people will remain on the street.”

Gray’s ruling removes one cloud from the county jail system, but it does not clear all the legal issues. Local Municipal Court judges have found Gates in contempt of court for releasing certain types of inmates early and have ordered him to prepare a report outlining how he plans to discontinue those releases.

That may force Gates to cram more prisoners into the jails, and if that happens, Herman said he is prepared to return to court and press the issue again.

In that case, Gray’s ruling may actually work against Gates because the cap that Gray rejected would likely have been accompanied by a so-called “releasing order,” a mandate from the federal court to release prisoners when the jails become crowded.

Such an order would have prevented the Municipal Court judges from challenging Gates’ authority to release prisoners.

“The sheriff has shot himself in the foot,” Herman said. “He needs this cap, and he needs the releasing order.”

In other parts of his ruling, Gray refused to require that sheriff’s deputies find a bed for every inmate within two hours of a prisoner’s arrival at the jail. The Sheriff’s Department now is given 24 hours to accomplish that.

Gray also rejected a request that inmates be given additional exercise time, saying that while “it would be fine for every inmate to have as much outdoor exercise as he may desire,” such a system would not be workable in Orange County’s limited system.

The judge did, however, rule in favor of the prisoners on their request for easier access to fellow inmates who have legal expertise. He ruled that prisoners should be allowed to correspond with “jailhouse lawyers” by sending messages to one another without having to use the regular mail service. Inmates had argued that the requirement slowed down their correspondence with jailhouse lawyers.

Gray agreed, and ordered the Sheriff’s Department to allow letters to be sent within the jail. Sheriff’s deputies will be allowed to inspect the envelopes for contraband, and Gates said he did not object to the new requirement.

Herman applauded that decision, and said that on the other motions, he and other lawyers would closely monitor the condition in the jails. Herman added that he expects to ask U.S. District Judge Gary Taylor, who will now be handling the cases, for the population caps that Gray rejected.

“Certainly, we lost some, and certainly we won some,” Herman said. “What we didn’t get now, we will get later. That’s not so bad.”