SAN DIEGO : Appeal Filed on Hall Population
San Diego County has appealed a Superior Court judge’s decision to impose a population cap at the county’s chronically overcrowded Juvenile Hall.
The appeal, filed Friday with the 4th District Court of Appeal, challenges the legal basis for the Oct. 22 ruling by Judge Robert J. O’Neill, who said conditions at the hall so violate basic constitutional rights that just being there amounts to punishment, even for young children not charged with a crime.
State law requires that a county’s juvenile home be as much like a home as possible.
O’Neill, ruling in a class-action lawsuit brought by the American Civil Liberties Union, ordered a population cap of 395 at the hall, which was built to hold 219 youths but has held 400 or more in recent years.
A ruling is not likely for weeks or months.
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