Penalties Against Prison Officers Upheld

Disciplinary actions against six high-ranking officers at Corcoran State Prison--including the firing of Associate Warden Bruce Farris--were upheld Wednesday by the state personnel board, which found that the officers played a major role in the June 1995 abuse of 36 black inmates.

The five-member state board decided that the firing of Capt. Lee Fouch, one of the supervisors who oversaw the incident, was not warranted and reduced his punishment to an official reprimand.

In taking the action, the board agreed with the findings of an administrative law judge who sat through two months of hearings on allegations that a busload of black inmates from Calipatria State Prison was abused while being processed into the security housing unit at Corcoran.

“The conduct of these officers was reprehensible and inexcusable,” said Tipton Kindel, a spokesman for the state Department of Corrections. “We’re pleased that the judge concurred with our action against six of the seven, but we’re disappointed at the ruling reversing the firing of Capt. Fouch.”

The corrections department probably will appeal the decision to reverse Fouch’s termination, as will lawyers representing the officers. “This was a blockbuster case, and it isn’t over yet,” said Lance Barnett, head of the state personnel board, which would also hear the appeal.

According to a Department of Corrections probe of the June 21, 1995, incident, the shackled inmates were kicked, punched and rammed into walls by dozens of baton-wielding officers under the eye of Associate Warden Farris and other supervisors. The beatings were without provocation, investigators found, and ended only after a few inmates sustained broken bones and two dozen others were forced to their knees and had their hair shorn.

Because the state’s discipline of the seven was limited to “neglect of duty” and other policy failures, Administrative Law Judge Jose Alvarez did not consider the scope of the alleged beatings. He also refused to weigh the testimony of the inmates, saying their accounts of the incident were unreliable.

Even so, he did find that the inmates posed no threat to the officers. And he ruled that the officers did engage in “corporal punishment and excessive force” by shoving the heads of inmates skyward and forcibly shearing off their braids.

Michael Rains, a San Francisco attorney who represented five of the six officers whose discipline was upheld, criticized the ruling. “The decision isn’t consistent with the evidence I heard during those weeks of hearings,” he said. “There was a smattering of justice because Capt. Fouch got reinstated and received only a reprimand. But as for my guys, we’re going to have to wait until our appeal.”

Prisoners rights groups say the firings were long in coming and underscore what they have charged for years: that Corcoran is a prison out of control and that guards and supervisors routinely exploit gang rivalries and bait prisoners into fights so they can be shot for sport.

Since 1988, seven inmates have been shot and killed by guards at the San Joaquin Valley penitentiary that houses Charles Manson and Sirhan Sirhan, among other notorious criminals. That is more shooting deaths than at any other prison in country, and all but one killing took place in the prison’s security housing unit where gang members and other problem inmates are kept.

The 1994 shooting death of inmate Preston Tate has been the focus of a two-year FBI investigation. A federal grand jury in Fresno is weighing evidence and possible criminal indictments against officers and supervisors. Two other state probes, including one announced last week by the state attorney general’s office, are also focusing on brutality and a possible cover-up at the maximum security prison.

“There are so many investigations going on at the same time that it’s almost like piling on,” said Lance Corcoran, vice president of California Correctional Officers Assn. “I’ve been visiting the staff at Corcoran for the past two days, and they’re really downtrodden. Now this decision by the judge shreds any morale that was left.”

As part of Wednesday’s decision, the board upheld Alvarez’s demotion of Lt. Raul Garcia and Sgts. Robert A. Dean, John C. Misko and Reginald A. Parra and the 60-day suspension of Lt. Harold McEnroe.