Errors Still Keep Hundreds in Jail Too Long

The Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department has been unable to stamp out critical clerical errors that keep hundreds of inmates in jail past their scheduled release dates, while erroneously releasing a handful of others, including some accused of violent crimes, according to an internal department report and interviews with sheriff’s officials.

Although the sheriff has reduced the number of inmates mistakenly released from 32 in 1996 to 12 in 1997, the safeguards are often ignored, officials acknowledge. On Friday, the department erroneously released murder suspect Billy Joe Cornejo after a jail clerk failed to update his file. Cornejo--the sixth homicide suspect mistakenly set free over the last two years--was rearrested Saturday night at his mother’s house. Three of the other homicide suspects remain at large.

The report’s author, Capt. David Betkey, who supervises the processing and releasing of inmates in the 20,000-prisoner jail system, says that clerks at the chaotic Inmate Reception Center are failing to follow guidelines and procedures aimed at reducing the troublesome--and often costly--mistakes.

“Although inappropriate employee conduct is immediately addressed through counseling, remedial training or through established disciplinary procedures, it has thus far been ineffective in reducing critical errors,” Betkey wrote.

As a result, nearly 700 inmates were held in county jails for an average of 6.9 days too long last year, according to the report. One inmate was illegally detained for 260 days beyond his sentence; two others were held for 90 days or longer. All too aware of the county’s financial liability on this issue, the department’s risk management unit paid a total of nearly $200,000 to 548 inmates incarcerated for a total of 3,694 days beyond their sentences--on the condition that they agreed in writing not to sue.

“You need to know that since [I] took over a year ago, there has not been one bit of technology that has aided us,” Betkey said in an interview. Betkey oversees a staff of about 200 clerks, who labor late into the night processing more than 6,000 pieces of inmate paperwork that arrive at the Twin Towers jail from court each day.

About 200,000 men and women pass through Los Angeles County’s jails each year.

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The sheriff is working with the district attorney’s office and court officials to establish a computer system to eliminate the sluggish and problem-prone processing of court orders, but it could be months, perhaps years, before that system is online.

“It was my understanding that an electronic link would be established before the end of 1997,” said attorney Merrick Bobb, retained by the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors to track problems in the Sheriff’s Department. “As I have repeatedly said, the system must be automated because the current paperwork system is unsatisfactory.”

Sheriff’s Custody Chief Barry King agreed that until the computers are up and running, the problems will continue.

“With the whole custody system, we would like to see it as perfect as possible,” King said. “I think we have made tremendous headway. Are we there yet? No.”

King said the department is forming a task force to try to determine how to stem the clerical errors.

According to Betkey’s report, the most clerical errors resulting in illegal detentions include:

* Failure to follow through with the inmate release process after receiving court orders that they be freed.

* Misinterpretation of court orders or Teletype release requests.

* Improperly labeling or misfiling inmate record jackets.

“Some of the clerks have had 15 years of doing business a certain way,” Betkey said. “It’s difficult for people to change.”

To try to prod that process along, a group of Los Angeles-area attorneys last month filed a class-action lawsuit against Sheriff Sherman Block, alleging that the department is violating the rights of thousands of inmates by keeping them in jail too long.

Defense attorney John Burton--who is leading the group--said he estimates that as many as 50,000 prisoners were held past their legal release date last year.

The suit is scheduled for a status conference in March, Burton said.

“The law is very clear: You have to release people unless you have a reason to hold them. To do otherwise is a violation of the Constitution,” Burton said. “This is nonsense, absolute nonsense.”