ACLU Urges Courts to Curb Use of Stun Belt

The American Civil Liberties Union threatened Thursday to seek an injunction against Los Angeles County’s superior and municipal courts unless they ban the activation of electric stun belts on defendants for nonviolent behavior.

The civil rights group issued the threat in letters to the judges presiding over the two courts, more than two weeks after a Long Beach judge ordered a defendant shocked for interrupting her.

“Use of the electroshock belt as punishment for disruptive behavior is not only cruel and unusual but macabre, and converts our courtrooms into modern-day torture chambers,” ACLU officials wrote in the July 16 letters to Superior Judge Robert Parkin and Municipal Judge Veronica McBeth.

For two years, deputies have strapped the stun belts on defendants considered dangerous or a flight risk.

Ronnie Hawkins, 48, apparently became the first Los Angeles County defendant to feel the belt’s eight-second jolt when Municipal Judge Joan Comparet-Cassani ordered him shocked at his June 30 sentencing hearing because of his loud and repeated interruptions.

Hawkins has filed a $50-million lawsuit against Comparet-Cassani and his attorney is seeking an injunction banning the activation of belts on defendants who pose no physical threat.