Judge Voids Prison Officers’ Brutality Penalties

A former associate warden and five other high-ranking officers at Corcoran State Prison, disciplined in a highly publicized inmate abuse case, had their jobs restored Friday with back pay.

A Sacramento Superior Court judge set aside the discipline that followed the alleged beating of 36 black inmates in 1995, saying prison officials failed to adequately spell out the charges against the officers.

Department of Corrections officials expressed disappointment that the case was thrown out on what they characterized as a technicality and said they might appeal.

Pam Smith-Steward, the department’s chief legal counsel, said Judge Cecily Bond found that the notice of charges filed against the officers “didn’t specifically cite” the procedures and regulations they were accused of violating.

According to the department’s investigation of the June 21, 1995, incident, shackled inmates were kicked, punched and slammed into walls by dozens of baton-wielding officers as Associate Warden Bruce Farris and other supervisors watched at the prison south of Fresno. The incident occurred as the inmates got off a bus from Calipatria State Prison in the Imperial Valley.

A few inmates suffered broken bones, and two dozen others were forced to their knees and had their hair shorn.

In December 1996 the State Personnel Board upheld disciplinary actions against the six officers. It agreed with the findings of an administrative law judge who sat through two months of hearings.

But Friday, Bond reversed the demotions of Lt. Robert Dean, Sgt. Reginald Parra and Sgt. John Misko and the 60-day suspension without pay of Lt. Harold McEnroe.

The judge also overturned the dismissal of Farris and the demotion of Lt. Raul Garcia.

Michael Rains, a Walnut Creek attorney who represented most of the officers, said charges against Farris and Garcia involving minor violations were upheld and sent back to the personnel board for action. Rains could not immediately estimate how much back pay the officers would receive.

The attorney said the officers were carrying out the instructions of former Corcoran Warden George Smith when he ordered the inmates’ hair cut if they did not remove their braids.

Rains described the Corrections Department investigation as “a sham and a farce,” saying the agency “took the stories of the inmates at face value . . . when there was not physical evidence to support their stories.”

But Bond’s ruling is not likely to quiet the controversy that has surrounded the case for more than three years.

Testimony this summer at a legislative hearing on brutality at Corcoran confirmed that the FBI is looking into the incident.

At the hearing, a former prison canteen operator testified that a group of officers wearing black gloves and tape over their name tags performed half an hour of football-like warmups and cheers while awaiting the bus. The woman, Connie Foster, said the officers then grabbed and shackled inmates off the bus one by one and ran them through a gantlet of fists, batons and combat boots.

At the hearing, Dean refused to answer repeated questions about his role in the incident.

Even though he was disciplined administratively for his involvement, he was later promoted to lieutenant.

Gladstone reported from Sacramento and Arax from Fresno.