President Ford’s Would-Be Assassin Sues for Inmates to Keep Cell Keys

Sara Jane Moore, the woman serving a life sentence for trying to assassinate President Gerald Ford in 1975, sued the warden of her federal prison Tuesday to prevent him from taking keys to cells away from the inmates.

To delay a hearing on an emergency injunction against the prison, federal officials agreed in court to postpone any change from June 15 to Aug. 11.

The federal prison in Dublin, Calif., where Moore is housed, is the only federal women’s prison in the nation that allows inmates to lock their own cells. Inmates are prevented from escaping by an outer perimeter.

Moore, a former activist who is about 70, argued in court papers that taking the keys away from inmates would leave them open to theft and attacks by other inmates. She said that, at any one time, each guard can see only six of the 117 cells for which he or she is responsible.

The prison is operating under the terms of a settlement to a previous lawsuit Moore filed in 1988, when prison officials also threatened to take keys away. The agreement requires them to maintain the locks “until such time as alternative security arrangements at the facility may become necessary and appropriate.”