Justices to Debate California’s Segregated Prison Policy

The U.S. Supreme Court agreed Monday to hear a constitutional challenge to California’s policy of segregating new prisoners by race.

For the first 60 days, a new inmate is kept in a cell with another inmate of the same race, in what state officials say is an effort to reduce violence. Skinheads or members of black and Latino gangs are more likely to get into fights if they are housed with someone of another race, the officials say.

The new prisoners are evaluated for their potential for violence, and after 60 days they are assigned to a permanent cell -- without regard to their race.

The segregation policy was challenged by Garrison Johnson, a black inmate, who contended that “intentional state racial segregation” violates the Constitution and its guarantee of equal protection of the laws. He lost before a federal judge and the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, but the Supreme Court voted to take up his claim.

Since the Brown vs. Board of Education decision in 1954, in which the Supreme Court rejected the notion of “separate but equal” in public education, the high court has frowned upon nearly all government policies or practices that mandate segregation by race. However, judges have upheld moves by prison officials to separate black and white inmates in response to rioting or fighting.

Lawyers for Garrison say this emergency exception is not enough to justify routine racial segregation.

“Over 100,000 California inmates are subject to admittedly segregationist government policies,” they wrote in their petition to the court. “Given the history of stigma and racial discrimination that such segregation calls to mind,” the court should forbid the routine practice of relying on race as a means to separate prisoners, they said.

In their reply, the state’s lawyers stressed the initial “classification” period is temporary, and said it does not result in different or unfair treatment of inmates. Moreover, the inmates are “fully integrated” during the day when they are at work, at meals and in the yards for recreation.

The Supreme Court will hear the case of Johnson vs. Gomez in the fall.

Also Monday, the justices turned away another appeal from California Atty. Gen. Bill Lockyer in the case of convicted murderer Kevin Cooper.

Cooper, 46, was convicted of the 1983 murders in Chino Hills of a married couple, their daughter and a house guest.

Just hours before Cooper’s scheduled execution Feb. 9, the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals ordered a halt and said new hearings should be held to consider further tests of blood and hair evidence. That evening, the Supreme Court rejected Lockyer’s request that it intervene.

Last week, Lockyer filed a further motion arguing that the federal judges exceeded their authority by reopening the case. But without comment Monday, the high court dismissed the appeal, clearing the way for the new hearings ordered by the 9th Circuit.