JUDGE REJECTS GOV.’S INMATE TRANSFER TACTIC

A Superior Court judge Tuesday tossed out Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s short-term strategy for coping with the overcrowding crisis in California’s prisons, saying the transfer of inmates to other states was illegal.

The ruling by Judge Gail D. Ohanesian, who acknowledged a climate of “extreme peril” in the prisons, comes as the state is under federal order to ease jampacked conditions by June or face a possible cap on new admissions.

Ohanesian said that Schwarzenegger improperly declared an emergency in the prisons and that contracts sending convicts to private prisons in Tennessee and Arizona are invalid.

Two labor unions that represent correctional officers and other prison employees had sued the governor and corrections officials to block the transfers, saying Schwarzenegger’s use of the Emergency Services Act was illegal.

The judge delayed enforcement of her order for 10 days, giving the state time to appeal.

In a statement, Schwarzenegger said the transfers were “imperative to relieve the pressure on our overburdened prison system,” which is packed to nearly twice its intended capacity. The governor also called the judge’s ruling “a threat to public safety.”

“Our prison system is in desperate need of repair, and the transferring of inmates out of state is a prudent alternative to the risk of court-ordered early release of felons,” the governor said.

Corrections officials said they would be out of room for new inmates by the end of the year, raising the prospect that California’s counties -- 20 of which have court-imposed population caps on their jails -- will have nowhere to send convicted felons.

The transfer program, launched in November, was Schwarzenegger’s effort to buy time. He has asked lawmakers to review California’s sentencing and parole laws, and wants to spend $10.9 billion to add 78,000 jail and prison beds. But his plans face an uncertain fate in the Legislature, and many elements would require years to carry out.

So far, the state has transferred at least 360 inmates, all volunteers, to lockups in Arizona and Tennessee, but corrections officials’ goal is to move 5,000. They recently expanded the program to include mandatory transfers, because so few inmates were willing to go.

A separate lawsuit on the compulsory relocations is pending in federal court, but administration officials said Tuesday’s ruling affects all transfers.

The moves were initiated as part of Schwarzenegger’s October declaration of an emergency in 29 of the state’s 33 prisons. The governor said teeming cellblocks had created severe health and safety risks for officers, inmates and the public. In the year before his decree, 316 melees erupted at the prisons, he said.

“The overcrowding crisis gets worse with each passing day,” Schwarzenegger said in his declaration. Emergency action is necessary, he added, in part because lawmakers did not act on his proposed remedies during a special legislative session that he called last summer.

In their lawsuit, the prison guards, whose union is the California Correctional Peace Officers Assn., accused Schwarzenegger of overstepping his authority.

“We’re a nation of laws, and this is an end run around the Legislature,” Gregg Adam, a lawyer for the guards union, said after a trial before Ohanesian last week.

Adam also argued that Civil Service protections embedded in the state Constitution forbade the government from contracting out jobs normally performed by state employees. Ignoring such protections, he said, would amount to “the first steps toward privatization” of the prison system, which employs about 58,000 guards and other workers.

In court, the lawyer for Schwarzenegger disputed those contentions, saying the governor “absolutely” acted legally in applying the Emergency Services Act to the prisons. Deputy Atty. Gen. Vickie Whitney also argued that the contracts with out-of-state prisons were so urgently needed that suspension of Civil Service protections was warranted.

“The governor was left with a situation where staff, inmates and the public are in grave danger,” so he had to declare an emergency and authorize the transfers, she said.

In her four-page ruling, Ohanesian rejected those arguments and invalidated the contracts with the other states.

She said the Emergency Services Act was meant for use when local jurisdictions became overwhelmed by such events as natural disasters and required state intervention. The act cannot be used, she said, to respond to problems that originated at the state level.

“This emergency is due to ... the lack of sufficient prison facilities to keep pace with the growing number of people sentenced to prison,” Ohanesian wrote. “This is not the type of circumstance generally covered by the Emergency Services Act.”

The judge also agreed with the unions that the urgency of the circumstances did not merit suspension of Civil Service rules that prohibited the use of private employees for jobs that were normally performed by public workers. Guards in the private out-of-state facilities are not public employees.

“The urgency in this case is caused by the severe shortage of appropriate facilities needed to house the number of inmates in California’s penal system,” she wrote -- not by a lack of prison employees.

Chuck Alexander, vice president of the guards union, cheered the judge’s ruling.

“We hope the administration will now be more inclined to sit down with parties and talk about the entire systemic problem, rather than taking this piecemeal approach,” he said.

The governor’s transfer program was flawed from the beginning, said Yvonne Walker, a Local 1000 vice president.

“You are not going to address overcrowding until you address the revolving door,” she said. “California has the highest recidivism rate in the country. We need sentencing reform, parole reform and greatly increased investment in rehabilitation and education. We need to put real money into programs that have proven to reduce prison population.”

Schwarzenegger’s legal affairs secretary, Andrea Hoch, said the administration would ask the 3rd District Court of Appeal to stay Ohanesian’s order for a longer period as it reviews the ruling.

If the court declines to issue the stay, prison officials might have to bring back the inmates serving time in other states -- at least temporarily.

Corrections Secretary James Tilton said Tuesday that he planned to proceed with the transfer of as many as 200 more volunteers and then begin mandatory moves. The department is already screening the first convicts designated for forced transfer -- those who are probably facing deportation upon their release.

Tilton said he was also canvassing county sheriffs in search of jail space for state prisoners.

“I’m trying to use every option at my disposal to deal with overcrowding,” he said. “The last thing we want to do is have dangerous criminals released into California.”

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jenifer.warren@latimes.com

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Back story

Though crowding is not a new problem in California prisons, officials say it has reached dangerous levels. More than 15,000 inmates are housed in areas not designed as sleeping quarters, including hallways and gymnasiums. About 1,500 sleep in triple-decker bunks.

In his emergency declaration in October, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger said the crowding had created conditions of “extreme peril” for inmates and officers. More than 300 melees occurred at state prisons during the 12-month period before the governor’s October decree, along with hundreds of assaults.

In 2004, an independent review panel appointed by Schwarzenegger and led by former Gov. George Deukmejian concluded that crowding was at the root of the system’s myriad problems. “The key to reforming the system,” the commission wrote, “lies in reducing the numbers.”

Since then, the population has increased by nearly 10,000 prisoners. New laws toughening criminal penalties, including Proposition 83, which passed last year and lengthens prison terms for sex offenders, will intensify the growth.

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Source: Los Angeles Times