Judge to Consider Widening Crackdown at County Jail

A federal judge said Tuesday that he will decide within a week whether to issue any new orders to ease overcrowding at the Orange County Jail.

At a Santa Ana hearing, U.S. District Judge William P. Gray did not specify what the orders might say. But he raised the possibility that he might require Sheriff Brad Gates to turn away any more pretrial misdemeanor inmates at the main jail in downtown Santa Ana if they have to sleep on the floor for more than one night. He also raised the possibility that he would order double bunks to be eliminated from cells where triple bunks already have been installed.

Though he said it would not come for a few weeks, Gray also warned the county that he plans to impose a ceiling of 1,500 inmates at the jail, effective Dec. 1, and that the ceiling be reduced to 1,400 by April 1, 1986. It would be the first time the courts have ordered a limit on the population at the County Jail. The jail’s daily population count for the last seven days has been in the middle 1700s.

Gray, in stressing his determination to set a ceiling, said it will be imposed unless the county can come up with successful arguments against it.

Gray didn’t directly raise the prospect of an order turning away pretrial misdemeanor inmates, although he did ask a sheriff’s representative what its effect would be on the jail. But Deputy County Counsel Edward Duran said after a tour of the jail with Gray that if the judge issues any orders at all within the next week, he would expect it to be a restriction on new misdemeanor inmates.

Gray held the hearing after American Civil Liberties Union lawyer Richard Herman complained that the county was not living up to previous promises to the court to have no inmates sleeping on the floor by early July.

Gray found the county and Sheriff Brad Gates in criminal contempt on March 18 for violating his 7-year-old order that no inmates be forced to sleep on the floor after the first 24 hours. He fined the county $50,000, appointed a special master to monitor jail conditions and added a $10-per-day fine for each inmate who had to sleep on the floor for more than one night.

At the time of his March 18 order, the jail, which has an official capacity of 1,162, had a population of just above 2,000 inmates, and nearly 500 of them were sleeping on the floor.

Population Reduced

At his next hearing on June 24, the population had been reduced to 1,727 with 243 inmates sleeping on the floor.

Gray at that time approved a plan to replace 42 double bunks in each of the six dormitory cells with 30 triple bunks. That would increase the bunk population from 84 to 90 but would give the cells--which already accommodated more than 100 inmates--more floor space.

Tuesday, however, Gray learned from testimony by Jail Commander George King that King had installed the 30 triple bunks in each dormitory but also had kept up to six double bunks in each one. Herman said that this was a violation of Gray’s triple-bunk order.

Asked about Herman’s charge, Gray would say only that in the dormitory cells where double bunks were used in addition to triple bunks, “it appears that conditions are worse there now than when I toured the jail the last time.”

Gray said at Tuesday’s hearing he was troubled by reports from Lawrence Grossman, the special master he appointed to monitor the jail count, that inmates are still sleeping on the floor. Duran had assured him that inmates would not be sleeping on the floor by early July.

High Prisoner Intake

Duran said Tuesday that the jail had such a high influx of prisoners in July that it became impossible not to sleep some inmates on the floor, despite adding more than 300 beds at the James Musick Honor Farm since then. The number of new arrestees is usually between 100 and 200 per month; the number in July was nearly 500, Duran said.

Gray asked Jail Commander King what he would have to do if the judge issued an order that he could not use double dunks in addition to the triple bunks.

“I’d have to take out 28 double bunks and put 56 more men on the floor,” King answered.

Gray then asked what King would have to do if he ordered him not to accept any new misdemeanor inmates if they had to sleep on the floor or in the overcrowded dormitories. King said he would find a way to live with the ruling.