Rutherford v. Pitchess

• Decision Date: 25 July 1978
• Docket Number: No. CV 75-4111-WPG.,CV 75-4111-WPG.
• Court: U.S. District Court — Central District of California
• Parties: Dennis RUTHERFORD, Harold Taylor and Richard Orr, et al., Plaintiffs, v. Peter J. PITCHESS et al., Defendants.

457 F. Supp. 104

Dennis RUTHERFORD, Harold Taylor and Richard Orr, et al., Plaintiffs, v. Peter J. PITCHESS et al., Defendants.

No. CV 75-4111-WPG.

United States District Court, C. D. California.

July 25, 1978.

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COPYRIGHT MATERIAL OMITTED

Terry Smerling, Fred Okrand, Jill Jakes, Mark D. Rosenbaum, ACLU Foundation of Southern California, Los Angeles, Cal., for plaintiffs.

John H. Larson, County Counsel, Frederick R. Bennett, Deputy County Counsel, Los Angeles, Cal., for defendants.

MEMORANDUM OF DECISION

WILLIAM P. GRAY, District Judge.

This action seeks injunctive and declaratory relief, on constitutional grounds under 42 U.S.C. § 1983, against certain practices and conditions of confinement at the Los Angeles County Central Jail (the "jail"). The court previously has established the plaintiff class as consisting of all prisoners in the jail since December 31, 1975. The court found that the class is so numerous that joinder is impracticable; that the questions of law and fact and the claims presented by the class representatives are common to the class; and that the outstandingly competent representation provided the named plaintiffs by Terry Smerling, Esq., of the ACLU Foundation of Southern California, will adequately protect the interests of the class as a whole.

The defendants are the Sheriff of Los Angeles County, some of his subordinates that are concerned with the administration of the jail, and the members of the County Board of Supervisors.

Trial of this case involved about seventeen days of testimony, the receipt of many exhibits, and the submission of thoroughly prepared pre-trial and post-trial briefs. In addition, with the prior agreement of counsel, the court made unannounced visits to the jail on September 23, 1977, and June 12, 1978.

The plaintiffs have challenged the constitutionality of many aspects of the housing and treatment of inmates at the jail. In this memorandum, I shall undertake to resolve these issues, bearing in mind, as best I can, the dilemma that confronts every federal judge before whom a case such as this is litigated. On the one hand, we are reminded that ". . . courts are ill equipped to deal with the increasingly urgent problems of prison and presumably "jail" administration and reform", Procunier v. Martinez, 416 U.S. 396, 405, 94 S.Ct. 1800, 40 L.Ed.2d 224 (1974), and that considerations of institutional security should be left to the expertise of state correctional officials unless they "have exaggerated their response to these considerations." Pell v. Procunier, 417 U.S. 817, 827, 94 S.Ct. 2800, 41 L.Ed.2d 495 (1974).

On the other hand, these same decisions go on to state that "courts cannot, of course, abdicate their constitutional responsibility to delineate and protect fundamental liberties." Pell v. Procunier, 417 U.S. at 827, 94 S.Ct. at 2806, and that:

". . . a policy of judicial restraint cannot encompass any failure to take cognizance of valid constitutional claims whether arising in a federal or state institution. When a prison regulation or practice offends a fundamental constitutional guarantee, federal courts will discharge their duty to protect constitutional rights." Procunier v. Martinez, 416 U.S. at 405, 94 S.Ct. at 1807 (1974).

Every inmate in a penal institution, by the very fact of his incarceration, necessarily is deprived of some of the constitutional rights that otherwise would be his to enjoy. Price v. Johnston, 334 U.S. 266, 285, 68 S.Ct. 1049, 92 L.Ed. 1356 (1948). But he retains those rights ". . . that are not inconsistent with his status as a prisoner or with the legitimate penological objectives of the corrections system." Pell v. Procunier, 417 U.S. at 822, 94 S.Ct. at 2804. Of course, institutional security and order and the physical safety of jail personnel and inmates are necessarily paramount objectives of any jail administrator. If those were the only considerations, there would be no occasion for a court to "second-guess" the expertise of the Sheriff in pursuing such objectives. The problem, then, in each of the issues here concerned is to determine the point at which the implementation of the goals of security and order and safety must be balanced by the need to preserve for the inmate all of the constitutional rights that the fact of his incarceration will permit.

Issues of this nature have been brought to federal courts with increasing frequency during the past several years, and the task of accomplishing this balancing process is always difficult. Most courts are sympathetically mindful of the problems of the "jailer" and desire to defer to his experience and expertise to all appropriate extent. On the other hand, as Judge Frankel said in United States ex rel. Wolfish et al. v. Levi, 439 F.Supp. 114, 141 (S.D.N.Y.1977), ". . . the court is not free to blink away the common awareness that zeal for security is among the most common varieties of official excess."

So, in considering whether a prisoner is being denied his due process rights under the Fifth or Fourteenth Amendments, his First Amendment rights, or the right, accorded by the Eighth Amendment, to be free of conditions that constitute cruel and unusual punishment, the courts must seek to determine what is reasonable under the circumstances at hand. In Rochin v. California, 342 U.S. 165, 170, 72 S.Ct. 205, 208, 96 L.Ed. 183 (1952), Justice Frankfurter delivered a wise admonition to courts engaged in making these determinations:

"The vague contours of the Due Process Clause do not leave judges at large. We may not draw on our merely personal and private notions and disregard the limits that bind judges in their judicial function. Even though the concept of due process of law is not final and fixed, these limits are derived from considerations that are fused in the whole nature of our judicial process."

Accordingly, I have sought to determine the issues here presented in light of the body of law that has developed by the decisions of other courts confronted with similar problems. In doing so, I have been impressed by Chief Justice Warren's observation in Trop v. Dulles, 356 U.S. 86, 100-101, 78 S.Ct. 590, 598, 2 L.Ed.2d 630 (1958), that ". . . the words of the Eighth Amendment are not precise, and that their scope is not static. The Amendment must draw its meaning from the evolving standards of decency that mark the progress of a maturing society." I hope also to take heed of an equally pertinent comment by Justice (then Judge) Blackmun that in considering problems of the type here concerned, ". . . broad and idealistic concepts of dignity, civilized standards, humanity, and decency are useful and usable." Jackson v. Bishop, 404 F.2d 571, 579 (8th Cir. 1968).

One further consideration must be taken into account. Most of the inmates at the jail are pre-trial prisoners. They are there, not to receive punishment for their misdeeds, for their guilt has not yet been established. They are there because it has been deemed necessary to incarcerate them to insure their presence at trial. Thus, they are entitled to the least restrictive alternatives consistent with the purpose of their incarceration. Brenneman v. Madigan, 343 F.Supp. 128, 138 (N.D.Cal.1972).

We now deal with the specific complaints.

Inadequacy of Cell Space. The jail normally confines more than five thousand inmates, a majority of whom occupy cells designed to hold four, six or eight men. The plaintiffs complain that these cells are impermissibly small in that they contain less than 25 square feet of floor space for each man, and that the larger part of this space is taken up by the bunks and toilet. The plaintiffs point out that such cell space is far less than the 40 square feet per inmate prescribed as a minimum by the California Minimum Jail Standards, 15 Cal. Adm.Code § 1081(d), and that several published judicial opinions have considered comparable, or even larger, space to be constitutionally inadequate. See, e. g., Detainees of Brooklyn H. of Det. for Men v. Malcolm, 520 F.2d 392, 398 (2d Cir. 1975) (20 square feet); Moore v. Janing, 427 F.Supp. 567, 572 (D.Neb.1976) (20 square feet); Inmates of Suffolk County Jail v. Eisenstadt, 360 F.Supp. 676, 679 (D.Mass.1973); aff'd on other grounds, 494 F.2d 1196 (1st Cir. 1974), cert. denied 419 U.S. 977, 95 S.Ct. 239, 42 L.Ed.2d 189 (1974); aff'd on other grounds, 518 F.2d 1241 (1st Cir. 1975) (44 square feet). In Gates v. Collier, 390 F.Supp. 482, 486 (N.D.Miss.1975), aff'd on other grounds, 525 F.2d 965 (5th Cir. 1976), Chief Judge Keady stated that "we know from the undisputed evidence that generally accepted correctional standards require a minimum of 50 square feet of living area for every prison inmate."

Both from the testimony at the trial and from my personal inspection of the cell rows in the course of the September 23, 1977 visit, it is apparent to the court that the multiple occupancy cells in both the "old" and new sections of the jail and the general atmosphere in which they are located present poor examples of the civilized standards and concepts of dignity, humanity and decency to which Justice Blackmun made reference in Jackson v. Bishop, supra. The cells are much like those in the Hall of Justice Jail, as I pointed out in Dillard v. Pitchess, 399 F.Supp. 1225 (C.D.Cal.1975), a case in which the living conditions there were held to be intolerable. However, the opinion in that case made a significant comparison. Hall of Justice inmates were confined in their cells almost constantly. By contrast,

". . . inmates at the Central Jail have several advantages not available to Hall of Justice prisoners, the most important of which are that they take their meals in a dining room and have daily use of shower rooms located at the ends of the cell modules. Also, one of several day rooms is frequently available to Central Jail prisoners, where they may sit at tables and play games or write or talk. A chapel that will

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