Alberti v. Sheriff of Harris County, Texas

• Decision Date: 16 December 1975
• Docket Number: Civ. A. No. 72-H-1094.
• Citation: 406 F. Supp. 649
• Parties: Lawrence R. ALBERTI et al., Plaintiffs, v. The SHERIFF OF HARRIS COUNTY, TEXAS, and the Commissioners Court of Harris County, Texas, Defendants.
• Court: U.S. District Court — Southern District of Texas

406 F. Supp. 649

Lawrence R. ALBERTI et al., Plaintiffs, v. The SHERIFF OF HARRIS COUNTY, TEXAS, and the Commissioners Court of Harris County, Texas, Defendants.

Civ. A. No. 72-H-1094.

United States District Court, S. D. Texas, Houston Division.

December 16, 1975.

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James T. Oitzinger, Gerald M. Birnberg, Houston, Tex., for plaintiffs.

Joe Resweber, County Atty., Edward J. Landry and Anthony D. Sheppard, Asst. County Attys., for defendant Commissioners Court.

Carol S. Vance, Dist. Atty., Joe Moss, Asst. Dist. Atty., Houston, Tex., for defendant sheriff.

MEMORANDUM AND OPINION

CARL O. BUE, Jr., District Judge.

I. INTRODUCTION

Severe and inhumane overcrowding of inmates presently exists at Harris County detention facilities. This overcrowding occurs in violation of the law and according to the record costs the taxpayers of Harris County over $1,500,000 annually in unnecessary detention.

The Court here takes an initial step to stimulate efforts to remedy overcrowding by promulgating in this Order broad guidelines within which defendants are to maintain an administrative mechanism designed to reduce the inmate population at these facilities. Such maintenance will be coordinated with efforts to streamline the criminal justice system and will be conducted in consonance with the following adjustments to the administration of the Harris County Pre-Trial Release Program: operational control of the Harris County Pre-Trial Release Agency will be transferred to the state District Judges of Harris County; an objective point system of evaluation designed by the District Judges will be utilized in determining eligibility for pretrial release; and coordination efforts will be made with City of Houston officials to install a branch office of the Pre-Trial Release Agency in the Houston Municipal Courts Building and interview space for the agency in the Houston City Jail. Defendants will additionally take appropriate steps immediately to improve living conditions for those who must remain incarcerated in county detention facilities.

The factors which prompted this Court to order the above changes are hereafter set out in detail. To provide the necessary perspective, the Court prefaces its statement of findings with a brief recitation of the background of this lawsuit and the evidence upon which the findings are based.

II. BACKGROUND OF THIS ORDER

Plaintiffs filed suit in this Court on August 14, 1972, against members of the Harris County Commissioners Court ("Commissioners Court") and the Harris County Sheriff's Department, alleging numerous violations of their constitutional and statutory rights as the result of defendants' operation and maintenance of county detention facilities.

A. The Consent Judgment and the May 1 Plan

On February 4, 1975, counsel signed, and this Court approved, a Consent Judgment by which defendants generally agreed to bring presently existing facilities and operations into compliance with federal and state standards. See U.S. Const. Amends. I, V, VI, VIII, XIV; Tex.Rev.Civ.Stat.Ann. art. 5115. Pursuant to the requirements of the Consent Judgment, the defendants have submitted periodic reports on current conditions and future proposals for improvement of the county detention facilities, including a plan submitted on May 1, 1975, ("May 1 Plan") by the defendant Harris County Commissioners Court for construction and renovation of those facilities. To implement this plan, the Commissioners Court scheduled a bond election to be held on Saturday, September 27, 1975, and included a proposal on the ballot to approve the raising of bond revenues in the amount of $15,000,000, the figure projected by the Commissioners Court to represent the total dollar expenditure necessary for the Plan.

B. The September 16 Hearing and Jail Tour

In August, 1975, plaintiffs filed a motion for supplemental relief under the Consent Judgment contending that defendants' submitted proposals were not satisfying the tenor or substance of the Consent Judgment. Plaintiffs seriously challenged the integrity of both the total cost estimate and architectural soundness of the May 1 Plan. From the skeletal outline of jail administration provided in information then available, the Court recognized that multiple, interrelated factors contributed to overcrowding and substandard conditions at the jail, and that defendants' efforts should be measured with full appreciation of these factors. However, the Court realized that its ability to evaluate the appropriate breadth and depth of these factors was hampered by lack of data. The Court did not have sufficient evidence to ascertain whether defendants were complying fully with the mandate of the Consent Judgment.

Accordingly, on August 29, 1975, the Court ordered a hearing to be held on September 16, 1975, to permit the Court: to assess existing conditions at county detention facilities and the causes for those conditions, and to assess defendants' efforts to remedy those conditions since the entry of the Consent Judgment. See Order of the Court (August 29, 1975).

Commencing September 16, the Court heard extensive testimony on a variety of related subjects for six days. Then, on September 24, 1975, the Court toured the subject detention facilities, as well as the downtown detention facility of the City of Houston.

C. Results of the September 16 Hearing: The Need to Correct Problems in "Stages"

As this Court recognized in its August 29 Order, complex interrelated factors combine to affect adversely the quality of life for jail inmates. Only an integrated, stage-by-stage approach can combat effectively this combined force and reverse the present trend of deterioration. The Court will therefore address the focal problem of overcrowding in "stages". Defendants' efforts at each stage will establish a base upon which to administer those programs in a continuing fashion while providing the foundation for efforts at the next higher stage.

The stage-by-stage approach is also the most feasible alternative from an economic standpoint. Stated simply, it does not make good business sense to build or renovate a detention facility at this stage until it is known how many inmates necessarily must be housed. This cannot be intelligently known until a sound Pre-Trial Release Program and related operational procedures have been fashioned, placed in operation and then accurately evaluated in terms of projected jail population. As local government officials in other metropolitan areas have discovered, spending additional money on pre-trial release procedures to reduce the jail population during these early stages produces substantial savings in construction and maintenance costs for physical facilities and in housing costs for the inmate population.

D. The First Judicial Stage: Propriety of the May 1 Plan

Because of the impending September 27 bond election, the first such judicial "stage" — whether defendants properly evaluated the construction and renovation needs of the detention facilities — was quickly reached by the Court after the conclusion of the hearing. On September 25, 1975, this Court entered an Order which described the shortcomings and overall unacceptability of the May 1 Plan: the Plan did not comport with the Consent Judgment nor the requirements of applicable law; the Plan was incomplete, and many proposed changes lacked definitive architectural design; the Plan's cost estimate did not properly reflect the impact of inflation on such an estimate over the life of the building project, approximately four to five years; and even adopting the most optimistic view of inflationary trends, the estimated total cost of the Plan — $15,000,000—was inadequate to fund construction of a facility capable of fulfilling the bare essential needs of the projected number of inmates and those charged with the responsibility for housing them.

Thus, to ensure that Harris County voters were adequately informed in advance of the Plan's shortcomings, this Court ruled that the Plan was inadequate both as to estimated total cost and overall design. A properly constituted and administered bond election was thereafter conducted on September 27, 1975, and the electorate authorized the expenditure of $15,000,000 for jail construction and renovation. This money is currently viewed as a downpayment for facilities to be built from plans to be drawn up and submitted by defendants to this Court for approval at a later stage.

III. PRESENT AND FUTURE JUDICIAL STAGES

A. The Second Judicial Stage

This second Order in a series of orders about the jails will concentrate upon improving the operation of the Pre-Trial Release Program, streamlining other criminal justice procedures and improving the deplorable conditions in county detention facilities, especially at the downtown jail.

In this second judicial stage, the Court will recite hereafter in this Opinion findings of fact based on evidence introduced at the September 16 hearing and then state conclusions of law as to: (a) the standards to which defendants' remedial efforts must conform; and (b) the duties and responsibilities the defendants have for proper maintenance and operation of county detention facilities.

Finally, the Court will order defendants to remedy certain problems and institute procedures to decrease the jail population while improving the quality of jail life. Thereafter, in appendices which follow the Order, the Court will point up as a consequence of the evidence forthcoming at the September 16 hearing several means of implementing these guidelines to illustrate potential alternative approaches aimed at alleviating the multiple problems at the jails.

B. The Third Judicial Stage

The third judicial stage for bringing operation of the jails into compliance with the law will be considered at an appropriate time after six months have elapsed from the date of this...