Gates v. Collier, GC 71-6-K.

• Decision Date: 19 November 1976
• Docket Number: No. GC 71-6-K.,GC 71-6-K.
• Citation: 423 F. Supp. 732
• Parties: Nazareth GATES et al., Plaintiffs, v. John COLLIER et al., Defendants.
• Court: U.S. District Court — Northern District of Mississippi

423 F. Supp. 732

Nazareth GATES et al., Plaintiffs, v. John COLLIER et al., Defendants.

No. GC 71-6-K.

United States District Court, N. D. Mississippi, Greenville Division.

November 19, 1976.

Ronald Welch, Jackson, Miss., Shawn F. Moore, Justice Dept., Washington, D.C., for plaintiffs.

Roger Googe, Asst. Atty. Gen., Jackson, Miss., for defendants.

MEMORANDUM OPINION

KEADY, Chief Judge.

In supplemental proceedings since October 31, 1975, the date of our last substantive decision dealing with the Mississippi State Penitentiary, Gates v. Collier, 407 F.Supp. 1117 (N.D.Miss.1975), this court has issued a series of orders and conducted several hearings addressed primarily to (a) establishing a timetable for eliminating inmate housing units unfit for human habitation and constitutionally condemned, and (b) mandating a ceiling on inmate population of the remaining housing units to avoid constitutionally intolerable overcrowding of inmates.

On June 7, 1976, this court, taking judicial notice of statutes passed by the Mississippi Legislature at the 1976 Regular Session,¹ deemed it to be in the interest of justice to proceed forthwith to issue supplemental orders and provide instructions designed to carry out this court's mandate of August 7, 1975.² This action was taken by us despite an appeal prosecuted to the Fifth Circuit by counsel for the prison inmates and United States Department of Justice from the August 7, 1975 order because of dissatisfaction with our action in not earlier closing the six designated camps. The defendants³ were directed to prepare and submit a plan of implementing the court's August 7, 1975 order taking into account the closing of Camps 4 and B as of July 1, 1976,⁴ as well as the January 1, 1977 closing of Camps 10B and 11, and providing for the establishment of an inmate population to be accorded 50 square feet of living space per inmate by January 1, 1977. Defendants' plans for population reduction were ordered to be filed not later than July 9, 1976, with copies served upon counsel opposite, who were permitted to file objections to such plans.⁵

By their plan defendants represented that the allowable population based on the 50 square foot formula would be 2214, as of January 1, 1977.⁶ Defendants' projected total inmate population as of January 1, was to be 2619, taking into account the current rate of increase of 20 new inmates per month in excess of those discharged. By their plan defendants estimated that 400 inmates would be discharged under the "early release" program authorized by § 79 of the Mississippi Corrections Act of 1976, with inmates to be processed for such release at the rate of 25 in July, 100 in August, 150 in September, 75 in October, and 25 in November. The plan did forecast that variables might result during the last half of the calendar year as the result of "proposed variance such as interview rate of the releasees during the gearing up months of July and August, 1976." The plan emphasized that the early releasees would not include the number to be released on work release or on regular parole, and anticipated that these methods of reduction, plus reduced intake due to nonincarcerating-type sentences, would by January 1, 1977, bring the projected population to 2129, or well within the allowable maximum. Counsel for plaintiffs and the Department of Justice vigorously contested the projections.

AUGUST 16 HEARING

The uncontradicted testimony was that on July 15, two new 162-man housing units opened to provide a total of 324 bed spaces; by July 31, 1976, Camps 4 and B were closed, deleting 302 bed spaces, yielding a net gain of 22 bed spaces. During August, a new medium security facility was completed providing 192 bed spaces for single-cell occupancy. The new reception center, formerly the women's camp, was renovated and practically ready for occupancy, thus providing 105 bed spaces, but this will be more than offset by the closing of Camps 10B and 11 with the elimination of 297 beds. However, it is significant that about to be started with appropriated available funds and completed construction scheduled for March 1977 are two new medium security units, already designated as Camps 25 and 26, which will add 384 additional beds.⁷

It should be noted that the State Legislature in 1976 did appropriate three and one-half million dollars for the construction of a new medical-dental facility, thus endeavoring to correct a gross constitutional shortcoming. Bids for this facility are to be received from contractors this fall with the construction time, of course, extending over a period of many months.

Dr. MacDougall, in explanation of the population reduction plan, testified that in addition to the work release program, parole program, and the early release program, alternative plans under consideration would be (a) to vest the Commissioner of Corrections with the decision-making power on work release instead of the Parole Board, (b) to place inmates in county jails around the state, if necessary, since he had ascertained that more than 450 beds were so available, and (c) the use of the Governor's power to suspend sentences. In MacDougall's view, the last three mentioned alternatives were regarded as "cushions" to fall back on only if problems were encountered with the functioning of the other portions of the reduction program. (Tr. 14).

MacDougall, whose credentials as an experienced correctional official in the States of Georgia, South Carolina, and Connecticut are of the highest order, testified that he had also met with approximately 20 state circuit judges and some 15 to 20 district attorneys to explain to them "problems at Parchman that we face, not only the physical plant, but the general conditions there, but also of the mandate to meet the court's order by January 1 of 1977. And in enlisting their support and aid in helping me meet that order and to look at how we could have a better system in the future." (Tr. 23). MacDougall emphasized the importance of presentence investigation reports prepared by qualified investigators and timely made available to the sentencing judges as an aid for ameliorating the overcrowded conditions at Parchman. He based this, concededly, on the assumption that some institutional sentences might be shortened, and probation and noninstitutional sentences more generously used by state judges having access to more comprehensive information about the offender at the time of sentencing.

On cross-examination, MacDougall acknowledged that under the work release program no inmate may be released in any county in Mississippi until the county sheriff and senior circuit judge have been notified in writing 30 days prior to release, in which event objection from those officials or district attorney would block the release to that county. Section 77, Mississippi Corrections Act. It was also undisputed that available county jail bed spaces could be used by the Corrections Department as a place for confining convicted felons only upon the Commissioner's first obtaining consent of the local jail authorities and fully reimbursing them for all costs incurred by such confinement. Section 74, Mississippi Corrections Act.

MacDougall testified that the information which had been developed at the penitentiary revealed that 730 offenders were entitled to receive a one-year reduction in eligibility for parole, and thus qualify for release under the "early release program" but he had to acknowledge that under the new Act the Parole Board, and not he, decides who may be released under the early release program. Section 80 of the new Act explicitly provides that the State Parole Board "shall have exclusive responsibility for the granting of parole" of any type. The official also acknowledged that only 46 probation and parole officers are presently employed by the Corrections Department, and they have supervision responsibility through parole or probation of 2400 people. The average caseload for such an officer might vary, he opined, from 35 to 130 (Tr. 43-44), but he was hopeful of receiving funds with which to begin a program of volunteer probation officers.⁸

Dr. MacDougall candidly stated that dormitory-type facilities at a penal institution were undesirable in that they posed problems of dangers to inmate assaults by inmates as well as to staff. He was quite frank to say, in answer to the court's question, that with the housing presently existing at Parchman, there was inadequate civilian security personnel to maintain order in these dormitories. He was of the opinion that to properly do so, "it would require that we have officers assigned to each dormitory, especially during the hours that the inmates are in there. At this point we don't have enough officers to maintain that kind of security in these facilities, . . . we will usually have one or two officers on duty in the halls in the evening hours. The optimum is that we would have one officer in the hall and one in each dormitory in each facility." (Tr. 64-65) (Emphasis added).⁹

As regards the early release program, identifying inmates potentially subject to such early release, prison officials had screened 730 inmates to determine that 100 would have jobs upon release. No inmates, however, were released in July on early release, contrary to the defendants' original projection of 25. The penitentiary officials recommended 41 to the Parole Board at its August 13 meeting. Of that number, the Parole Board in August saw fit to grant early releases to 22, in contrast to MacDougall's expectation of 100 for that month. It did appear, however, that prison officials had processed an additional 30 inmates for early consideration by the Parole Board at its next meeting.

These facts caused the court, in an informal bench ruling (Tr. 166-170, 171-172) to express considerable doubt that defendants' plan, though commendable in many respects, might be realistically expected to attain its year-end goal. It...