Grimes, In re

• Decision Date: 22 March 1989
• Docket Number: No. A040219,A040219
• Citation: 208 Cal.App.3d 1175,256 Cal.Rptr. 690
• Court: California Court of Appeals Court of Appeals
• Parties: In re Ron GRIMES on Habeas Corpus.

Page 690

256 Cal.Rptr. 690

208 Cal.App.3d 1175

In re Ron GRIMES on Habeas Corpus.

No. A040219.

Court of Appeal, First District, Division 1, California.

March 22, 1989.

So'Hum Law Center of Richard Jay Moller, Redway, for respondent.

Robert D. Curiel, County Counsel, William J. Losh, Jr., Deputy County Counsel, Eureka, for appellant.

NEWSOM, Associate Justice.

Respondent, together with other inmates at the Humboldt County Jail, filed a petition for writ of habeas corpus, claiming that appellant violated his constitutional rights by replacing direct dial pay telephones in the jail with collect-only telephones. ¹ The essence of respondent's complaint is that the public defender's office and some private attorneys and other county offices refused to accept collect calls from jail inmates, thereby compromising his access to counsel and the courts.

After several hearings were conducted at which evidence was taken, including petitions, returns, denials, and argument of counsel, the trial court ordered appellant to install and maintain a special telephone line directly connecting the Humboldt County Jail and the Humboldt County Public Defender's office for use by respondent and fellow inmates at the jail without cost. The facts pertinent to this appeal are as follows.

The Humboldt County Jail (hereafter the jail) formerly employed a coin-operated pay telephone system for use by the inmates. The jail administration and the telephone company, however, perceived abuses with this system. Pacific Bell objected to the costs associated with coin-operated telephones, which were expensive to manufacture and supply, required that a coin collector periodically visit the jail to empty the coin boxes, and resulted in lost revenue due to fraudulent and uncollected charges. The administration of the jail cited several disadvantages to the pay phone system: the use and circulation of coins in the jail presented disciplinary problems; the telephone coin boxes were a potential target of criminal activity; a correctional officer was required to accompany the coin-box collector, which infringed upon regular staff duties; the pay telephones were occasionally used by inmates to harass or threaten crime victims or witnesses; and, inmates sometimes received illicit calls from outside the jail.

Pacific Bell proposed installation of collect-only telephones in the jail, a less expensive system designed to eliminate many of the abuses of the coin operated telephones by allowing only collect calls by the inmates. By the time respondent filed his petition, nearly all of the coin operated telephones had been replaced by collect-only telephones.

Soon after the collect-only telephone system was implemented, the inmates discovered that the public defender's office, other county departments, and a few private attorneys typically do not accept collect calls. In Humboldt County, the public defender's office represents approximately 80 percent of the inmates at the jail. The jail population fluctuates, but averages nearly 200 inmates.

The cost of a local collect call to the public defender's office from the jail is $1.19 for the first three minutes. Testimony was received that the public defender's office would receive "[a]nywhere from ten to twenty calls a day" from its client inmates at the jail at a cost of twenty to thirty dollars a day, if it accepted collect calls. Such an expense would be quite burdensome for the budget of the public defender's office.

In contrast, the cost of Pacific Bell's Centrex telephone system costs $120 to purchase, $40 to install, and $23 per month as a service charge for the single line from the jail to the public defender's officer.

Attorneys from the public defender's office are permitted to visit their clients in the jail from 8:30 a.m. to 10:30 a.m., and from 12:30 p.m. to 2:30 p.m. These are "prime time court hours," so, according to the evidence, the combination of inconvenient visiting hours and lack of telephone access under the collect-only system has been "obviously detrimental to [the office's] ability to adequately represent clients."

Appellant argued at the hearing, but did not prove, that a free access line to the public defender's office would require use of correctional officers to escort inmates to the telephone, creating an "unconscionable burden" on the jail staff.

Appellant argues that the trial court erred by requiring installation and maintenance of a toll-free line from the jail to the public defender's office for use by inmates. It is appellant's position that the collect-only telephone system provides jail inmates with "reasonable access" to telephone communication as required by law. Any denial, claims appellant, of inmates' rights to consult with their attorneys is attributable to the public defender's refusal to accept collect calls and not to the jail's telephone system.

Reliance is placed by appellant on the rule that in monitoring prison operations and reforms the courts must exercise restraint and defer to the prison administrators " 'in the adoption and execution of policies and practices that in their judgment are needed to preserve internal order ... and to maintain institutional security.' " (Block v. Rutherford (1984) 468 U.S. 576, 585, 104 S.Ct. 3227, 3232, 82 L.Ed.2d 438; Bell v. Wolfish (1979) 441 U.S. 520, 547-548, 99 S.Ct. 1861, 1878-1879, 60 L.Ed.2d 447; Bradshaw v. Duffy (1980) 104 Cal.App.3d 475, 483, 163 Cal.Rptr. 559.) "Courts are properly reluctant to interfere with prison administration, given the manifold factual difficulties inherent in that task." (Ibid.) " 'The function of a court is limited to determining whether a constitutional violation has occurred, and to fashioning a remedy that does no more and no less than correct that particular constitutional violation....' " (Wilson v. Superior Court (1987) 194 Cal.App.3d 1259, 1269, 240 Cal.Rptr. 131.)

"But the deference to which prison administrators are ordinarily entitled has never been construed as requiring judicial abstention...." (In re Parker (1984) 151 Cal.App.3d 583, 590, 198 Cal.Rptr. 796; see also In re Gallego (1982) 133 Cal.App.3d 75, 81, 183 Cal.Rptr. 715.) "[P]rison administrators are in the best position to control inmates but this control cannot violate statutory or constitutional rights." (In re Jordan (1972) 7 Cal.3d 930, 934, 103 Cal.Rptr. 849, 500 P.2d 873; In re Parker, supra, 151 Cal.App.3d at p. 589, 198 Cal.Rptr. 796.) Thus, the courts' traditional deference to administrative expertise in prison matters does not foreclose judicial intervention to remedy statutory or constitutional violations. (In re Jordan, supra, 7 Cal.3d at p. 934, 103 Cal.Rptr. 849, 500 P.2d 873; Inmates of Sybil Brand Institute for Women v. County of Los Angeles (1982) 130 Cal.App.3d 89, 101, 181 Cal.Rptr. 599.)

The United States Supreme Court has declared that "prisoners do not forfeit all constitutional protections by reason of their conviction and confinement in prison." (Bell v. Wolfish, supra, 441 U.S. 520, 545, 99 S.Ct. 1861, 1877; see also Jones v. North Carolina Prisoners' Labor Union (1977) 433 U.S. 119, 129, 97 S.Ct. 2532, 2539, 53 L.Ed.2d 629.) "Lawful imprisonment necessarily makes unavailable many rights and privileges of the ordinary citizen, a 'retraction justified by the considerations underlying our penal system.' Price v. Johnston, 334 U.S. 266, 285 [68 S.Ct. 1049, 1060, 92 L.Ed. 1356] (1948). But though his rights may be diminished by the needs and exigencies of the institutional environment, a prisoner is not wholly stripped of constitutional protections when he is imprisoned for crime." (Wolff v. McDonnell (1974) 418 U.S. 539, 555, 94 S.Ct. 2963, 2974, 41 L.Ed.2d 935.) Thus, there must be " 'mutual accommodation between institutional needs and objectives and the provisions of the Constitution that are of general application.' " (Bell v. Wolfish, supra, 441 U.S. at p. 546, 99 S.Ct. at p. 1878; Wolff v. McDonnell, supra, 418 U.S. 539, 556, 94 S.Ct. 2963, 2975.)

California law essentially parallels the federal, but adds specific statutory protections to prisoners' constitutional rights. "We have, in this state, 'long since abandoned the medieval concept of strict "civil death" and have replaced it with statutory provisions seeking to insure that the civil rights of those convicted of crime be limited only in accordance with legitimate penal objectives.' " (In re Van Geldern (1971) 5 Cal.3d 832, 836, 97 Cal.Rptr. 698, 489 P.2d 578; see also In re Harrell (1970) 2 Cal.3d 675, 702, 87 Cal.Rptr. 504, 470 P.2d 640, cert. den., 401 U.S. 914, 91 S.Ct. 890, 27 L.Ed.2d 814.) While prisoners, as a necessary corollary of prison life, forfeit certain rights and privileges enjoyed by the general populace, they retain " 'those basic rights which are not incompatible with the running of the penal institution.' " (Payne v. Superior Court (1976) 17 Cal.3d 908, 913, 132 Cal.Rptr. 405, 553 P.2d 565.) Deprivation of a prisoner's rights or privileges requires penalogical objections. (People v. Estrada (1979) 93 Cal.App.3d 76, 99, 155 Cal.Rptr. 731.)

The Penal Code ² provides statutory affirmation for those constitutional rights retained by prisoners. Section 2600 declares that prisons may deny prisoners only certain civil rights; it provides: "A person sentenced to imprisonment in a state prison may, during any such period of confinement, be deprived of such rights, and only such rights, as is necessary in order to provide for the reasonable security of the institution in which he is confined and for the reasonable protection of the public." Under subdivision 2 of section 2600, prisoners are specifically granted the right to " 'correspond, confidentially, with any member of the State Bar, or holder of public office....' " (In re Jordan, supra, 7 Cal.3d 930, 935, 103 Cal.Rptr. 849, 500 P.2d 873.) ³ Although on its face section 2600 applies only to those confined in state prisons, our high court has...