Inmates of Suffolk County Jail v. Eisenstadt, No. 75-1116

• Decision Date: 17 July 1975
• Docket Number: No. 75-1116
• Citation: 518 F.2d 1241
• Parties: INMATES OF the SUFFOLK COUNTY JAIL et al., Plaintiffs, Appellees, v. Thomas S. EISENSTADT et al., Defendants, Appellees, Kevin H. White et al., Defendants, Appellants.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — First Circuit

Page 1241

518 F.2d 1241

INMATES OF the SUFFOLK COUNTY JAIL et al., Plaintiffs, Appellees, v. Thomas S. EISENSTADT et al., Defendants, Appellees, Kevin H. White et al., Defendants, Appellants.

No. 75-1116.

United States Court of Appeals, First Circuit.

July 17, 1975.

Kevin F. Moloney, Asst. Corp. Counsel, Boston, Mass., with whom Kenneth Mickiewicz, Asst. Corp. Counsel, Boston, Mass., was on brief, for Kevin H. White and the nine Boston City Councillors, appellants.

Max D. Stern, Boston, Mass., with whom Burnham, Stern & Shapiro, Boston, Mass., Stanley A. Bass and Jack Greenberg, New York City, were on brief, for the Inmates of the Suffolk County Jail and others, appellees.

Before COFFIN, Chief Judge, McENTEE and CAMPBELL, Circuit Judges.

McENTEE, Circuit Judge.

On June 20, 1973, the Massachusetts District Court ruled that conditions at the Suffolk County Jail, also known as the Charles Street Jail, violated the prisoners' civil rights. Inmates of Suffolk County Jail v. Eisenstadt, 360 F.Supp. 676 (D.Mass.1973). As interim relief the court ordered that no cell contain more than one inmate awaiting trial. Id. at 691. To ensure compliance with its single cell occupancy order the court subsequently ordered certain prisonerhis order upon his appeal. Inmates of Suffolk County Jail v. Eisenstadt, 494 Fhis order upon his appeal. Inmates of Suffolk County Jail v. Eisenstadt, 494 F.2d 1196 (1st Cir.), cert. denied sub nom. Hall v. Inmates of Suffolk County Jail, 419 U.S. 977, 95 S.Ct. 239, 42 L.Ed.2d 189 (1974). Late in 1974 the Committee on Criminal Justice ("CCJ"), a state agency responsible for apportioning federal Law Enforcement Assistance Act funds among various projects, decided to discontinue funding for the Bail Appeal Project at the jail. Because of this action the Mayor of Boston and the nine Boston City Councillors ("city defendants") decided to terminate the program rather than fund it with city funds. Alleging that the court's single cell occupancy order was in danger of frustration because the project removed the need to house an average of 20 to 30 defendants awaiting trial, ¹ the plaintiffs, joined by Sheriff Eisenstadt and Jail Master Langlois ("county defendants"), moved for an order requiring the city defendants to continue the program. Appellees argued that elimination of the project would present the Hobson's choice of either violating the court order or randomly releasing inmates. After an informal hearing the court ordered the city defendants to continue the project. They appeal, claiming both that there was no clear and convincing showing that the ancillary order was necessary and that other feasible and less drastic alternatives existed. We affirm.

The appellants point to three characteristics of the instant order it is (1) a mandatory injunction (2) directed to public officers of an instrumentality of a state (3) requiring them to perpetuate a social program as providing ample reason for requiring the court to base its order on a "clear and convincing" showing of necessity. We agree that these factors are considerations that a court should weigh heavily in exercising its equitable powers, see Lemon v. Kurtzman, 411 U.S. 192, 208, 93 S.Ct. 1463, 36 L.Ed.2d 151 (1973), but we cannot agree that a court is powerless to act in the absence of a "clear and convincing showing" of necessity. The "clear and convincing evidence" standard governs various kinds of actions, e. g., to prove a charge of fraud or undue influence or to demonstrate mutual mistake so as to reform an instrument. See generally 9 J. Wigmore, Evidence § 2498 (3d ed. 1940, Supp. 1972). But we know of no principle requiring such a showing as a precondition to exercising equitable powers in the circumstances presented here. The appellants' argument confuses two entirely different questions. The first is the standard the district court should apply in determining whether to grant injunctive relief. We fully agree with the principles of circumspection cited to us by appellants as appropriate limitations on the district court's powers. See, e. g., Alabama Public Service Comm'n v. Southern Ry. Co., 341 U.S. 341, 349-50, 71 S.Ct. 762, 95 L.Ed. 1002 (1951); Fox v. City of West Palm Beach,383 F.2d 189, 194 (5th Cir. 1967). The second and distinct question is the standard the appellate court should invoke in reviewing the district court's decision. That standard is whether the district court abused its discretion in concluding to grant the relief sought by plaintiffs and county defendants. Deckert v. Independence Shares Corp., 311 U.S. 282, 290, 61 S.Ct. 229, 85 L.Ed. 189 (1940).

This question has two parts: did the court abuse its discretion in concluding that an ancillary order was needed to avoid frustration of its original order, and did it abuse its discretion in choosing the particular alternative it did rather than other proffered solutions. We consider these seriatim. Apparently there is no dispute that the jail was near capacity. Thus the crux of the matter is whether or not the imminent termination of the project could result in increasing jail occupancy by the alleged amount of 20 to 30 inmates. We observe that even though this proposition involved numbers, it was not easily susceptible of proof to a mathematical certainty. The plaintiffs' counsel offered the testimony of Jail Master Langlois to the effect that the project resulted in reducing cell demand by 20 to 30 persons, but the court accepted this representation without taking his testimony. Appellants now argue that had he testified their questioning would have cast doubt on the method by which the conclusion was reached. But they made no such specific objection at the time and neither took steps to call Langlois as their own witness nor urged that he be called so they could cross-examine him. Courts are entitled, within reason, to use fair, informal procedures in conjunction with remedial matters of this nature, and absent more specific objection we find no abuse of discretion here.

We are also not impressed with the alleged fallacy itself. The argument claims that the figure of 20 to 30 inmates came from subtracting the present average daily population of the jail from the average daily population before the project's inception in 1972. This allegedly ignored the reductive effect of the court's intervening order to transfer all females from the jail (20 to 25 females were involved), and the effect of decriminalizing drunkenness, for which an average of 50 inmates had been in the jail....