Jones v. Wittenberg

• Decision Date: 17 February 1971
• Docket Number: No. C70-388.,C70-388.
• Citation: 323 F. Supp. 93
• Parties: Charles JONES et al., Plaintiffs, v. Sol WITTENBERG, etc., et al., Defendants.
• Court: U.S. District Court — Northern District of Ohio

323 F. Supp. 93

Charles JONES et al., Plaintiffs, v. Sol WITTENBERG, etc., et al., Defendants.

No. C70-388.

United States District Court, N. D. Ohio, W. D.

February 17, 1971.

COPYRIGHT MATERIAL OMITTED

Advocates for Basic Legal Equality, Inc., Toledo, Ohio, Merritt W. Green, R. Michael Frank, Frank S. Merritt, Gerald B. Lackey, Marshall R. Desmond, Toledo, Ohio, for plaintiffs; Stanley A. Bass, New York City, of counsel.

Francis X. Gorman, Toledo, Ohio, for Charles Jones.

Prosecutor's Office of Lucas County, Ohio, Anthony Pizza and John Hayward, Toledo, Ohio, for defendants County Commissioners, Sheriff and Roberts.

Willard A. Johnson, City Law Dept., Toledo, Ohio, for defendant Wright.

MEMORANDUM

DON J. YOUNG, District Judge.

This action was commenced by a number of prisoners in the Lucas County Jail, on behalf of themselves individually and as representing a class of persons who either are or may be confined to this facility. The defendants are the three members of the Lucas County Board of County Commissioners, the Lucas County Sheriff, a person designated as keeper of the Lucas County Jail, and the Superintendent of Plumbing and Chief Plumbing Inspector of the City of Toledo, Ohio, the municipal corporation wherein the Lucas County Jail is located.

The complaint alleges that the action is brought under Title 42 U.S.C. § 1983 and Title 28 U.S.C. § 2201, and alleges that this Court has jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. §§ 1331, 1343(3) and (4), 1361, 2201; Title 42 U.S.C. §§ 1981 and 1983; Rule 46(h) Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure; and the inherent power of the Court to supervise conditions of pre-trial detention.

The complaint seeks both injunctive and declaratory relief.

A motion for a preliminary injunction was filed and an informal hearing was had, at which some minor relief was agreed upon by the parties, and the hearing was continued to a date fixed. At the second hearing, the Court ordered that the matter be heard upon the merits at an early date, the trial to concern itself first with the questions of the Court's jurisdiction and the plaintiffs' rights, with a subsequent hearing on the relief to be granted should the first hearing disclose that the Court had jurisdiction and that the petitioners' rights were being violated.

Thereafter, answers were filed by the various defendants in the form of general denials. A pre-trial conference was held, and on February 10, 1971, the matter came on for a trial which lasted the greater part of two days.

The trial revealed little dispute about the factual basis of the action.

The evidence disclosed that the Lucas County Jail was originally constructed in the last decade of the Nineteenth Century, and is presently about seventy-six years old. It was designed to hold about one hundred fifty prisoners. The prisoners were to be held in two-man cells each six by nine feet in floor area, equipped with two bunks, toilet, and sink with running cold water. The cells are arranged in one large and two small groups on each of three floors of the jail, and were designed with a remote control locking system so that each individual cell could be locked. This locking system has become badly worn, and functions erratically or not at all. Each group of cells opens into an enclosed area, called a bull-pen. The sizes of the bull-pens vary with the number of cells opening into them. Corridors surround the cell-blocks and bull-pens. There is no ventilation or illumination in either the cells or bull-pens. There is some light in the corridors from electric lights and windows, and some air gets into the corridors when the windows are opened or broken. Some of the windows cannot be opened, and broken windows are not repaired promptly, if at all. In each cell-block, one of the original cells has been converted to a rather primitive shower arrangement, but because of the antiquated plumbing, variations in water pressure make it impossible to control the water temperature in the showers. They sometimes become scalding hot.

Not all of the toilets in the cells work. The soil pipes and waste pipes leak, and the leakage runs upon the floor, which causes problems for those prisoners who, for lack of bunks, are required to sleep on the floor.

Presently the jail holds a population which averages above two hundred prisoners, and has risen at times as high as two hundred seventy-two. About three-quarters of the prisoners are held in pre-trial detention because of their inability to make bond, or because they are held on non-bailable charges. The other prisoners are serving sentences imposed as a result of their convictions for violations of laws, usually misdemeanors.

The prisoners, with the exception of a few trusties, are not furnished with clothing, and there are no facilities for washing their clothing. A few used, and frequently inoperable, washing machines are scattered about the jail, but prisoners have no access to them.

When a prisoner enters the jail he is given a towel, which is replaced by a clean one once a week; a blanket, which may or may not have been washed before it was issued; usually, but not always, a mattress, which often consists of a small piece of foam rubber an inch and a half thick, two feet wide, and from four to six feet long. While bunks have been added so that the cells now hold as many as four bunks, bunks are sometimes placed in the bull-pens, and prisoners frequently sleep on the floor, either in the bull-pens or underneath the bunks in the cells. The prisoners are supposed to be furnished with shaving materials three times a week, but in practice this only happens twice a week, and rarely includes the use of a mirror. The testimony indicated that because of breakage, there were only two mirrors left for the use of the entire population of the jail.

The food for the prisoners is prepared in a kitchen in the basement of the jail. This has recently been improved somewhat by the addition of some donated cooking equipment, but the dishwashing equipment does not meet health standards, as there is no provision for "sanitizing" the dishes after washing and rinsing, which is done by hand. The food storage is not completely adequate or in accordance with health regulations. There is no proper ventilation in the kitchen, and in some of the food handling areas the ceiling is transversed by sewer and water pipes which leak, sweat, or both, onto the floor. The facilities for serving the food are primitive, and result in hot foods cooling and cold foods warming before they are served.

The diet is based on menus which were originally prepared by one of the technical schools in the area, but which are not carefully followed. Because food is not directly purchased by the jail staff, but through the county purchasing department, the planned menus frequently have to be changed because the necessary food supplies were not delivered in time. A study of the meals actually served revealed that they were generally inadequate both in quality and quantity. Certain nutritional elements are seldom provided. On rare occasions, the quantity reaches the minimum level of two thousand calories per day, but it sometimes falls as low as fourteen hundred calories. It never reaches the high edge of average daily requirement for sedentary men, twenty-four hundred calories.

Visitation is very highly limited. Prisoners are permitted visits only on Saturday afternoons from one to four o'clock p. m. Visits by children under eighteen are not permitted. All visits must be conducted by conversing through the heavy screening of the cell-blocks, with both parties standing, usually in groups of as many as three prisoners at a time. There is no semblance of any privacy. Trusties have somewhat greater visiting privileges. The facilities for visitation by attorneys consists of a small cage enclosed by chain link fence, and located adjacent to the guard's desk, on each floor. No privacy of consultation is possible. There are no telephones, and prisoners are permitted to make calls only at the time they first enter the jail, when they are permitted to call family or counsel. However, if they do not succeed in making contact with anyone at this time, they get no further opportunity.

There are few guards. Supposedly a guard is on duty on each floor twenty-four hours a day. Actually, however, due to absence of members of the guard staff, frequently there will be only one or two guards on duty. There are no means for prisoners to summon a guard, except to make a noise which may or may not be heard. From the guard station it is impossible to see into some of the cell-blocks, and, because of the lack of illumination, difficult to see into the others.

There is no attempt to classify or segregate the prisoners in the jail. Trusties, who are selected from among the sentenced prisoners, have separate quarters. Prisoners charged with murder or manslaughter are generally kept in a single cell-block, and there is one cell-block and some slightly better quarters for the women prisoners. Other than this, persons detained waiting trial and convicts serving sentences, old and young, are mingled indiscriminately.

Health facilities are primitive. A nurse is on duty in the daytime, who supervises the prisoners' medication. There is a jail physician who comes two or three afternoons a week, and is on call at other times, but often cannot be reached. A dentist comes sometimes, but only does extractions. There is no infirmary for prisoners who are ill, and only two small offices or examining rooms, with little or no equipment, for use by nurse, doctor and dentist. If a prisoner is ill enough, he may be removed to one of the local hospitals.

There are no facilities or personnel for social services, exercise, recreation, reading, rehabilitation, or any other human resources to meet human needs.

Discipline is enforced by confinement in one of two cells in the basement of the jail. These cells are of masonry...