Molar v. Gates

• Decision Date: 23 October 1979
• Citation: 98 Cal.App.3d 1,159 Cal.Rptr. 239
• Court: California Court of Appeals Court of Appeals
• Parties: , 12 A.L.R.4th 1197 Barbara Dretzka MOLAR, etc., Plaintiff and Respondent, v. Brad GATES, Sheriff of Orange County, et al., Defendants and Appellants. Civ. 20517.

Page 239

159 Cal.Rptr. 239

98 Cal.App.3d 1, 12 A.L.R.4th 1197

Barbara Dretzka MOLAR, etc., Plaintiff and Respondent, v. Brad GATES, Sheriff of Orange County, et al., Defendants and Appellants.

Civ. 20517.

Court of Appeal, Fourth District, Division 2, California.

Oct. 23, 1979.

Adrian Kuyper, County Counsel, and Arthur C. Wahlstedt, Jr., Asst. County Counsel Santa Ana, for defendants and appellants

Lawrence Buckley and Donald J. Hobson, Santa Ana, for plaintiff and respondent.

OPINION

TAMURA, Associate Justice.

This appeal involves the constitutionality of the policy and practices pursued by the Sheriff and Board of Supervisors of Orange County of providing minimum security jail facilities with their attendant privileges, including outside work assignments, for male prisoners while denying such facilities and privileges to female inmates. The trial court decided that the practice was violative of the equal protection clauses of the state as well as the federal Constitutions and directed issuance of a peremptory writ of mandate commanding the sheriff and the board of supervisors (defendants) to end the discriminatory treatment of female inmates. Defendants appeal from the judgment.

Plaintiff, a female inmate serving a one-year sentence in the county jail, filed a petition for writ of mandate on behalf of herself and all other women who are now or in the future will be sentenced to the Orange County jail to require defendants (1) to permit female inmates to be housed and detained at minimum security branch jails now used exclusively to house male inmates; (2) to apply the same criteria to female applicants as are applied to male applicants in determining their eligibility for such housing; (3) to house female inmates who are eligible for minimum security detention at the minimum security branch jails; and (4) to permit female inmates housed at branch facilities to apply for, and be assigned to, available jobs on the same basis and under the same circumstances as male inmates. The court certified the suit as a proper class action and ordered defendants to show cause why they relief sought in the petition should not be granted.

Defendants answered and the matter was heard and submitted on the pleadings and oral and documentary evidence. The evidence reveals the following facts about the correctional facilities maintained by Orange County:

All incarcerated females are housed in the women's jail located in downtown Santa Ana. The building, first occupied in 1968, is a concrete and steel structure with opaque windows so that inmates cannot see out. The inmates sleep in dorms designed to hold 15 prisoners. When not sleeping or working, they may use adjacent day rooms furnished with television, radios, books, magazines, box games and puzzles. They are permitted to see a movie once a week. Outdoor recreation is available four hours per week on the roof of the jail in an area approximately 33 feet square. Inmates are permitted to make telephone calls during the recreation periods. Inmates may have visitors five days per week in half hour increments but they are separated from their visitors by a glass partition so that they cannot hold infants or otherwise touch their guests.

The daily count of female inmates averages 124. The number of sentenced women averages 68 per day and the average number of unsentenced women is 42. In 1977, 2,111 women were sentenced to the Orange County jail. Among sentenced women, 2 to 10 may be serving on a work furlough program at any one time; the average number of women on work furlough at a given time is 2 or 3. ¹ All other sentenced inmates, except those who are ill or refuse to work, perform jobs in the jail facility. Some unsentenced inmates also work, though they are not required to do so. The jobs for the women consist of washing and ironing, cooking, stocking food shelves and serving food, cleaning the kitchen area, mopping and waxing floors, cleaning windows, collecting trash, sewing and mending clothes for male inmates, making mattress covers for the jail system, and serving as beauty operators. Approximately 57 inmates are utilized in these tasks on a daily basis and a minimum of 35 women are needed to carry out these programs.

Approximately 10 times as many men as women are sentenced to jail in Orange County each year. The men serve their sentences in one of three jail facilities maintained by the county the main men's jail, the Theo Lacy Branch jail, and the James A. Musick Branch jail. The main men's jail is a concrete and steel structure in downtown Santa Ana housing approximately 1,000 inmates. Conditions at the men's main jail were found to be "more onerous" than those of the women's jail. About 45 percent of all males sentenced to jail serve their time at one of the branch jails.

The Theo Lacy Branch jail (the Lacy facility) is a minimum security facility located near the UCI Medical Center. It is designed to house 400 inmates. Its average daily count on weekdays is approximately 233; on weekends the influx of those serving weekend sentences brings it close to capacity. The facility consists of an eight-acre campus surrounded by a chain link fence. Inmates are housed in unlocked barracks which provide little privacy, since both guards and prisoners can see into the barracks and toilet facilities. The campus has a library, mess hall, various shops, a central guard station, an athletic field, a handball court, basketball hoop, and horse shoe pitches. Inmates are permitted to move freely about the compound or utilize the athletic areas during daylight hours when they are not working. There are no telephones for inmates but there is one movie night each week and one television is available for inmates' viewing. Inmates may have visitors for one hour on both Saturday and Sunday and are allowed to shake hands with or kiss their visitors as well as to hold children.

All of the inmates at the Lacy facility are either on work furlough or assigned to jobs within the jail system. Of those men assigned jail system jobs, approximately 31 percent work on the Lacy facility campus; they cook, clean and maintain the yard, clean and polish floors, do minor repairs in the living quarters, barber, launder and mark clothes. About 59 percent of the men have work assignments off campus; they are assigned to the county animal shelter, county service station, environmental management agency, sheriff's department, road department, county transportation, and the forestry division. Their work is supervised by a civilian work crew supervisor, usually an employee of the agency to which the men are assigned.

The James A. Musick Branch jail (the Musick facility) with a capacity of 200 inmates and currently housing approximately 100 men, is located in a rural area of the county. The facility consists of a 100-acre farm surrounded by a chain link fence topped with barbed wire. All of the men assigned to Musick, except for a small crew, work on the compound; they raise crops, poultry, and livestock, and do the cooking and maintenance work for the facility. The men live in barracks with high windows; the barracks are locked from the outside after 10 o'clock at night. The men may use the athletic field and handball court after work during daylight hours, and can move freely about the acre-and-one-half inner compound after dark. Inmates are allowed a one-hour visit on both Saturday and Sunday; they may shake hands or kiss their guest and hold infants. Once a month, each inmate is permitted a two-hour picnic with visitors in the compound. Once a week there is a movie night; there is a library and there are two televisions for inmates. Inmates do not have telephone privileges.

The court found that inmates assigned to the branch jails undergo substantially less onerous and restrictive confinement than those confined in the main jails; that defendants have pursued the policy and practice of providing minimum security branch jail facilities and related outdoor work programs only for male inmates and intend to continue that policy and practice unless the law requires them to do otherwise and that by virtue of defendants' policy, female inmates are required to serve their time in the maximum security main jail without being afforded the opportunity for assignment to minimum security facilities and related outdoor work assignments regardless of whether they meet the criteria applied to male inmates in making assignments to such facilities and programs. The court further found that it was untrue that the gender classification established by defendants was necessary to carry out either their duty to protect inmates from each other or their duty not to permit females to sleep, dress or undress, bathe or perform eliminatory functions in the same room with male inmates.

The court concluded that women inmates as a class were denied the equal protection of the law mandated by the California and United States Constitutions in that the reasons put forward by defendants to justify the policy and practice of providing minimum security facilities and related work programs and privileges only for men met neither the "compelling state interest" test required by the California Constitution nor the "important governmental interest" test required by the federal Constitution. ²

Although the court concluded that defendants' policy and practice constituted invidious sex discrimination in violation of the equal protection clauses of the state and federal Constitutions, it decided that since defendants were not under a legal duty to provide minimum security facilities and related privileges to any prisoner, it would be inappropriate to grant relief in the form requested by plaintiff. In his memorandum of intended decision, the judge stated that "the determination of the kind of facilities and programs to be provided for county jail inmates, within budgetary constraints, is best determined by the legislative and...