Sundance v. Municipal Court of Los Angeles Judicial Dist.
| Decision Date | 30 March 1983 |
| Citation | 190 Cal.Rptr. 432,141 Cal.App.3d 559 |
| Court | California Court of Appeals Court of Appeals |
| Parties | Robert SUNDANCE, et al., Plaintiffs and Appellants, v. MUNICIPAL COURT OF the LOS ANGELES JUDICIAL DISTRICT, et al., Respondents. The PEOPLE, Real Party in Interest. Civ. 54634. |
Center for Law in the Public Interest and Public Justice Foundation, Timothy B. Flynn, Pacific Palasades, Carlyle W. Hall, Jr., Lucas Guttentag, Los Angeles, Joel R. Reynolds, Riverside, Fredric D. Woocher and Bruce Williamson, Los Angeles, for plaintiffs and appellants.
Burt Pines and Ira Reiner, City Atty., James H. Pearson, Senior Asst. City Atty., and Denise M. Beaudry, Deputy City Atty., for respondent City of Los Angeles.
John H. Larson, County Counsel, and Philip S. Miller, Deputy County Counsel, Los Angeles, for respondent Municipal Court.
No appearance for real party in interest.
This is an appeal by parties who filed a class action and taxpayer action seeking declaratory and injunctive relief. Plaintiffs and appellants are four public inebriates and one taxpayer. The action was brought against various governmental agencies and officers. These defendants are respondents herein. The subject matter of the complaint By its judgment filed March 17, 1978, some relief was granted in the trial court. The governmental agencies have not perfected an appeal from the judgment. 2 Many aspects of the requested relief were not granted by the trial court. Appellants argue on appeal that they are entitled to relief beyond that granted. The standard for review in such a case is that the denial of declaratory relief will not be disturbed unless an abuse of discretion is clearly shown. (Cutting v. Bryan (1929) 206 Cal. 254, 257, 274 P. 326.)
is the manner in which those charged with violation of Penal Code section 647, subdivision (f) (herein 647(f)) are handled and processed. 1
Robert Sundance, Charles Linston Majors, Leroy Wheeler and John Cecil Youngblood are inebriates. They have repeatedly been arrested and incarcerated in the City of Los Angeles and prosecuted in the County of Los Angeles in instances when the only criminal charge against them was an alleged violation of 647(f). 3
In the four years preceding the filing of the action, Sundance averaged 226 days per year in custody as an outgrowth of 80 separate arrests. In the four years preceding filing of the action, Majors averaged 344 days per year in custody as an outgrowth of 117 separate arrests. In the four years preceding filing of the action, Youngblood averaged 249 days per year in custody as an outgrowth of 106 separate arrests. In the four years preceding filing of the action, Wheeler averaged 48 days per year in custody as an outgrowth of 30 separate arrests.
Brent N. Rushforth is a citizen, resident and taxpayer of the City and County of Los Angeles. His taxes support the system which funds the activities of respondents described herein.
These five parties brought a class action and taxpayer action against the Los Angeles Municipal Court and its presiding judge, the City of Los Angeles and its chief of police and city attorney and against the County of Los Angeles and its sheriff and supervisors.
Agents of the city arrest inebriates, transport them for booking, book them and house them until they are to be taken to court.
The county first assumes responsibility for inebriates by taking them to the court facility. The county, through its court system, is responsible for arraignment, trial and sentence. The city prosecutes inebriates. Once inebriates are sentenced, the county again assumes responsibility for sentenced inebriates.
After a trial lasting almost two months, the court made 65 pages of detailed findings of fact with a total of 139 separate findings. In its judgment the trial court imposed upon the city certain requirements on incarceration and transportation of those arrested only for 647(f) violation. As to county defendants, certain standards were imposed concerning the manner in which such persons were detained awaiting arraignment. In addition, the court imposed certain requirements on all defendants to ensure that the processing of persons Finally, the court declared,
charged only with violations of 647(f) would comport with principles of due process.
Appellants argue that:
A. Enforcement of 647(f) must be enjoined as a violation of the cruel and/or unusual punishment clauses of the federal and state Constitutions because it imposes criminal penalties that are without penological justification.
B. Enforcement of 647(f) must be enjoined as a violation of the due process clauses of the federal and state Constitutions because defendants' enforcement practices coerce guilty pleas and impose punishment without trial.
C. Enforcement of 647(f) must be enjoined as a violation of the cruel and/or unusual punishment clauses of the federal and state Constitutions because it punishes a status and inflicts excessive punishment in an arbitrary, capricious, and discriminatory manner.
D. The conditions of confinement under which defendants transport and incarcerate 647(f) arrestees constitute deliberate indifference to the health and safety of such arrestees in violation of the cruel and/or unusual punishment clauses of the federal and state Constitutions.
E. Enforcement of 647(f) must be enjoined and referral under section 647, subdivision (ff) (herein section 647(ff)) to civil detoxification facilities be mandated as the only effective remedy for the violations inherent in defendants' enforcement practices.
F. Enforcement of 647(f) must be enjoined and referral mandated to prevent actionable waste of public funds.
G. In the absence of an order enjoining the enforcement of 647(f), the superior court erred in failing to provide affirmative injunctive relief sufficient to remedy the numerous constitutional violations resulting from defendants' 647(f) enforcement practices.
Appellants urge that enforcement of 647(f) should be enjoined on the grounds that it imposes criminal penalties that are without penological justification and thereby violates the cruel and unusual punishment clause of the federal Constitution (8th Amend.) and the cruel or unusual punishment clause of the state Constitution (art. I, § 17).
In Powell v. Texas (1968) 392 U.S. 514, 88 S.Ct. 2145, 20 L.Ed.2d 1254, the United States Supreme Court declined to declare unconstitutional as violative of the cruel and unusual punishment provision of the 8th Amendment, the public drunkenness statute of Texas. This result was reached in part because of the inadequacy of the record before the court. The court observed, "... In the first place, the record in this case is utterly inadequate to permit the sort of informed and responsible adjudication which alone can support the announcement of an important and wide-ranging new constitutional principle. We know very little about the circumstances surrounding Appellants argue that the findings and record in this case distinguish it from Powell. While that may be true, there is another important distinction between Powell and the case under review. The Texas statute (Tex.Pen.Code, art. 477 (1952)) provided, "Whoever shall get drunk or be found in a state of intoxication in any public place, or at any private house except his own, shall be fined not exceeding one hundred dollars." (Powell v. Texas, supra, 392 U.S. 514, 517, 88 S.Ct. 2145, 2146, 20 L.Ed.2d 1254.) This statute punished the act of being drunk in a public place or private house other than that of the person who was intoxicated. The California statute, by contrast, imposes criminal punishment upon one who is (1) under the influence, and (2) in a public place and, either (3) is in such a condition that he is unable to exercise care for his own safety or the safety of others or (4) by reason of his being under the influence interferes with or obstructs or prevents the free use of a public street, sidewalk or other public way.
the drinking bout which resulted in this conviction, or about Leroy Powell's drinking problem, or indeed about alcoholism itself. The trial hardly reflects the sharp legal and evidentiary clash between fully prepared adversary litigants which is traditionally expected in major constitutional cases. The State put on only one witness, the arresting officer. The defense put on three--a policeman who testified to appellant's long history of arrests for public drunkenness, the psychiatrist, and appellant himself." (At pp. 521-522, 88 S.Ct. at 2148-2149.)
Appellants rely on Driver v. Hinnant, 356 F.2d 761 (4th Cir.1966). In Driver, the North Carolina statute (N.C.Gen.Stat. § 14-335) provided, " 'If any person shall be found drunk or intoxicated on the public highway, or at any public place or meeting, in any county ... herein...
To continue reading
Request your trial