Court Is Asked to Cap Populations at All Five Jails : Crowding: Officials warn that an expansion of the inmate ceilings beyond the main jail will result in many more early releases of prisoners.

Despite exceptional management by the Sheriff’s Department, inmate overcrowding has driven the Orange County jail system to “its brink,” a former prison warden and national jail expert told a federal judge Wednesday.

Testifying on behalf of the county’s inmates, William Raymond Nelson, a former federal prison warden, told U.S. District Judge William P. Gray that the court should cap the inmate housing populations at all five of the county jails. Each of the facilities holds far more prisoners than the state’s “rated capacity” recommends.

“The purpose of a cap is to protect the constitutional rights of inmates,” Nelson said. Currently, only the population at the Central Men’s Jail is capped.

However, Lawrence J. Grossman, the county’s jail consultant and a former warden, cautioned that adhering strictly to the capacity guidelines established by the state is not always the wisest course. Acknowledging that the county’s jail population exceeds the state guidelines, Grossman said a more important measure of a jail’s proper population is what is safe for inmates and the staff.

Those views highlighted a hearing with potentially far-ranging consequences for the Orange County jail system. Lawyers representing county inmates have filed a new round of motions in the county’s longstanding jail crowding debate.

In addition to seeking caps on the housing populations, inmates are requesting better access to law books and exercise yards. Another request, for guarantees of a minimum 15 minutes for meals, was withdrawn after a tour of the facilities revealed that clocks had been installed in mess halls for the first time in years.

It is the proposal to cap the housing populations, however, that most alarms county officials. Already the sheriff grants early releases to about 1,000 prisoners a week, and officials say they would have to step up that controversial policy even more if new limits are imposed on the jail system.

“If they got this new cap, there would be a tremendous number of people being released,” said Sheriff’s Capt. William Miller, who was in court for the hearing. “To bring the numbers in jail down, you’d have to start kicking more of them out.”

However, one of the attorneys representing inmates, Dick Herman of the American Civil Liberties Union, argued before Gray that the rights of prisoners demand that they not be subjected to overcrowding. Herman added later that overcrowding raises tensions and can encourage violence between inmates or between deputies and inmates.

One inmate testified that he had witnessed two beatings of inmates by deputies while in the Central Men’s Jail.

“The jails are overcrowded, and we saw that the jails are overcrowded and we saw the results of overcrowding,” Herman said in his closing arguments. A cap, he added, would say, “We’re bursting, and this is the end.”

Earlier in the day, Gray completed the second half of a two-day, systemwide tour, visiting the central men’s and women’s jails in Santa Ana, as well as the adjacent Intake/Release Center.

Although the women’s jail is less crowded than the facilities for men, double bunks cram all the facilities. In the Central Men’s Jail, some dormitory rooms are packed beyond their rated capacities, and prisoners lolled on their beds, suspiciously eyeing the judge and his entourage.

“You could just feel . . . that there were simply more bodies in that space than it was meant for,” Herman said later. “You could feel the humidity coming off the bodies.”

At the Intake/Release Center, where new prisoners arrive in the system, dozens of inmates lay on the floors and cement benches of the holding cells. Some had waited for 17 hours to be placed in a cell with a bed. But there was just one bed open in the entire general housing population late Wednesday morning.

Gray, in a previous order, gave the county 24 hours to find beds for incoming inmates, though lawyers for the inmates have asked the judge to reduce that to eight hours. The Sheriff’s Department can be found in contempt of court if it doesn’t meet the order.

During Wednesday’s hearing, Deputy County Counsel James Turner acknowledged that the number of prisoners in the county system exceeded state design guidelines. But he argued that the rights of prisoners are not being violated.

“Jails are jails, and they’re not a pretty sight,” he said. “Mere overcrowding does not violate your constitutional rights.”

Turner recommended that Gray refuse the request to cap the jail populations. He also asked Gray to reject the other orders involving law books and access to the exercise yards.

Several inmates, including two of the county’s best known--Thomas Maniscalco and Daniel Duffy, who have been in jail for seven years awaiting trial on a 1980 triple slaying in Westminster--testified that they had trouble checking out law books.

Although Gray seemed to grow impatient with the repetitious testimony, he did insist that the Sheriff’s Department make allowances for prisoners to seek legal guidance from “jailhouse lawyers.” Maniscalco is an attorney, and Duffy has advised other inmates from time to time.

On the issue of exercise yards, sheriff’s deputies argued that the Central Men’s Jail already provides as much exercise time as scheduling and security permit. Inmates there typically get about four hours per week on the facility’s fenced-in roof, where they can play volleyball, basketball and Ping-Pong.

Following the arguments, Gray said he would take the various motions under advisement.

Herman predicted that Gray would rule sometime in the next two weeks.

BACKGROUND

A 1975 ACLU lawsuit complaining of conditions in the Orange County jails led to hearings in federal court and a 1978 order for improvements, plus limits on the number of inmates. Seven years later the county’s Board of Supervisors and sheriff were found in criminal contempt and fined $50,000, and the federal court began to get action. In the years since 1985, supervising Judge William P. Gray eased the contempt citations, imposed curbs on the number of jail inmates and ordered other changes in jail administration. Hearings now may bring caps on the population of all five county jails.