A Win for Disabled Prisoners

The U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled Wednesday that state officials must make it easier for thousands of disabled prisoners and ex-felons to participate in parole hearings.

Upholding key provisions of a lower court injunction that included stinging criticism of the state Board of Prison Terms, the 9th Circuit’s 3-0 decision marked the latest chapter in a lengthy battle over the legal rights of prisoners with physical and mental disabilities.

“There is no dispute that the board repeatedly violated the [federal Americans with Disability Act] and the Rehabilitation Act,” the court said in a 58-page ruling. “And it is evident that the violations were systemwide.”

Those violations included prisoners who use wheelchairs being left to crawl up stairs to attend their parole hearings.

Although representatives of the parole board and the governor’s office declined to comment, a spokeswoman for Atty. Gen. Bill Lockyer said officials were reviewing the possibility of seeking a rehearing of the case before a larger panel of judges on the 9th Circuit.

“We are still reviewing the order, but we do feel the injunction is overbroad, overintrusive and inappropriate,” said Lockyer’s press secretary Hallye, Jordan.

Critics of the parole board’s treatment of disabled prisoners hailed the court’s decision.

“This opinion is a ringing affirmation that prisoners and other people with disabilities have a right to protections from discrimination under federal law,” said Don Specter, an attorney for the plaintiffs. “The court clearly agreed that the board failed miserably to comply with the ADA many years after it was enacted.”

State Senate Leader John Burton (D-San Francisco) said he hoped the ruling would finally persuade the state to comply with all regulations regarding the disabled.

“Whenever it comes to doing what it should do for the disabled, whether it is the Board of Prison Terms or the Department of Motor Vehicles, they keep dragging their feet and have to be taken to court,” Burton said.

“That just costs the taxpayers a lot of money and is the wrong thing to do,” Burton said. “I mean, if the government doesn’t obey the government’s laws, who [else] is going to?”

The class action lawsuit that led to Wednesday’s decision was filed in 1994 by the nonprofit Prison Law Office, which claimed that the rights of disabled inmates--and parole violators under review by the board--were routinely violated during hearings by the Board of Prison Terms.

In a scathing ruling in December 1999, U.S. District Judge Claudia Wilken agreed with the plaintiffs, citing what she called “shocking” instances such as the treatment of prisoners who use wheelchairs. Deaf inmates also were sometimes deprived of interpreters during hearings or had their hands shackled and thus were unable to sign, Wilken found.

Wilken issued a detailed injunction mandating that the board take steps to better accommodate the disabled. Among other things, she ordered that the board survey all its hearing rooms to ensure that they are accessible to the disabled, provide interpreters for deaf prisoners, supply assistants for inmates with mental retardation and learning disabilities, and establish a grievance process.

In appealing that decision, the state did not dispute that the board had discriminated against disabled inmates. Moreover, the appeals court noted, the state indicated that it already had adopted many of the new court-ordered policies and found that the compliance with federal law did not cause it any practical problems.

In its ruling, the 9th Circuit said attorneys for the disabled must name specific plaintiffs if they want the injunction to cover certain prisoners, including those with mental disorders.

The appeals panel also said the lower court had properly allowed state parole officials to object to transporting prisoners to alternative facilities if security or financial burdens were too great.

Otherwise, the court rejected the state’s arguments that the injunction should be overturned for various reasons.

Attorneys for the state also had asked the appellate court to remove Gov. Gray Davis and Youth and Adult Correctional Agency Secretary Robert Presley as defendants.

But the court rejected that request, concluding that because Davis and Presley exercise supervisory authority over the board, they are appropriately included as defendants.