Sep 24, 2007 12:22 pm US/Pacific
Court Rules LA Jail Violated Inmates' Rights
LOS ANGELES (CBS) ―
A federal court judge has ruled that Los Angeles jail officials violated the prisoners' constitutional rights when they had them sleep on concrete floors because of chronic overcrowding, it was reported Monday.
In a legal victory for thousands of former Los Angeles County jail inmates, U.S District Judge Dean D. Pregerson said jail officials were guilty of "deliberate indifference" when they failed to provide inmates with bunks, the Los Angeles Times reported.
"Quite simply, that a custom of leaving inmates nowhere to sleep but the floor constitutes cruel and unusual punishment is nothing short of self-evident," Pregerson concluded in a 33-page decision released Friday in a class-action lawsuit.
Attorney Stephen Yagman, who represents the inmates involved in the lawsuit, told The Times that Pregerson's ruling meant the violations of the prisoners' rights would be presented as a proven fact to a jury should the case not be settled and go to trial.
Inmates would have to prove only that they deserved to be compensated for having slept on the floor, Yagman said.
"This is quite an extraordinary ruling," Yagman told The Times. "I've never seen anything like it."
Attorney Paul B. Beach, an attorney hired by the county to handle the suit, declined comment Sunday, The Times reported, and Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department spokesman Steve Whitmore said he was unfamiliar with Pregerson's ruling or the litigation's status.
But Whitmore told The Times that the practice of having inmates sleep on the floor "is over, and has been for a while now."
According to court documents cited by The Times, the lawsuit covers inmates who were forced to sleep on the floor from December 2000 to May 2005.
(© 2007 CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. The Associated Press contributed to this report.)
