Posted on 05/11/2005 7:48:45 AM PDT by SmithL
SACRAMENTO - Declaring the state's $1 billion-a-year prison health system "horrifying," a federal judge Tuesday threatened to strip the Schwarzenegger administration of control of inmate care and put it in the hands of a receiver.
Noting that the administration inherited many of the deficiencies, U.S. District Judge Thelton Henderson nonetheless cited "the problem of a highly dysfunctional, largely decrepit, overly bureaucratic and politically driven prison system" that "is too far gone to be corrected by conventional methods."
Henderson, who has been overseeing the settlement of a 2001 inmate lawsuit, set two weeks of court hearings starting May 31 for the Department of Corrections to show why a temporary receiver should not be appointed until the mess is cleaned up. The threat -- his second in a year -- springs from expert reports and Henderson's own observations during a recent visit to San Quentin Prison.
"This is a big deal," said Don Specter of the Prison Law Office, which brought the case on behalf of prisoners. "To take over the medical care system means that he believes the system is out of control and is killing people. It cannot be more serious."
Acknowledging the system was riddled with problems, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger earlier Tuesday signed legislation that clears the way to reorganize adult and youth corrections, including health care. The action is his first attempt at what he calls "blowing up the boxes" of government.
J.P. Tremblay, a spokesman for the Youth and Adult Correctional Agency, said the reorganization would improve health care by centralizing management in Sacramento.
"This is the effort of the administration to cut through the bureaucratic Gordian knot that's been created," Tremblay said. He could not immediately say whether the state would oppose the naming of a receiver, a federal official who would have almost total control over all aspects of the prison health system.
But in just the latest of blistering reports, Henderson proposed something far more dramatic than anything Schwarzenegger has laid out. In effect, the judge said that the state's 162,000 inmates are being denied their constitutionally guaranteed civil rights because of wretched health care conditions as recently sketched out by medical experts in a scathing report about San Quentin .
He noted that the experts said they had "observed widespread evidence of medical malpractice and neglect." A spokesman for prison doctors said he could not comment until he had seen Henderson's court filing.
In the document, Henderson said he, too, had toured San Quentin and what he had found "was horrifying." He observed a San Quentin dentist who neither washed his hands nor changed his gloves after putting his hands into inmates' mouths.
"There can be no excuse for such failures, especially given the risk of infection that is obvious even to a lay person," he said.
"The pharmacy was in almost complete disarray (with unlabeled cardboard boxes piled in no particular order, antiquated and dirty computers, wiring suspended like a drunken spider's web and extremely frustrated nurses and technicians)."
He said it was beyond his understanding how the state could allow such "an unconstitutional system" to continue.
Henderson oversees compliance of the sweeping legal agreement known as the Plata settlement -- after Marciano Plata, one of nine plaintiffs in an April 2001 class-action lawsuit filed by inmates' rights activists. Under a legal settlement, California's 32 prisons are required to provide adequate health care by 2008.
While drastic, a federal takeover would not be unprecedented. Specter of the Prison Law Office noted that a similar takeover occurred in the Washington, D.C., prison system. Henderson himself issued a similar threat last year. At the time, he voiced disappointment that in renegotiating contracts with prison guards, Schwarzenegger had agreed to concessions "that give up numerous and important management prerogatives."
"I believe drastic measures are necessary to address the broken health care system," said Sen. Gloria Romero, D-Los Angeles, who chairs several committees overseeing prisons. "The appointment of a federal receiver will give inmate health care the attention it deserves" while allowing the administration to focus on other issues.
Tuesday, in an elaborate ceremony on the grounds of Folsom Prison, Schwarzenegger signed legislation by Romero that is a companion to the governor's prison reorganization. The two measures set the stage for the creation of a new cabinet-level department that emphasizes rehabilitation along with incarceration. It also folds in the California Youth Authority under the new agency.
Hugging Romero several times, the Republican chief executive stressed that the cooperation on this issue illustrated that he can work with Democrats in trying to solve some of the state's seemingly intractable problems.
"Through our bipartisan effort, we have created the Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation," the governor said, "giving our corrections system the structure to be more effective and accountable to the people."
state's response
• Prison officials acknowledge they can't manage an inmate medical system that experts say often does more harm than good.
• The administration abruptly abandoned a yearlong experiment with sending parole violators to halfway houses or substance abuse treatment centers or using electronic monitors instead of returning them to prison.
• A special master already is in place helping oversee reform of the California Youth Authority after complaints of Draconian conditions. Those included overmedication and undertreatment of troubled wards, and practices such as using pepper spray and small cages to control misbehavior.
U.S. District Judge Thelton Henderson was appointed by Carter. I am shocked.
He said it was beyond his understanding how the state could allow such "an unconstitutional system" to continue.
unconsitutional system?
Another Judicial Tyrant, here wanting more plasma screen cable TV access and conjugal visits with hookers for democrat party felons.
Prisons should be run like recreation centers. That way the inmates would not want to be stuck in that situation again. (sarcasm). Let the sheiff in Arizona care for them.
OK, it's a mess, but that's democracy--a terrible system, but better than anything else.
If the judge wants to be king, or dictator, then let him go somewhere else.
The price of establishing the office of king or dictator, in order to quickly right all wrongs, is too high to accept.
Does this mean that a judge is more qualified to renegotiating contracts with prison guards than the Governor is? And, if so why?
Part of the Lawyer coup d'etat seizing control of our former democracy.
Can the courts actually do that? Do they have that authority? Or are they just usurping it because they don't like what they see?
But the same Carter apporintee would probably love it if all Americans' health care was in the hands of government bureaucrats.
Judicial Tyrant
Why do violent felons need more medical services than Terri Schiavo ?
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