Posted on 09/02/2006 6:10:00 AM PDT by radar101
Since their arrival in San Diego aboard a Coast Guard cutter two weeks ago, the accused head of the Arellano Félix drug cartel and six other men have been held in small cells on the fifth floor of a downtown jail.
They can't use the phone, they can't exercise and they've only been allowed out of their cells for lawyer visits, court and a 15-minute shower once every three days, their lawyers said.
“They're being treated more harshly than some of the worst convicted criminals we've had in this country,” said David Bartick, lawyer for Francisco Javier Arellano Félix, accused of leading the cartel.
Of the seven men, only Arellano, nicknamed “El Tigrillo,” is charged with a crime. The others are being held as material witnesses, including the boat's captain. A teenager who was baby-sitting children on the boat was released.
Prosecutors say the witnesses should be locked up because their testimony could be needed to prove the case against Arellano and others.
They say they have nothing to do with how inmates are treated in the jail, which recently changed policies for “high security” prisoners.
Bartick and other lawyers are scheduled to ask a San Diego federal judge Tuesday to find the conditions inhumane and order jail officials to treat the men differently.
At a hearing Monday, Judge Larry Burns said, “It's unusual to see someone appear in waist chains, so I imagine there are special security concerns.”
He said he wanted to hear from jail officials directly.
A spokesman for the Federal Bureau of Prisons, which operates the San Diego Metropolitan Correctional Center, wouldn't talk about the conditions under which the men are being held, but called prison conditions, in general, “safe and humane.”
“Generally, exercise is available,” said spokesman Mike Truman in Washington, D.C., to whom local jail officials referred calls.
Earlier, a spokeswoman said the men's safety and security and those of other inmates are part of the decisions for how the men are held.
A lawyer for the jail was unavailable for comment but is expected in court on Tuesday.
Whether Burns finds the conditions inhumane depends on a variety of factors, said Sara Norman, a lawyer with the San Rafael-based Prison Law Office, which advocates for prisoners in California.
Long incarceration without exercise violates the U.S. Constitution, she said, especially when such confinement isn't based on the prisoner's violent behavior toward guards and others.
But prison officials do have some leeway when dealing with people accused of violent crimes or being held for a short time.
“You're looking at the totality of the circumstances,” she said.
She compared the conditions described by the lawyers to those found at high-security state prisons in Pelican Bay and Corcoran, where the state's most dangerous inmates are held, except with exercise three times a week.
A prison expert said the isolation may be necessary to keep the men from talking about the case or from being attacked in the exercise yard, which is on the roof of the high-rise jail.
“Too many things can happen,” said Steve J. Martin, a corrections consultant in Texas.
That doesn't mean the men's rights can be trampled, said Gene Iredale, one of the San Diego lawyers complaining about treatment.
“Of course a jail has to be concerned with security. Nobody quarrels with that,” he said. “It should be . . . equally concerned with equitable conditions of confinement.”
Iredale's client, Arturo “El Nalgón” Villarreal Heredia, was No. 2 in the cartel and is wanted by Mexican authorities, according to Drug Enforcement Administration agents.
“I would expect security precautions of a high degree, but I would not expect Draconian conditions of confinement which are punitive in effect and excessive in degree,” he said.
Big-time prosecutions have “inundated” the downtown jail with high-profile inmates, Bartick said.
In addition to the men caught aboard Arellano's boat, recently indicted members of the Mexican Mafia prison gang are also in the jail's Special Housing Unit, lawyers said.
A prison murder is among the racketeering acts prosecutors have charged against some of the 36 accused gang members, who also face drug-trafficking charges.
Prosecutors say they may seek the death penalty in the Mexican Mafia case and against Arellano.
Drug Enforcement Administration agents said in court filings that three of the men arrested with Arellano are high-ranking members of the cartel and the others must be involved or they wouldn't have been on the boat with him.
Lawyers expect that at least some of the men will be indicted on new charges as the case moves forward.
But the lawyer for one of the men, boat captain Edgar Olmo Osorio, said his client isn't dangerous and has nothing to add to the case.
“He's been a sports fisherman for 25 years,” Antonio Yoon said. “He had absolutely never met anybody that was on that boat prior to that day, never. The only person he knew on the boat was . . . the other crew member.
“He just doesn't know anything,” Yoon said.
Onell Soto: (619) 293-1280; onell.soto@uniontrib.com
Paugh!! If they were in their own country south of the border they would have guards holding guns to their heads, no food unless their friends brought it in, and NO one to complain to. They are on Easy Street. SHould be in Gitmo.
Having been in jail a time or two myself all I have to say is tough noogies. It doesn't sound any worse than what I've experienced.
They should be treated similar to other terrorists caught on the battle field, Gitmo would be a good place to hold them.
Actually, if he were in jail in Mexico, he'd have luxury accomodations, furloughs, chicks brought in, caviar, cell phones, anything he wanted, so long as he could pay for it, and being a billion-dollar drug dealer, he knew that he would. He would probably be running the jail, and running his operations from jail, as the Brazilian and Bolivian drug dealers do. The Brazilian dopers literally took over Sao Paulo, the country's largest city, from their jail cells and cellphones. They killed 200 cops, stopped the bus service, burned buses, closed the schools, and instituted a "curfew" on the cops and everyone else. That's the deal Felix Arellano expected from jail and instead he got a cell block and orange jumpsuit just like any other prisoner. He needs to realize that (music) 'This Is Not Ameriiii... I mean, Mexico.'
They're being treated with kid gloves compared to the chaos and macabre mayhem they have caused. I'm glad they are not being held in Mexico, where corruption might lead to a jail break. Who is behind this notion that they are being held under inhumane conditions? It's a four letter word: ACLU.
True enough. But I still think he expected the Mexican caviar jailhouse treatment. He expected to rule that cellblock and has found that he doesn't. It's gotta be a hard fall for him, he's always been in charge except when his brothers were. Now he's in charge of nothing and taking orders. Given the murders he's committed, (He shot a family of 19 in Ensenada, lovely man) I hope he hates it.
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