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Houston Chronicle article......

June 8, 2002, 12:04AM

After 30 years, Texas prisons free of federal oversight

Ruiz lawsuit wrapped up
By JANET ELLIOTT
Copyright 2002 Houston Chronicle Austin Bureau
AUSTIN -- Lawyers reached an agreement Friday in the historic Ruiz prison reform lawsuit, effectively ending 30 years of federal control of Texas prisons.
"One federal lawsuit can't be responsible for a state's prison system forever," said Donna Brorby, a San Francisco lawyer who has represented Texas prison inmates since 1978.
Brorby and co-counsel Gail Saliterman, along with lawyers for the state, met Friday for about an hour with U.S. District Judge William Wayne Justice. They told Justice they would not try to prevent the expiration of his jurisdiction in the case, scheduled for July 1.
As early as next week, Justice is expected to sign a one-page order ending the case named after the inmate who filed a civil rights complaint in 1972, David Ruiz.
Gregory Coleman, outside counsel for the state, said Justice is "very, very pleased that the parties are working together."
One year ago, Justice ended population caps and nearly all other controls he had placed on the state's prison system. But Justice, a senior judge in Austin, refused to completely end the lawsuit because of continuing concerns about excessive use of force against inmates, inmate-on-inmate violence and the solitary confinement of mentally ill prisoners.
Brorby said that while serious problems remain in those areas, she decided it would be better for prison officials to concentrate their efforts on improving conditions rather than responding to legal briefs.
She said the challenge for prison officials now is to stand up for the system's needs at the Legislature without using the federal case as a hammer to get more money.
Gary Johnson, executive director of the Texas Department of Criminal Justice, said the department won't forget the lessons of the Ruiz case.
"The 30-year struggle is over, but the system has changed dramatically over the past three decades," said Johnson in a statement. "The problems were corrected and now we must move forward to reducing recidivism, increasing rehabilitation and working to be productive without having this federal overview.
"We must and we shall remember the challenges we have experienced over the last years and always strive for effective correctional policies," Johnson said.
"We have no intention of returning to the old times of the pre-Ruiz suit," said TDCJ spokesman Larry Todd.
Carl Reynolds, general counsel for the TDCJ, said the National Institute of Corrections, an arm of the U.S. Justice Department, will take over some of the monitoring functions that had been done by Brorby and her legal team.
Officials with the institute will be visiting prison units and checking documents periodically over the next two years. Their reports will be sent to Johnson and will be public information, Reynolds said.
The prisoners' lawyers had been preparing a motion to continue jurisdiction in the case based on evidence developed in the past six months.
But Brorby said she decided not to file the motion after TDCJ promised to continue taking steps to reduce force, protect inmates and provide better mental health care for psychotic inmates. Brorby also cited uncertainty about the legal future of the case.
Last year the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals told Justice to justify his continuing oversight or to terminate the case.
Coleman, former solicitor general for the state, said state government now can take over its rightful function to fully run the prison system.
"The end of this case marks a huge shift in how government ought to work," said Coleman.
Texas Attorney General John Cornyn said an end to the case is long overdue.
"I am very pleased that Mr. Ruiz's lawyer has acknowledged the improvements in the Texas prison system that have occurred in the past 30 years since this lawsuit was filed," he said.
The state also reached an agreement with Brorby to pay her legal team $1.93 million in fees for work done in the past three years. She had requested $5 million.
The case over prison conditions began in 1972 with a handwritten lawsuit filed by inmate David Ruiz.
Justice found a system so crowded that some units were operating at 200 percent of capacity, with as many as five inmates to a cell and others sleeping on hallway floors and in tents.
The lawsuits exposed a "building tender" system in which certain inmates were used as auxiliary guards. Justice prohibited inmates from exercising any authority over other prisoners.
Justice ordered improvements in sanitation and fire safety, as well as new recreational facilities and better health care. He made sure inmates had access to courts.
Texas spent billions of dollars building new prisons and making improvements. The cost of complying with Justice's orders angered many Texans, and some came to view the powerful federal judge with disdain.
In an order last June, Justice wrote that the case "has become a history unto itself." But he lauded the state for making vast improvements in a system that "at one point was incapable of description -- the conditions so pernicious, and the inmates' pain and degradation so extensive."
Most federal controls of the prison system ended in 1992 with a settlement, but Justice retained his right to monitor the state prison on issues including crowding, staffing, discipline, health care and death row.
Brorby said recent improvements in the system include training designed to reform use-of-force practices and a system of regular review of administrative segregation for mentally ill prisoners.
Brorby said her recent review found fewer "flagrantly psychotic" inmates in administrative segregation, a form of solitary confinement. Justice last year said administrative segregation units are "virtual incubators of psychoses."
During the three decades of the lawsuit, the prison population grew from 16,000 to 145,000 inmates. Brorby said current problems with the system stem from the explosion in inmates.
She said inmates have more idle time and fewer opportunities for education, work and recreation. The system continues to struggle to hire enough guards.
"The Texas prisons will never be safe and reasonable places for those who must live in them until the citizens of Texas exercise their rights and make the system more transparent so they know what is happening inside their prisons," Brorby said.