Suit alleging dangerous conditions in LA County jail moves forward
Saturday, February 12, 2011 at 12:50AM From [HERE] A Los Angeles County Jail inmate who says he was stabbed 23 times during an outbreak of racial violence five years ago can sue Sheriff Lee Baca for "deliberate indifference" to the dangerous conditions in the jail, a divided federal appeals court panel ruled Friday.
Baca knew or should have known about the unconstitutional conditions prevailing in the jail and cited by investigators in previous incidents of death or injury to inmates, former prisoner Dion Starr alleged in his complaint against the sheriff.
The earlier incidents included five inmate-on-inmate killings during a six-month period and numerous outbreaks of racial gang violence ignored or abetted by sheriff's deputies, Starr said in appealing a federal judge's decision in 2008 that Baca was immune from prosecution
On Friday, a three-judge panel of the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals reinstated Starr's lawsuit in a 2-1 decision, saying a U.S. Supreme Court ruling protecting officials from liability for illegal actions by subordinates doesn't extend to rights violations against those in custody when the supervisor had "knowledge of and acquiescence in unconstitutional conduct."
Unless appealed to a larger panel of 9th Circuit judges, the ruling will send Starr's suit to trial in U.S. District Court in Los Angeles.
The appeals court ruling cited Starr's claims that Baca ignored repeated warnings about dangerous conditions in the jail, including a report by the special counsel assigned to the Sheriff's Department detailing 29 cases involving police misconduct over five years. Each of those cost the county $100,000 or more to settle with victims, and only eight resulted in discipline of the deputies involved, the attorney noted.
The 2005 report to Baca by Special Counsel Merrick Bobb described the county jail as "so outdated, understaffed and riddled with security flaws that it jeopardizes the lives of guards and inmates."
Starr's attorney, Sonia Maria Mercado, said the 9th Circuit ruling was important because it recognized that Baca should be held personally accountable.
"The physical abuse of inmates has not subsided," Mercado said. "It really raises questions about what the county will do about these ongoing problems in the jail."
Sheriff's spokesman Steve Whitmore said Baca would review the decision with his attorneys and probably ask for a full 11-judge panel to reconsider the case.
Starr's allegation of deputies colluding with attackers was "heinous" but inaccurate, Whitmore said.
Baca has long acknowledged deficiencies at Men's Central Jail that present security risks for inmates and deputies. The sheriff has lobbied county officials to close the downtown jail and open a new facility.
In his lawsuit, Starr alleges that a group of Latino gang members gathered outside his locked cell door, threatening to attack him and his fellow African American cellmate. When he screamed for help, he said, one of the deputies unlocked the door to his cell, and the attackers flooded in. Starr sustained 23 stab wounds, including to the head, and still has a piece of metal in his skull, Mercado said.
"Sheriff Baca was given notice, in several reports, of systematic problems in the county jails under his supervision that have resulted in these deaths and injuries," said the majority opinion.
In dissent, Judge Stephen Trott argued that Starr didn't sufficiently connect Baca to the security failures that led to his injury.
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