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CENTER ON JUVENILE AND CRIMINAL JUSTICE PRESS ROOM | |
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| Center on Juvenile and Criminal Justice, 1622 Folsom Street, San Francisco, CA 94103 | Tel: (415) 621-5661 | Fax: (415) 621-5466 |
Dozens of prison employees have refused to cooperate in recent weeks in probes of inmates who bled to death or were beaten as they lay prone on the floor.
Investigators say they're running head-on into the "code of silence" that Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's corrections secretary promised last month to end with a new "zero tolerance" policy for anyone shielding employee wrongdoing or retaliating against whistleblowers. That promise helped persuade a federal judge not to put the state prison system under federal control.
California may need to change state law and labor contracts to put an end to it, said state Sen. Gloria Romero, D-Los Angeles, who plans an oversight hearing as early as this week on a problem she characterized as "an octopus with many tentacles."
"These are probably some of the more extreme examples," said Tip Kindel, spokesman for Youth and Adult Correctional Agency Secretary Roderick Hickman. "The code of silence exists to cover up wrongdoing. It's a conspiracy to lie. It's especially bad for peace officers."
The most recent allegations are in an internal California Youth Authority report on the videotaped beatings of two youths, ages 19 and 21, by two employees at Stockton's N.A. Chaderjian Youth Correctional Facility Jan. 20.
Four employees who witnessed the beatings gave information that is "misleading, factually false and contradicted by witness statements and the videotape evidence," says the confidential report obtained by The Associated Press.
They reported that their two colleagues acted in self-defense, when the evidence showed the youths were beaten after they had been subdued. Two of the four said they shot both youths with pepper spray and one with a pepper spray gun because they were fighting, when the video showed the youths were shot at point-blank range while they were face down and not resisting.
All six have since asserted their right against self-incrimination. All remain on leave pending disciplinary action and a decision by the state attorney general whether the San Joaquin County district attorney abused his discretion by not filing criminal charges.
Meanwhile, only about 12 of 50 Corcoran State Prison employees would talk to investigators about the Super Bowl Sunday death of Ronald Herrera, a dialysis patient who bled to death in his cell last month after guards reportedly ignored his screams for hours.
"It's tough to get to the bottom of what happened in the face of that," said Kings County Chief Deputy District Attorney Patrick Hart, who last week summoned several guards to testify before a grand jury.
The state attorney general currently is limited to reviewing whether county prosecutors abuse their discretion in charging decisions, said spokesman Nathan Barankin, despite a San Joaquin County prosecutor's suggestion last week that the state should have primary responsibility in cases at state facilities.
A Senate-approved bill that would have transferred prison prosecutions to the state died in an Assembly committee in 1999. But Romero said it may be time to revive the proposal if local prosecutors won't act, and to consider changes to state law and labor contracts that can shield employees from reporting wrongdoing.
"I absolutely support due process," said Romero, "but we're talking about witnesses here; we're talking about employees of the state of California; we're talking about peace officers."
She agreed with the California Correctional Peace Officers Association that the prisons' internal disciplinary process also needs to be fixed because some witnesses who have come forward have found themselves the subject of investigations or retaliation themselves.
Employees refused to cooperate in Herrera's bleeding case because investigators wouldn't let them tape record the interviews, said CCPOA Vice President Lance Corcoran. Contractual safeguards such as requiring 24-hour notice of interviews are necessary so union attorneys can sit in, he said.
The union fought the 1999 bill and opposes transferring employee prosecution powers to the state attorney general unless the state also will prosecute inmates who assault guards an average nine times a day, Corcoran said.
He accused Romero of "political grandstanding" by planning a hearing of her Senate oversight committee before there is a final prosecution decision in the Stockton beating case.
Employees have a constitutional right against self-incrimination in criminal cases but can be compelled to testify in administrative investigations, Corcoran said: "They're being lazy; I'm talking about investigators who say they can't investigate because of the pesky Bill of Rights."
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