The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals issued a historic decision in a case filed by the ACLU/SC and the National Lawyers Guild seeking an end to the criminalization of people for sleeping on the streets when no shelter is available.
The decision in the case, Jones v. City of Los Angeles, was issued today and marks the first time in a decade that a court has struck down an ordinance that criminalizes the lack of shelter.
"Anyone who cares about homelessness and finding positive solutions to this serious issue in our community will be delighted and encouraged by this decision," said Ramona Ripston, executive director of the ACLU/SC. "The ACLU has always maintained that police should target serious crime like rape and drug trafficking and not criminalize people for sleeping on the street when there is nowhere else to go."
Citing news articles from The New York Times and the Los Angeles Times, including a recent front-page series on homelessness on Skid Row by columnist Steve Lopez, Judge Kim M. Wardlaw writing for the majority opinion ordered the District Court to create a narrow injunction to stop enforcement of a Los Angeles city code that allows police to arrest people for sleeping on the street when there are no available shelter beds.
"The Eighth Amendment prohibits the City from punishing involuntary sitting, lying, or sleeping on public sidewalks that is an unavoidable consequence of being human and homeless without shelter in the City of Los Angeles," Judge Wardlaw wrote.
ACLU/SC Legal Director Mark Rosenbaum, who argued the case in December called the decision "brave."
"This decision is the most significant judicial opinion involving homelessness in the history of the nation," Rosenbaum said. "The decision means in Los Angeles, it is no longer a crime to be homeless. For homeless in our community, 1/5 of whom are veterans and nearly a quarter are children, they can no longer be treated as criminals because of involuntary acts like sleeping and sitting where there are not available shelter beds to take them off the mean streets of the city. My hope is that the city will now treat homelessness as a social problem affecting all of us, not as a crime."
The case, originally filed in February 2003 by the ACLU of Southern California and Carol Sobel for the National Lawyers Guild, sought to end the enforcement of Section 41.18 (d) of Los Angeles city code.
In Los Angeles County at least 88,000 men, women and children - 8,000 to 10,000 in Downtown Los Angeles alone - are without homes. There are beds for less than half of the homeless in our county, there are comprehensive services available to far fewer than half and the county jails are routinely used as a substitution for mental health facilities.

LOS ANGELES - In the wake of recent homicides and riots at Los Angeles County jails, the ACLU of Southern California asked a federal judge today to establish a collaborative process involving Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors and the Sheriff's Department in order to develop and implement a strategic plan to reduce severe overcrowding and staffing shortages at Men's Central Jail.

The papers filed in the three-decade old lawsuit, requested U.S. District Judge Dean Pregerson, who was assigned to the case last year and whose first act as presiding judge was to end the practice of housing inmates on the jail floors, to conduct an unannounced tour of Men's Central Jail, the largest single jail in the United States. The request also asks Judge Pregerson to direct the county to create a sensible, long-term plan to remedy conditions endangering staff and inmates including chronic staffing shortages and overcrowding at the Downtown jail within 45 days of a status conference with the court and parties.

Legal Director Mark Rosenbaum called Men's Central Jail 'a ticking time bomb' due to conditions of gross overcrowding and understaffing whereby inmates are stacked like mice in tiny cells in a state of nearly 24-hour lockdown.'

He added, 'The bottom line is that no one is truly safe in Men's Central Jail.'

Though these conditions have been documented by the ACLU, independent monitoring entities and the county's own investigators, no comprehensive plan yet exists to assure the safety of inmates and deputies by relieving overcrowding.

'Since the riots the county and the sheriff's department have been under pressure to improve conditions and avoid another violent outbreak in the jails, but the proposals they have presented to the Board of Supervisors will not come close to solving the deeply-rooted, underlying problems in the jail,' said Jody Kent, the coordinator of the ACLU/SC jails project. 'Thus far the Sheriff has only offered band-aid solutions like releasing inmates early. We believe the court must be involved to ensure long-term, positive changes.'

In preparation of this request to the court, the ACLU/SC contracted an independent expert, Toni V. Bair, who has more than 25 years as a corrections professional including serving as a warden at a Virginia state maximum security prison.

Bair determined that inmates were so overcrowded the facility is unsafe for both jail personnel and inmates housed there:

' Staff to inmate ratios are at unsafe levels and on average are more than double the accepted national standard.

' In many cases one sheriff's deputy must monitor more than 100 inmates, which puts everyone at risk, and in some instances no deputies are available to monitor.

' Inmates are confined to spaces about a third of the size required by federal correctional standards.

' Dayrooms are being used for housing despite sheriff's deputies inability to properly monitor the scores of inmates that can be housed in the open rooms.

' Nearly all inmates are locked down upwards of 23 hours a day. Some 15 percent of inmates are denied three hours per week of federally mandated exercise time, which means they are locked down 24 hours a day.

' Bair was unable to find a single fire box that complied with policy.

' Faulty plumbing is hazardous and a serious health risk.

According to Bair's expert report he witnessed several incidents that continue to create unnecessarily dangerous conditions at Men's Central Jail:

'I observed over 100 inmates in a small room with benches...prior to their being placed in their assigned cells. This was the same room where an inmates was beaten to death in November 2005. Once again, there was no staff supervising these inmates.'

Plaintiffs have asked the court to convene a status conference, and hope that the conference will occur within the next few weeks.

The original class action lawsuit, Rutherford v. Pitchess, was filed in 1975 by the ACLU of Southern California on behalf of inmates at Los Angeles County jails challenging the constitutional inadequacy of numerous detention conditions, including the cell space provided to each inmate, visitation spaces and practices, outdoor recreation policies, indoor recreation policies, the lack of windows at MCJ, court processing policies, access to telephones, cell searches, time for meals, clothing and laundry, access to the law library, and use of excessive force by deputies.

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LOS ANGELES - In response to action taken by the ACLU of Southern California, the state Department of Corrections has concluded that excluding HIV positive inmates from its spousal family visitation program is discriminatory and contrary to federal law.

The decision, which was received by the ACLU this month, comes after a Southern California married couple, who has been together for six years, was excluded from family visits according to the Department's then-existing policy, even though the spouse agreed to sign a document acknowledging that she was aware of her husband's HIV status.

"We are pleased that the DOC recognized its mistake swiftly," said ACLU/SC staff attorney Christine P. Sun. "A blanket rule that discriminates against and isolates those with HIV sends the wrong message and is illegal. Cutting off inmates from their spouses just because they have HIV not only irreparably harms their relationship, but also wrongfully discriminates on the basis of disability."

The ACLU of Southern California was originally contacted by a Southern California woman last fall after she and her husband were denied an overnight family visit by the Department of Corrections because her husband, who has served two years of an 8-year sentence at a men's correctional facility, is HIV positive. Such visits are typically granted to low security inmates and are widely regarded as integral to keeping families intact after incarceration.

After the ACLU sent a demand letter and a public records act request on behalf of the couple, the DOC and its Office of Legal Affairs concluded that "to deny inmates participation in family visiting with their spouse because they have HIV is discriminatory," and violates United States Supreme Court precedent. The Department also agreed that from now on, it will generally permit inmates with HIV to have family visits with their spouses as long as the spouses sign confidential agreements that they are aware of the inmate's health.

"This is an important decision because it recognizes that people with HIV, with the proper medical care, can lead long and productive lives," said Rosemary C. Veniegas, the associate director at an HIV center at the UCLA School of Medicine. " As most public health organizations now recognize, couples where one partner has HIV can be very careful and take precautions to contain the disease."