Days after an inmate escaped from the Erie County Holding Center on Oct. 4, a state agency arrived for a customary investigation. But Erie County Attorney Cheryl A. Green told the state inspectors they may not interview the Holding Center’s staff.

Just as Green has barred the U. S. Justice Department from examining the Holding Center in Buffalo and the County Correctional Facility in Alden, she will not let the State Commission of Correction question deputies, supervisors or inmates without a county lawyer or video camera present.

“Under the law, the Commission of Correction can have access to our facilities and documents related to our facilities,” Green said Tuesday. “They are not allowed unfettered access to our employees for interviews —or the inmates for that matter.”

The state inspectors arrived at the Holding Center the morning of Oct. 7, days after inmate Brian Collins escaped to the jail’s roof and then surrendered after a standoff. The team was allowed to again tour the facility, but an assistant county attorney tagged along, ready to intervene with any interviews.

Unknown to Green, the commission later that day persuaded a State Supreme Court justice in Albany County, Joseph C. Teresi, to sign an order telling Erie County to provide “any information deemed necessary for the purpose of carrying out the commission’s functions.” Teresi’s order also granted inspectors the right to “privately conduct interviews.”

The team had left for the day before it had a chance to implement Teresi’s order. But Green is challenging that order and says she considers it null and void.

The commission makes its reports available to the public and to other jails to prevent a repeat of mistakes.

To explain the Collins escape, Sheriff Timothy B. Howard blamed a deputy for failing to check the door to the inmate’s cell. Had he done so, he said, the deputy would have discovered that Collins had gummed up the lock. The deputy has been fired.

But other deputies later told The Buffalo News that Howard’s mid-level supervisors had warned higher-ups about Collins’ zeal to escape and recommended that the dangerous inmate be placed under one-on-one supervision. The suggestion was rejected as unnecessary.

Green has filed legal papers arguing that the commission’s request for a court order should have gone before a State Supreme Court judge sitting in Erie County and that Teresi should have heard arguments from an Erie County attorney before deciding the matter.

She has asked another State Supreme Court justice in Albany County to relinquish venue to a judge in Erie County, and she has filed papers to begin a proceeding in the court’s Appellate Division in Rochester.

Green said she took her stand in part because the Commission of Correction in September filed suit against the sheriff. The commission accuses the Holding Center of “myriad delinquencies,” which it says range from “failing to provide inmates with reasonable access to a toilet and a bar of soap to troubling denials of due process in disciplinary matters.”

Green in an interview Tuesday blended the state commission’s investigation in the Collins escape with its efforts to gain more information for its lawsuit against Howard.

"The lawsuit that they have commenced against the County of Erie is part and parcel of every investigative inquiry made against the County of Erie," she said.

The state commission's lawsuit represents a second front in Erie County's defense of its jails. The Justice Department's Civil Rights Division has sued in federal court alleging that Erie County, through the beatings of inmates, inadequate health care and poor supervision, fails to protect constitutional rights.

Green, Howard and County Executive Chris Collins have complained that the Justice Department's agenda runs counter to the interests of local taxpayers. They call the state commission's lawsuit a political tactic from Democrats in state government in an election year. Howard, a Republican, is running for re-election against Democrat John Glascott, a police captain in Cheektowaga.

The Commission of Correction, which polices local jails in New York, chose not to comment on the legal flap beyond what it had already said in court papers: State law lets it investigate local correctional facilities and set up "procedures concerning the interviews of persons and on-site monitoring of conditions."

The commission also said it has learned that letting employers or their lawyers sit in restricts what the front-line staff are willing to say.

"Including an officer or employee's supervisor, or the employer's legal counsel, provides a chilling effect on an interview," Operations Director James E. Lawrence said in an affidavit.