ERIE COUNTY
Justice Department files papers countering Holding Center claims
Published: November 25, 2009, 12:30 am
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The U. S. Justice Department, in court papers filed Tuesday, says Erie County’s Holding Center and Correctional Facility have seen numerous beatings against inmates by guards and two deaths related to inadequate medical treatment since 2007.
There have been three suicides, 13 attempts and more than 70 episodes of inmate-on-inmate violence, including assaults encouraged by authorities, the Justice Department said, amplifying its lawsuit against Sheriff Timothy B. Howard, County Executive Chris Collins and other county officials.
“Incredibly, the defendants have taken the position that the foregoing conditions do not constitute a deprivation of constitutional rights that would warrant remedial action,” the Justice officials said in papers offered to counter Erie County’s recent attempt to dismiss the lawsuit.
The Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division in July completed a 50-page report that described beatings, shoddy medical care, sexual assaults against inmates and other abuses. The report concluded that Erie County fails to safeguard its inmates’ civil rights.
The Civil Rights Division then filed suit in U. S. District Court when Howard, Collins and County Attorney Cheryl A. Green continued to bar its inspectors from touring the jails without a county lawyer shadowing them.
“Erie County will not be bullied by the Civil Rights Division to provide hotel room standards for people in our facilities,” Collins said in October as Green filed papers to dismiss the lawsuit.
The Justice Department responded to Green’s motion Tuesday with 39 pages of legal arguments centered on the assertion that conditions in Erie County’s jails are so bad a federal judge should order remedies, and the agency has not exceeded its authority under the Civil Rights of Institutionalized Persons Act, or CRIPA, as Green contends.
Green had said that while CRIPA targets a “pattern or practice” that denies constitutional rights, the Justice Department has alleged only isolated events at the jails. She said the Justice Department has not shown that county officials condone mistreatment, and that the Justice Department’s 50- page report included details that are “conclusory and vague.”
“The county’s motives in making this argument — indeed in bringing this motion — appear to be to delay the litigation and hide the deplorable conditions in the facilities from this court, the public and the U. S. Department of Justice,” the agency responded.
In a separate document, Kathleen M. Mehltretter, the U. S. attorney for Western New York, said the 50 pages of findings outline in “great detail” the “allegations of staff abuse, serious harm inflicted on inmates by other inmates, inadequate mental health and medical treatment, and the unsafe environment” at both facilities.
In their memorandum, the federal lawyers said that “if the factual allegations in this case are deemed insufficient under the plausibility standard, one would be hard-pressed to find a complaint that could survive such scrutiny.”
Mehltretter said the federal lawyers tried to negotiate with Erie County but filed a lawsuit only after they realized they could not resolve their issues.
She said the lawsuit names certain Erie County officials as defendants because they have the responsibility to ensure that constitutional standards are met, should the court order them. “Personal involvement of the defendants in the constitutional violations is not a requirement in an action of this nature,” she said.
The lawyers for both sides are scheduled to argue before District Court Judge William M. Skretny on Dec. 16. Meanwhile, Erie County is awaiting a decision from a State Supreme Court justice in a suit brought by the state Commission of Correction to compel the sheriff to operate the Holding Center in a “safe, stable and humane manner.”
The commission, which polices local jails in New York, says the sheriff has failed to address certain basic needs of defendants, especially those awaiting arraignment.
Meanwhile, in a recent inspection of the Correctional Facility in Alden, the commission said it found examples of deputies leaving their posts. The posts are in hallways where inmates who have not yet been sentenced are supervised by Teamsters-represented deputies, the same force that staffs the Holding Center in downtown Buffalo.
The sheriff’s Jail Management Division responded by transferring a new force of about 60 Teamsters-represented deputies out to the Correctional Facility and recalling to the downtown Holding Center the deputies who had been assigned there.
mspina@buffnews.com
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