The Texas Observer Publishing Co., 1978 Clean; It's Cheap
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THE \ N TEXAS ,\ , A Journal of Free Voices September 22, 1978 500 ALSO: Connally or Bush for president? • Publisher's report II • Briscoe: hounding Zavala County • Corporate gumshoes want your arrest record Texas prisons By Linda Rocawich Houston, Austin There's no shortage of correctional administrators and ex- The Texas perts in this state and across the country who will tell you that the Texas Department of Corrections runs the best state prison OBSERVER system the nation's ever seen: it's efficient, it's secure, it's c The Texas Observer Publishing Co., 1978 clean; it's cheap. The U.S. Department of Justice has a different Ronnie Dugger, Publisher opinion: TDC is an outrageous violator of Texas prisoners' civil rights. And the department is backing up its claim with a mas- Vol. 70, No. 18 September 22, 1978 sive lawsuit on behalf of the inmates—the biggest prison case it's ever argued—that goes to trial in Houston before Federal Incorporating the State Observer and the East Texas Demo- District Judge William Wayne Justice on October 2. crat, which in turn incorporated the Austin Forum-Advocate. The case is Ruiz v. Estelle and the trial—which is expected to last at least two months and perhaps as long as six—will climax EDITOR Jim Hightower a legal battle that started about seven years ago when a handful ASSOCIATE EDITORS Linda Rocawich of inmates began filing separate complaints against prison offi- Eric Hartman cials under the federal Civil Rights Act. Their cases were con- EDITOR AT LARGE Ronnie Dugger solidated in 1974 as a class action that challenges TDC practices and procedures of all stripes—and that eventually could force PRODUCTION MANAGERS: Susan Reid, Beth Epstein sweeping changes in the state's treatment of convicted offen- ASSISTANT EDITORS: Vicki Vaughan, Bob Sindermann ders. STAFF ASSISTANTS: Margaret Watson, Margot Beutler, Beverly At issue are the living and working conditions in the 15 Texas Palmer, Harris Worcester, Larry Zinn, Jamie Murphy, Karrie Key, Christy Hoppe, Lisa Spann, Matthew Lyon, Helen Jardine, Karen prisons: the suit charges that they constitute cruel and unusual White punishment forbidden by the Eighth Amendment. Among the CONTRIBUTORS: Kaye Northcott, Jo Clifton, Dave McNeely, Don claims made by the inmate plaintiffs—all denied by the state— Gardner, Warren Burnett, Paul Sweeney, Marshall Breger, Jack Hop- are that: per, Stanley Walker, Joe Frantz, Laura Eisenhour, Dan Hubig, Ben Sargent, Berke Breathed, Eje Wray, Roy Hamric, Thomas D. Bleich, • severely overcrowded living conditions endanger their Mark Stinson, Ave Bonar, Jeff Danziger, Lois Rankin, Maury Maverick physical and mental health; Jr., Bruce Cory, John Henry Faulk, Chandler Davidson, Molly Ivins, • unsafe working conditions on the prison farms and in prison Ralph Yarborough, Laura Richardson, Tim Mahoney, John Spragens Jr., Sheila R. Taylor, Doug Harlan, David Guarino, Susan Lee industries jeopardize their health and safety: • TDC fails to protect them from physical assaults by guards or other inmates; BUSINESS STAFF: Cliff Olofson, Ricky Cruz • the TDC staff is too small, and is insufficiently trained, to maintain reasonable security inside the prisons; A journal of free voices • TDC illegally uses inmates, usually called "building ten- We will serve no group or party but will hew hard to the truth as we ders," as surrogate guards—a practice that often results in phys- find it and the right as we see it. We are dedicated to the whole truth, ical assaults; to human values above all interests. to the rights of humankind as the • prison medical care is grossly inadequate and often inacces- foundation of democracy; we will take orders from none but our own conscience, and never will we overlook or misrepresent the truth to sible; serve the interests of the powerful or cater to the ignoble in the human • they are denied reasonable access to the courts, public spirit. officials, and their lawyers; The editor has exclusive control over the editorial policies and con- tents of the Observer. None of the other people who are associated • TDC guards and officials retaliate severely against inmates with the enterprise shares this responsibility with him. Writers are who write letters or petitions to the courts or public officials; responsible for their own work, but not for anything they have not • summary punishment for rules infractions is imposed arbi- themselves written, and in publishing them the editor does not neces. sarily imply that he agrees with them because this is a journal of free trarily and due process in disciplinary proceedings is denied voices. systematically. Published by Texas Observer Publishing Co., biweekly except for a three-week inter- val between issues twice a year. in January and July: 25 issues per year. Second-class In the beginning.. postage paid at Austin, Texas. Publication no. 541300. Single copy (current or back issue) 50e prepaid. One year. $14; two years, $25; three Though the validity of these claims remains to be settled in years, $36. Foreign, except APO/FPO, $1 additional per year. Airmail, bulk orders, and court, much of the evidence is already in the public record at the group rates on request. federal district clerk's office—the result of elaborate prepara- Microfilmed by Microfilming Corporation of America, 21 Harristown Road, Glen Rock, N.J. 07452. tion and investigation by attorneys and experts for both sides—and TDC's prospects don't look good. It all goes back to Editorial and Business Offices: the early 1970s and a few of the TDC "writ writers," inmates 600 West 7th Street, Austin, Texas 78701 who had managed to teach themselves enough law to petition 10020). F (512) 477-0746 the courts on their own. The more sophisticated among them were turning from the traditional jailhouse lawyer practice of Cover design: Nancy Whittington Cover photo: Danny Lyon, Conversations with the Dead (Holt, 1971). on trial fighting an individual conviction or sentence or treatment— their own or a friend's—toward challenging prison conditions in general. (See article, page 6.) Some of them were incarcerated at TDC's Eastham Unit, which happens to be located in the federal court district pre- sided over in Tyler by Wayne Justice, a judge well-known for his willingness to take the complaints of prisoners (and other disadvantaged folks) seriously (Obs., Jan. 20). Seven petitions stating one or more charges of the sort mentioned above found their way to Judge Justice's attention, and he ap- parently saw enough merit in them to keep them alive. Mean- while, the National Association for the Advancement of Col- ored People had come on the scene; NAACP Legal Defense Fund attorneys Stan Bass of New York, Sam Biscoe of Dallas, and William Bennett Turner of San Francisco took on the writ writers as clients. In April 1974, Judge Justice consolidated the suits filed by David Ruiz, L. D. Hilliard, Ernesto Montana, Herman Randall, Amado Pardo, 0. D. Johnson and Arthur Winchester. It was now a class action on behalf of all state prisoners against TDC director Jim Estelle and the nine members of the Texas Board of Corrections, TDC's governing body. At the same time, he 0 ordered the Justice Department's civil rights division to advise him on the case as a friend of the court; later that year, the C (.6 department decided to intervene on the side of the plaintiffs. CI Since then the government attorneys have, for all practical pur- poses, represented the inmates' interests, spending untold opinions of experts and outside observers, the assertions of amounts of time and money to gather evidence and prepare the inmates and a handful of ex-employees, and the vehement de- case for trial. Civil rights division lawyers Gail Littlefield, nials of TDC officials and employees. The attorneys, who keep Charles Ory and David Vanderhoof are now settled in, having saying they "don't want to try the case in the press," are eva- moved from Washington to Houston for the duration; they will sive or downright close-mouthed when questioned about what be joined next month by the NAACP's Turner, who continues will go on at the trial; so are most of the hundreds of people as attorney of record for the inmate plaintiffs. whose names appear on the witness lists submitted by both The Texas officials, represented by a team of lawyers headed sides. Transcripts of witnesses' oral depositions are not open to by Ed Idar of Attorney General John Hill's staff, have fought the public; they're sealed under a special rule of the Houston the inmates and the feds tooth and nail since the beginning. federal courts. (The Houston Chronicle has filed suit to open They have tried to get the case thrown out of court; they have them, but Judge Justice has not yet ruled on the paper's request.) tried to prevent the federal intervention; and they have tried But, depositions aside, a unique arrangement for the gather- desperately to get the case out of Judge Justice's courtroom. ing of evidence and marshaling of expert opinion has put a None of their ploys has worked, but they have managed to keep staggering amount of material in the public record already. The the case in a procedural tangle for years. feds wanted to bring in a number of professionals with expertise And it did look, for a while, as though they would achieve at on various subjects relevant to the issues in the case— least one of their goals: in May of this year, TDC managed to get penologists, doctors experienced with institutional medical the case moved from Tyler to Houston. Attorneys for the state practices, nutritionists, industrial hygienists, public health con- said the venue change was needed because the Justice Depart- sultants, and so on—and let them inspect the prisons at will.