Chickens coming home to roost

[magic99]

Justice Takes a Beating
OC court greenlights torture in local Jails
by R. SCOTT MOXLEY



Attorney Chris Mears
Photo by Amy Theilig


Last month, on the other side of the planet from Abu Ghraib prison and 3,200 miles from Guantanamo Bay, right here in Orange County, five jail deputies handcuffed, hooded, beat and tortured a 38-year-old San Clemente businessman, according to a claim filed this week.

Still in pain three weeks after the July 17 incident, Greg W. Hall told OC Weekly about a Sunday evening that began auspiciously: enjoying a beer early in the afternoon and later several coffees, contemplating surfing and walking his dog at the beach. As Hall backed his SUV out of a parking space, his dog jumped in front of a side-view mirror and distracted him. He sideswiped another vehicle, causing minor damage.

When police arrived, they gave Hall a field-sobriety check and two Breathalyzer tests. Crime lab records show his blood alcohol level was 0.00. Nevertheless, deputies believed Hall acted oddly. Currently on probation for an illegal prescription case in 2003, Hall told the officer at the scene about the beer and admitted that he used Paxil, an antidepressant medication. The deputy arrested him on suspicion of DUI and transported him to the Orange County Jail for a drug test. After a nurse took his blood, the arresting officer told Hall, “You’ll probably be out of here in about an hour,” and left.

But a 16-hour “hellish nightmare” awaited Hall, who attended Newport Harbor High School, graduated in 1991 from UC San Diego with a degree in economics, and says he has operated several small companies. When he complained about the tightness of his handcuffs, five deputies swarmed him, yelled obscenities and attacked without legitimate provocation, Hall claims. Handcuffed and overwhelmed, his body was treated like a piñata.



According to documents filed Aug. 11 with county officials, the deputies dragged Hall down a corridor, shoved his face into a cell door frame, threw him to the floor, punched him, kicked his ribs, stomped on his back and legs, bent and twisted his arms and wrists, and repeatedly slammed his face into the concrete. Hall says one deputy tried to break his right foot with his bare hands. He remembers an unrelenting, “two- or three-minute attack” that ended only when a superior officer ordered the deputies to stop.

“I thought they were going to kill me,” said Hall, bandaged and wearing a wrist cast. “They had no right to torture me. I was in handcuffs. I was cooperating.”

At press time, the results of Hall’s drug test were not available. But medical records show that during his visit to the jail he suffered a concussion, broken ribs, a gash in his leg, an eye contusion, broken veins in his feet, a shattered front tooth, lacerations and bruises over his body, contusions to a knee, neck pain, a fractured right wrist and nerve damage to his left hand. The handcuffs were locked so tightly that the steel sliced his hands and caused dangerous swelling. An imprint of a deputy’s boot could be seen on the back of his leg for days.

The beating was so severe that Hall defecated in his pants. Deputies laughed and called him a “**** monkey.” When they returned to his cell later, they cursed at him again—and tied a black mesh hood over his head.

Christopher B. Mears—Hall’s attorney, a former Irvine city councilman and the current chairman of the California Athletic Commission—said deputies left his client in that condition—hooded, handcuffed behind his back, soiled in feces and bleeding—for the next 12 hours. Officers also allegedly denied Hall food and water or access to a phone to call his family. Just before his release, Hall—still handcuffed—watched a jail staffer stitch the gash in his leg without anesthesia. Dizzy, sore and nauseated, he limped out of the building wondering why.

“They literally—and I mean literally—beat the **** out of him,” said Mears. “Those deputies can’t get away with this type of savage behavior against a defenseless person who is in their custody.”

* * *



In 2003, my colleague Nick Schou reported the findings of Laguna Beach lawyer Richard P. Herman, a leading critic of jailhouse abuses. Herman claimed “inmates of the Orange County Jail awaken at night to the screams of other inmates being beaten.” Orange County Register investigative reporter Aldrin Brown had previously written a series of articles describing the horrific results of the beatings in local jails: detached retinas, ruptured eardrums, shattered jaws, severed arteries, broken limbs—even death from trauma.

Brown, now with a Tennessee newspaper, found evidence in 2000 that jail deputies entertained themselves by encouraging fights between inmates. In 2001, Brown and Register reporter John McDonald disclosed that four deputies had taken a 20-year-old inmate to an isolated area of the jail in December 1999 and crushed his testicles. Prosecutors agreed that the man had been tortured but said a code of silence among jail personnel prevented the filing of charges. Deputies claimed their Fifth Amendment protection against self-incrimination when they were brought before the grand jury.

Nobody had a better opportunity to demand reform than federal judge Gary L. Taylor. Prompted by Herman’s class-action lawsuit, Taylor conceded in April that “there is room for improvement” inside the jail but suggested the grievances aren’t serious. He killed the suit. “Improvement is always a necessary goal,” the judge said in a 14-page ruling. “The county and the sheriff show every indication they will perform that high duty.”

But Sheriff Mike Carona—who called Taylor’s ruling a “great victory”—has little incentive to clean up the county’s jail. He first won election in 1998 by telling voters that his leadership would produce a department that was a model of professionalism. Today, he thinks he’s succeeded. Through one of his spokesmen, the sheriff said he runs “one of the safest jails in America” and that “inmate welfare” is “very high on our list.”

In fact, politics tops the sheriff’s list. When they’re candid, Carona’s advisers admit the sheriff won’t end jail abuses for fear of alienating the deputies’ politically powerful union. With an election year approaching and challengers such as Bill Hunt and Ralph Martin already campaigning, it’s unlikely Carona—who is seeking his third term at the $500-million-a-year agency—will enact reforms any time soon.

That reality gives rogue deputies leeway to misbehave with little or no fear of punishment. Sources inside the jail say these officers often arrive at work looking for excuses to employ violence.

A few don’t wait. A law enforcement source described how some of these deputies provoke violence. In one example, he said, deputies would target an inmate at random, give him jail clothing that was either too small or too large and then wait for him to complain. “When the guy complains, the deputy’s hit the jackpot,” said the official. “He wallops the living hell out of him and reports that force was necessary to end a disruption. Officially, nobody will doubt the word of a deputy.”

* * *



But the most troubling ruling from the court came on June 8, when Justices Moore and Fybel joined William Bedsworth. The case was simple: Santa Ana police took Hong Cuc Truong, who’d been arrested for shoplifting in 2002, to the Orange County Jail. There, Truong—a Vietnamese immigrant diagnosed with schizophrenia—initially refused a deputy’s command to undress and take a shower before she was to be issued a jail jump suit. Truong began undressing about 10 minutes later, after another inmate convinced her it was safe to disrobe. As she pulled her sweater over her head, however, four deputies pounced, beating and kicking her and painfully twisting her arms behind her back. In the process, Truong suffered a severe arm fracture, according to records reviewed by the Weekly. Tossed in a cell, she said she was denied medical attention for hours.

The appeals court ruled there had been no excessive force. Never mind that the woman was in the process of complying when the attack occurred, wrote Justice Moore: “Truong’s refusal to obey the lawful order and the events that led to her injuries are part of an unbreakable chain of events.” It was “temporal hair-splitting” to consider that the woman had “changed her mind and started to remove her sweater.”

But lost in Moore’s justification was a missing explanation: Why did it take four trained deputies—using considerable violence—to handle Truong, who, at the time of the incident, was 54 years old, an inch over 5 feet tall and barely 100 pounds?

http://www.ocweekly.com/ink/05/49/cover-moxley.php

What goes round, comes round.
Do you see why 'non-Americans' get nervous when you want to build concentration camps, or define 'who is a terrorist, a pirate' etc.

The problem is, that you compare your behaviour to the terrorist, not the developed world to give justification to what you will do, if you can get away with it.

the beating and torturing of prisoners, either in your own prisons, against your own citizens, let alone other nationals should be *****nant, in any way shape or form.

[Woodmonkey]

Some criminal claiming something doesn't mean it is true. If it is, he will be compensated and those responsible will be punished.

Why do you think this is commonplace? It is not. We are not a country of thugs and sadists.

[Snowden]

Magic, one thing you're missing with this list of errors in our justice system, is that there are two things here, if any of this is true, that should be apparent. One, this is an exception - one place in one state, one county. Two, that it is news because it is not the normal thing - it's the exception. That's what makes it news.

If this were common practice, it would not be reported. For instance, there was a time when Baltimore city newspapers reported every murder or killing (the difference being intent). Now they may publish a story about one that is unusual or unusually grizzly - but murder/killing is now so normal that it's not reported.

That's horrible; it should be news that such circumstances are now considered "normal." Personally, this vampire edition here doesn't impress me - it says that lot needs to get their county cleaned up, starting with the police. Nothing about the US or gun control - just an isolated case that certainly needs attention. But it is not the norm; it is the exception.

But there's no denying that excessive force is all too frequent in places all over the country.

[magic99]

Originally Posted by Snowden

Magic, one thing you're missing with this list of errors in our justice system, is that there are two things here, if any of this is true, that should be apparent. One, this is an exception - one place in one state, one county. Two, that it is news because it is not the normal thing - it's the exception. That's what makes it news.

If this were common practice, it would not be reported. For instance, there was a time when Baltimore city newspapers reported every murder or killing (the difference being intent). Now they may publish a story about one that is unusual or unusually grizzly - but murder/killing is now so normal that it's not reported.

That's horrible; it should be news that such circumstances are now considered "normal." Personally, this vampire edition here doesn't impress me - it says that lot needs to get their county cleaned up, starting with the police. Nothing about the US or gun control - just an isolated case that certainly needs attention. But it is not the norm; it is the exception.

But there's no denying that excessive force is all too frequent in places all over the country.

I know that from time to time you always get some redneck cop, I have met the odd one here. the difference is that when the Courts, or people in authority turn a blind eye to it, or justify it, it makes it too easy for them to get away with as they beleive that they have the tacit ageement of authority to do it. If it is tolerated in the home, it is tolerated overseas, and it forms a vicious circle. it can only exist if it is tolerated anywhere.

[BrianK]

Originally Posted by Snowden

Magic, one thing you're missing with this list of errors in our justice system, is that there are two things here, if any of this is true, that should be apparent. One, this is an exception - one place in one state, one county. Two, that it is news because it is not the normal thing - it's the exception. That's what makes it news.

If this were common practice, it would not be reported. For instance, there was a time when Baltimore city newspapers reported every murder or killing (the difference being intent). Now they may publish a story about one that is unusual or unusually grizzly - but murder/killing is now so normal that it's not reported.

That's horrible; it should be news that such circumstances are now considered "normal." Personally, this vampire edition here doesn't impress me - it says that lot needs to get their county cleaned up, starting with the police. Nothing about the US or gun control - just an isolated case that certainly needs attention. But it is not the norm; it is the exception.

But there's no denying that excessive force is all too frequent in places all over the country.

Sounds like you are trying to explain something that may or may not be true. The good part of having a free society that can & does get some nasty stuff into the open it can be dealt with. Doesn't mean the entire country is wrong just some people in it that can & do abuse authority.

Of course America is the only society with ills that need to be corrected. Wasn't there a thread about blinding a man as punishment? Oh wait that wasn't in America so it doesn't count.

Meanwhile turning prisoners from Gitmo over to their homeland takes time to get assurances that when returned they won't be harmed. Whoops that can't be true can it?? America is running concentration camps so returning detainees wouldn't need assurances.

Really a wonder is why taking captured terrorists to Egypt for interrogation seems to get better results. Must be the cusine offered in the plush hotel accomodations.

We could learn a lot from other countries about civility and treatment of people hell bent on killing innocents. Meanwhile back here in America where our legal system has run amuck the average law abiding citizen isn't safe to walk the streets for fear of being incarcerated. That hasn't happened where I live but I'm sure once the whole country gets on board I can expect to be grabbed up off the street for walking faster than others. You know any excuse will do.

I wish I hadn't read your reply to whatever Chickens coming home to roost was about. Now I'm afraid to go out.