Mahoning jail problem going to mediation

AKRON — Youngstown and Mahoning County officials say they’re optimistic about settling a dispute over county jail operations with U.S. District Judge Dan Aaron Polster as the mediator.

“I think the presence of Judge Polster will really kick-start this process. Everyone is going to give more than they wanted to give and we are going to see a resolution,” said Anthony J. Farris, Youngstown’s deputy law director.

“I am always optimistic, especially with Judge Polster,” said county Prosecutor Paul Gains. “He’s a good judge,” added Gains, who has known the judge for about 12 years. “I’m hoping to be able to resolve this. I do not like being at odds with the city.”

The mediation process will begin when lawyers for the jail inmates, who filed a class-action lawsuit against the county over jail conditions, and lawyers for the city and county bring their proposals to a closed-door meeting at 11 a.m. Wednesday in Judge Polster’s Akron chambers. The city has intervened in the case as a third party to protect its interests.

The city and county have been negotiating bed allotments in the county jail for the city’s misdemeanor prisoners and payments from the city to house them.

A panel of three federal judges — David D. Dowd Jr., Alice M. Batchelder of the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, and Judge Polster, which is overseeing the jail case — arranged the mediation attempt after a Thursday hearing at which the panel took the matter under advisement and issued no prisoner-release order.

“It can’t be resolved unless all parties are willing to work toward a resolution,” said Judge Batchelder, chairwoman of the panel, describing the matter as “a local problem.” She said Judge Polster would attempt to resolve the dispute without a court order.

Thursday’s hearing concerned a request by the inmates’ lawyers, Robert Armbruster and Thomas Kelley, for an injunction capping the jail population at 288 inmates.

The lawyers requested the injunction after Vincent M. Nathan, a jail expert appointed by the panel, concluded earlier this month that only a prisoner-release order limiting the jail to 288 inmates would remedy what he termed the jail’s unconstitutional overcrowding. The partly open jail housed 465 inmates on Dec. 22, according to court papers filed by the county.

The inmates won their suit in March 2005 when Judge Dowd found the lockup overcrowded and unsafe, and the hearing was part of an ongoing effort to remedy jail conditions.

“There has been no improvement, and my sense is probably deterioration,” in jail conditions since the spring of 2005, Nathan said in court. Jail conditions “fall below constitutional standards, and that is a direct result of crowding,” he testified.

Sheriff Randall Wellington, who attended the hearing with several of his deputies and all three county commissioners, has asked the county commissioners for an extra $3.8 million to bring his 2007 budget to $19.7 million to allow full reopening of the jail and to raise its capacity to 564 inmates.

“There is clear and convincing evidence of the overcrowding, and the overcrowding is causing constitutional violations,” Gains told the panel. As a former police officer, Gains said he is reluctant to call for a prisoner-release order, but said, “Constitutional rights are paramount.”

The county, which endorsed an injunction in the form of a prisoner-release order, called for a cap of 315 inmates (279 men and 36 women).

Armbruster said in court he would go along with a limit of 315, which he said would prevent overcrowding and allow separation of violent and nonviolent offenders until the federal judges hold their scheduled full evidentiary hearing May 16-17.

After court, Armbruster said he isn’t optimistic about a mediated settlement and hopes the judges would soon issue a preliminary injunction as a temporary remedy.

Farris, who opposes a prisoner-release order, however, told the judges they could issue such an order only if they determine through a full evidentiary hearing that crowding is the primary cause of constitutional violations and that such an order is the only remedy.

“The jail is understaffed, not overcrowded,” Farris said, adding that current jail space isn’t being fully used and that a mass release of prisoners would endanger the community.

The solution to the jail crisis is for the county to spend the money needed to remedy any unsatisfactory jail conditions, he said.

County Administrator George Tablack said after the hearing, however, that the county already spends 70 percent of its general fund on the criminal justice system. The general fund is the county’s main operating fund.

“I hope that the mayor [Jay Williams] harnesses his legal staff and we sit down with Judge Polster and iron this out.

This is critical,” Tablack said. Calling for a spirit of cooperation, he added, “This is not a time for a community to be shooting arrows at each other. It’s a time, like the federal judges said, for the community to work as a whole.”