MAHONING COUNTY JAIL City files motion to intervene in lawsuit

As of Friday, the county jail population was 412.
YOUNGSTOWN -- The city has filed a motion in Akron federal court to intervene in the Mahoning County jail lawsuit and oppose existing and future prisoner release orders.
The city says it has a right to intervene because a function of local government includes the prosecution or custody of people within its jurisdiction. Also, city residents pay county taxes that support the jail and pay for inmates held on city ordinances, Anthony J. Farris, deputy city law director, said in court papers.
Earlier this month, a three-judge panel was formed to establish criteria for inmate releases to avoid overcrowding. The panel consists of U.S. Sixth Circuit Judge Alice M. Batchelder and U.S. District Judges David D. Dowd Jr. and Dan A. Polster.
The panel is expected to meet next week and issue orders.
Judge Dowd has been overseeing operation of the jail since March 2005, when he determined the facility was overcrowded and unsafe. Inmates filed the class-action lawsuit.
Release plan at issue
To achieve an acceptable staff-to-inmate ratio, Mahoning County common pleas judges developed a release mechanism to keep the jail population at 296. This didn't sit well with some lower-court judges at the municipal and county level who late last year began issuing "do not release" orders to the sheriff for certain inmates. As of Friday, the jail population was 412. The jail can hold 564.
The city, which filed its motion Thursday, contends crowding is no longer the primary cause of a violation of federal rights. The various jail facilities in the county are capable of housing 660 inmates but the misdemeanant jail on Commerce Street and a large portion of the main jail on Fifth Avenue remain closed, Farris said in court papers.
In 2003, the state granted the sheriff a variance that increased the jail capacity on the express condition that he cease housing federal prisoners, Farris wrote. The deputy law director said the sheriff continued to house federal prisoners and, that summer, the overcrowding continued because of the Gun Reduction Interdiction Program, a federal effort that resulted in hundreds of arrests.
The inmate lawsuit was filed in November 2003.
Situation in 2003
"The overcrowding in 2003 arose as a combination of the improper use of jail beds for federal prisoners, an increase in arrests due to the implementation of a specialized federal program that is no longer in operation and the slow operation of the Mahoning County Court of Common Pleas which leads to an inordinately high percentage of jail inmates who are awaiting trial on felony charges," Farris wrote.
Farris said five more assistant county prosecutors and three magistrates have been hired since the lawsuit to speed up cases at common pleas. He said the factors that caused the jail problems three years ago are unlikely to occur again.
He said the city is intervening in the proceedings before the three-judge panel to oppose imposition of a prisoner release order and to seek the termination of any and all existing prisoner release orders. He said an appeal is pending at the Ohio Supreme Court to address whether common pleas judges may order the furlough of prisoners sentenced by other courts to avoid mandatory duties to save the county money.
Suggests solution
Farris said the simplest way to remedy the situation is to order Mahoning County to provide adequate staffing and funding to open and maintain all of their jail facilities at full capacity. He said the federal court has previously dismissed this solution by saying the county is hampered by limited funding.
State law requires that the sheriff confine prisoners committed to his custody -- which includes sending the excess to other jails -- and requires that county commissioners pay for the confinement, Farris wrote. He said the county, to avoid sending prisoners to other jails to save money, has released them.
Farris said commissioners have not established that they have exhausted all avenues to fund the jail and the sheriff has not established that he has taken measures to reassign deputies performing nonmandatory duties such as road patrol or excessive security for the courthouse.