Intervention rejected on procedural grounds

The city may renew its motion to intervene, the judges said.
YOUNGSTOWN -- A panel of three federal judges has denied the city's request to intervene in a federal lawsuit by inmates concerning conditions in the Mahoning County Jail.
U.S. District Judges David D. Dowd Jr. and Dan A. Polster and U.S. 6th Circuit Court of Appeals Judge Alice M. Batchelder ruled Thursday that the city didn't follow the proper procedure because it didn't file a pleading setting forth a claim or defense for which intervention is sought.
The judges gave Youngstown and other potential intervenors, the cities of Campbell and Struthers and the county court judges, until July 28 to file motions to intervene and set a status conference in the case for 10 a.m. Aug. 14 in U.S. District Court in Akron.
Any proposed intervenor must clearly state what aspects of the case it seeks to challenge and why it has standing to do so and show authorization, such as an action of a city council, in support of the intervention, the judges said.
Judge Dowd has been overseeing jail operations since March 2005, when he determined the lockup was overcrowded and unsafe after the inmates filed the class action suit against the county in November 2003. The three-judge panel is to issue orders soon concerning inmate releases to avoid jail overcrowding.
Youngstown's complaint
"It's our goal to make sure that somebody in this litigation is opposing prisoner release orders," said Anthony Farris, deputy Youngstown city law director, after the decision was rendered Thursday. It is the county's responsibility to properly fund jail operations, he said. Farris said he'd ask the mayor and council for authority to refile the city's intervention.
"The city has to comply with the law in filing their intervention, which means they have to file a complaint, and they have to set forth specific facts which justify their position," said Mahoning County Prosecutor Paul Gains, who opposed Youngstown's intervention. The inmates' Akron lawyers also opposed the city's intervention.