MAHONING COUNTY

MAHONING COUNTY

Judges resolve

inmates’ lawsuit

Without voter approval of the sales tax renewal, the settlement would have been unlikely, a judge said.

By PETER H. MILLIKEN

VINDICATOR STAFF WRITER

AKRON — A panel of three federal judges has approved a consent judgment entry ending a 31⁄2-year-old class-action lawsuit by Mahoning County jail inmates.

The federal court and the inmates’ lawyers, however, will monitor jail conditions for three more years.

The entry was signed earlier by the inmates’ lawyers and by officials from Mahoning County and the city of Youngstown.

In March 2005, the inmates won their lawsuit against the county, which alleged that overcrowded jail conditions violated their constitutional rights. The federal court has been overseeing the jail ever since.

Included in the settlement entry are requirements concerning jail staffing, improvement of jail conditions, the reopening of all jail facilities by Aug. 1, an allotment of jail beds for Youngstown city prisoners and an emergency prisoner-release policy to prevent future overcrowding.

The agreement also allows for the housing of federal prisoners in the county jail, and county Prosecutor Paul J. Gains said the county expects to house them “very soon.”

The city intervened in the case last summer because it wanted county jail facilities fully opened and opposed a prisoner-release order on the grounds that such an order would endanger public safety.

“It’s effectively over. All that’s left now is the monitoring for compliance,” Anthony J. Farris, deputy city law director, said after court. “We have reached a workable resolution that can last for the long term.”

“We can work forward from here to get the jail open at 100 percent,” said County Commissioner John A. McNally IV. “It’s a good day for Mahoning County and a good day for the city of Youngstown.”

What Traficanti said

“This was the easy part. The hard part is going to be to continue to breathe life into the spirit of cooperation [among city and county officials] for the betterment of our jail and for the betterment of society,” said Anthony T. Traficanti, chairman of the county commissioners.

“[The settlement] guarantees that the Mahoning County Jail will be constitutional and constitutionally run,” said Robert Armbruster, a lawyer for the inmates. “I think, if they [the county officials] simply follow the terms of this consent order, the jail will be constitutional, and there will be no other lawsuits.” The entry requires mediation of any complaints concerning the jail, he said.

The hearing

Thursday’s hearing before the jail oversight panel, consisting of Judge Alice M. Batchelder of the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, and U.S. District Judges Dan Aaron Polster and David D. Dowd Jr., lasted 10 minutes.

“It is the judgment of this court that the consent judgment is fair and equitable,” Judge Batchelder said, noting that the hearing concluded the case, but the federal court retains jurisdiction, with “continuous monitoring” of jail conditions.

The court received two handwritten complaint letters from jail inmates, but no former inmates appeared in court to comment on the agreement. No transportation was provided for current inmates.

One inmate, Clifford West, jailed since Oct. 19, complained that he has not been afforded a speedy trial and that the settlement agreement wasn’t posted in his housing unit. Another inmate, whose name is illegible, complained of poor ventilation, moldy showers, low water pressure and a broken toilet.

When Judge Batchelder asked if anyone in the courtroom objected to the settlement, nobody spoke up. “I like the silence,” she said.

“There was a time nobody was very optimistic that we’d arrive at this moment,” Judge Batchelder said, praising the efforts of the parties to reach the settlement mediated by Judge Polster.

Sales tax

“Without the voters of Mahoning County, I don’t think we’d have been able to arrive at this point,” Judge Batchelder said, referring to the voters’ passage of the continuing renewal of the half-percent sales tax May 8. That tax is one of two half-percent sales taxes, each generating about $14 million annually for the county’s general fund.

Some 69 percent of the general fund — the county’s main operating fund — goes to jail operations and other parts of the county’s criminal justice system.

“I’m glad that they thanked the voters for passing that tax so we can remain constitutional and afford to keep it constitutional,” Gains said.

Attending the hearing were the commissioners, County Administrator George Tablack, Sheriff Randall Wellington, and other county officials, and the inmates’ lawyers, Armbruster and Thomas Kelley of Akron.

Gains said he did not yet know how much the case would cost the county in fees for the inmates’ lawyers, whose compensation is $186 per hour for legal work and $150 per hour for jail monitoring, according to the consent judgment entry.