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County seeks federal court’s OK to make jail cuts
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Prosecutor Paul Gains
By PETER H. MILLIKEN
YOUNGSTOWN
Because of financial problems, Mahoning County officials have asked the federal court for permission to close half the main jail and all of the minimum-security jail and lay off an unspecified number of jail employees.
They also have joined with lawyers for the inmates who won a class-action lawsuit concerning jail crowding in seeking a one-year extension of the consent decree that settled that lawsuit.
County Prosecutor Paul J. Gains made this request of the three-judge federal-court panel supervising the jail in an electronic filing Sunday, the day before the scheduled expiration of the three-year consent decree that required that the jail facilities be fully open and staffed.
The federal judges had not ruled on Gains’ motion as of the close of business Monday.
In his U.S. District Court filing, Gains said the city proposed in negotiations last week a limit of 39 city misdemeanor prisoners if the county was forced by its economic woes to close half the jail but then withdrew its support for that limit.
In a court filing in response to the county Monday, the city denied revoking its offer. Rather, it said it expressed an interest in a possible limit April 20 but was no longer interested in such a limit May 13, when the county said it desired such an arrangement.
City Law Director Iris Torres Guglucello said the city was willing to consider a limit for one year in conjunction with a federal-court prisoner-release order, but the county wanted the limit in effect for at least three years.
An agreement, under which the city paid the county $80 per inmate per day for each city misdemeanor prisoner after its 71st inmate, expired in February.
Without an agreement limiting the number of city misdemeanor prisoners, the county risks either another lawsuit for operating an unconstitutionally overcrowded jail or being found in contempt for releasing inmates jailed by municipal judges, Gains argued.
Since the city won’t agree to limit its misdemeanor inmates, the county has no alternative but to seek federal-court protection through a modification and a one-year extension of the decree, Gains wrote.
The city has opposed an extension of the federal decree, saying state laws are the most effective prevention for problems that could be caused by potential understaffing.
“Under state law, the county has an obligation to fund the jail and to keep our prisoners imprisoned as sentenced,” Torres Guglucello said in an interview. “There is sufficient space in the jail to house prisoners. They just do not want to provide the sheriff with the funds he needs to keep the jail staffed properly so that it remains constitutional.”
The Ohio Supreme Court has ruled in a case involving Judge Elizabeth Kobly of Youngstown Municipal Court that a county common pleas court prisoner-release policy, such as the one here, doesn’t apply to a municipal judge, Gains noted.
“The unreasonable and irrational attitude of the city will most likely result in the sheriff being forced to release violent misdemeanants from communities other than Youngstown in order to avoid a contempt finding by a city municipal judge,” Gains wrote. “The result will be the release of violent, dangerous individuals to society so the sheriff can house nonviolent city inmates,” he added.
“If the county is planning on doing that, it’s news to me,” and the county could expose itself to liability if it does so without a federal release order and if a released violent inmate injures someone, Torres-Guglucello said. “I would doubt very seriously that that’s going to happen, but if it does happen, I think it’s irresponsible.”