Gusman comes under fire from DOJ
2nd May 2016 · 0 Comments
By Della Hasselle
Contributing Writer
Citing an “immediate risk of harm and death to the men, women and youth” in Orleans Parish Prison, the United States Department of Justice along with prisoners’ attorneys have asked a federal court to remove Sheriff Marlin Gusman from his spot in the jail’s helm.
In a public response, Gusman denied wrongdoing, saying he “vigorously” disagreed with the request.
He added that the DOJ and the Roderick and Solange MacArthur Justice Center had inaccurately qua-lified his office’s work towards bettering a notoriously violent and dangerous atmosphere in the city’s jail.
The request, which came in the form of a motion filed in federal court last week, follows years of requests for reform to the jail, which has been under federal oversight since 2013.
The lawyers and the DOJ argued that prisoners and guards at the jail are still being subjected to an “epidemic of violence,” and that Gusman has repeatedly failed to deliver reforms called for in the consent judgment.
That federal consent decree found that prisoners were unsafe due to all aspects of governing jail operations, including security, medical and mental health care, sanitation and classification.
“The Sheriff not only has failed or refused to comply with the Consent Judgment, he has proven to be incapable of taking action necessary to comply,” stated the motion, which detailed widespread violence and underreporting of the violence by the jail.
“Urgent and extraordinary action is required.”
To remedy, they suggested an outside administrator take over Gusman’s duties in supervising the facility.
The attorneys argued that violence in the OPP “continues to spiral out of control” and that staff uses of force against prisoners “go unreported, uninvestigated, and are out of control.”
It had become so bad, the motion said, that prisoners had resorted to hurting themselves to get transferred out of the jail and into a medical facility. Suicide risks had not been improved, they said, despite the construction of a new, $150 million, 1.438-bed jail.
Last month, for example, Cleveland Tumblin, a 61-year-old boxing instructor, died after hanging himself in a shower stall at the jail, locked from the inside. According to critics, the sheriff was warned of the known suicide hazard months before the death but was unable or unwilling to correct them in a timely manner.
“Although there is no question that receivership is an extraordinary remedy, so too is the level of harm that continues to plague the jail, with no apparent end in sight,” the lawyers and the DOJ said. “The history of this case, the current state of consent judgment compliance, and the ongoing dangerous conditions demonstrate that receivership is the only path forward.”
Moreover, the motion alleged that the sheriff and his deputies had lost control over the jail and its population altogether.
“The prisoners are taking control of the jail,” they wrote. “It is only a matter of time before more prisoners, or staff members, suffer serious injury or death.”
The Roderick and Solange MacArthur Justice Center is currently litigating a related case, called Jones v. Gusman. The federal lawsuit alleges pervasive violations of prisoners’ constitutional rights in the jail, caused by a lack of oversight.
The case, which began in 2012 detailed widespread violence, sexual assaults, neglect of prisoners and the denial of mental health services. As a result, the Department of Justice intervened that September, and a federal consent decree to address the conditions was agreed upon in December.
Now, last month’s motion asks U.S. District Court Judge Lance Africk to hold Gusman in contempt of consent decree provisions. It also asked that Africk set a schedule for additional briefing on the logistics of appointing a receiver to administer the jail.
Although a new receiver probably wouldn’t be able to operate the jail at a lower daily cost than Gusman can now, the oversight switch would be better for all in the long run, as it would be “untethered from local politics” and would allow someone to operate the jail without “further unnecessary delay and foot-dragging.”
The sheriff and Mayor Mitch Landrieu have long been in a public battle over the cost and size of the new jail. Gusman wants to extend the building to a third wing to house special needs, severely ill inmates, because that population was not accounted for in the original facility blueprints.
Landrieu, in the meantime, has accused Gusman of overspending by millions of dollars for things like computer training and pest control, padding bloated contracts when the money instead should be used for staffing.
In a statement last week, a City Hall spokesman said that the filing “speaks for itself.”
“It is in the best interests of our taxpayers and our public safety that the jail is run competently and constitutionally,” said Hayne Rainey.
On April 25, Gusman responded, saying he was “looking forward” to proving in court what he shared with the State of the Sheriff’s Office Address – that he was making “substantial strides” toward complying with the federal consent decree.
This article originally published in the May 2, 2016 print edition of The Louisiana Weekly newspaper.
