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Federal judge asked to monitor Albuquerque's Downtown jail for crowding

By Kate Nash
Friday, June 29, 2007

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For years, Bernalillo County's Downtown detention center was mired in a lawsuit that at times required a population cap imposed by a federal judge, visits by lawyers and lots of public scrutiny.

Much of the focus on the jail at Fourth Street and Roma Avenue Northwest subsided in 2002 as the county packed up and moved into a $90 million slammer on the West Side.

But the thorn in the county's side — the lawsuit known as McClendon, which continues to loom over the West Side facility — is making another appearance.

On June 28, attorneys representing inmates in the McClendon lawsuit asked a federal judge to extend McClendon's oversight to the Downtown facility.

"The (Regional Correctional Center) is as crowded or more crowded now than when it was the (Bernalillo County Detention Center) under the court order," said inmates attorney Brian Pori.

"The judge ought to reinstate the cap at RCC because the same conditions that existed are still there."

Pori is one of the lawyers who sued the county in 1995 over crowded conditions, among other alleged problems at the jail. The lawsuit still governs some of what happens at the county lockup, even though it's in a different building with a different name, the Metropolitan Detention Center.

Pori wants the lawsuit extended to cover the Downtown jail now run by Cornell Companies Inc.

Cornell leases the building from the county for $1.5 million a year. The county, the U.S. Marshals Office and the Immigration and Customs Enforcement house detainees inside the building. About 700 of the residents are immigrants, waiting to be returned to their countries of origin.

Representatives for Cornell and ICE didn't return calls seeking comment on June 28.

Pori filed a motion in U.S. District Court in Albuquerque on June 28 arguing that lawyers should be able to inspect the RCC because the building is owned by the county and because county inmates are housed there.

On June 28, the county had 43 inmates at the Downtown jail because there wasn't room for them at the West Side detention center.

Jeff Baker, attorney for Bernalillo County in the McClendon lawsuit, said the county hasn't yet decided what it will do with the motion.

"The county is discussing the issue with Cornell. Under court rules, our formal response is due in 14 days, but we may be able to respond to it earlier than that," he said.

His team must consider a multitude of legal ramifications involved in the issues, Baker said, but he declined to go into specifics.

The McClendon name became synonymous with crowding in the late 1990s as the city and county struggled with where to house inmates. The MDC opened in December 2002, behind schedule and over budget, but from the start has been operating near or above capacity.

Bernalillo County Public Safety Director John Dantis said he doesn't think the McClendon suit should apply to the RCC.

And, he said, the county is still working to wrestle free from McClendon's grasp.

"McClendon never left us. McClendon has been with us since we've taken over," he said.

"We are working hard every single day to ensure we are in compliance with those agreements and we're getting closer and closer. And the accreditation is another example of our efforts."

The MDC on on June 28 received high marks on its first accreditation from the American Correctional Association, but was dinged in five areas, three related to crowding.

Pori said the Metro Detention Center is still too crowded, adding that he plans to file a motion to hold the county in contempt of court within two weeks.

"They've had two and a half years to bring down the population in the jail and not make it so overcrowded and understaffed," Pori said, but it consistently has had more inmates than its official capacity of 2,236.

Baker said he expects any request to hold in the county in contempt to fall flat.

"Under state law, the jail does not control its front door or back door. To impose fines on the jail for a situation beyond its control is unfair and unlikely to result in what all of us want, which is a jail which is not overcrowded."

The news comes as other lawyers are taking aim at the conditions in the Downtown jail. Attorneys involved in an American Civil Liberties Union prison project say they've talked to inmates who say health care is inadequate and the jail is dirty and cold.

Federal authorities also are looking into the death of a Korean immigrant who died at an Albuquerque medical facility while in the jail's custody last year. The woman repeatedly sought medical attention and her requests were ignored, according to the attorneys.

Bernalillo County Commissioner Michael Brasher said the county needs to consider all its options to keep its inmate population down.

The county should try to reduce the number of state prisoners in MDC and to speed up the judicial process, among other things, he said.

"In the long haul, after you've done all those things, and only after that, is when you need to look at expanding the MDC," he said.

But that idea raises another familiar county dilemma.

"Long term, I'm not aware that we have the money to add on to the existing MDC," he said.

Tribune reporter Maggie Shepard contributed to this report.