The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
May 20, 2006 Saturday
Main Edition
METRO NEWS; Pg. 1E
Cities blamed for jail logjam;
Overuse for petty crimes alleged
By: RHONDA COOK
Atlanta and eight other cities in Fulton County are being blamed for overcrowding at the Fulton jail and may be legally banned from bringing anyone accused of minor crimes to the lockup without an arrest warrant, the sheriff's attorney said in a letter Friday.
Ted Lackland, the attorney for Sheriff Myron Freeman, said the sheriff will review jail records and release anyone who has been jailed on misdemeanor charges for longer than 48 hours unless they arrive with an arrest warrant signed by a magistrate.
As pressure increases on Fulton County to comply with a federal court order mandating improvements at the aging jail, Freeman is taking steps to shift some of the responsibility to the cities he believes have used too little discretion in deciding who should go to the Fulton County Jail, who should go to municipal jails and who should simply be given a citation and sent home.
Atlanta police have brought people to the county jail --- where raw sewage flooded cells and recreation areas last month --- for such minor violations as failing to use a turn signal. Sometimes even minor violators stay at the jail for days because of paperwork delays or because they can't make bond.
Lackland wrote in letters hand-delivered Friday that he plans to amend a 2004 jail lawsuit to include Atlanta and the smaller cities. Lackland said the municipalities are to blame because police officers bring in minor offenders who should be charged with local ordinance violations, or people accused of misdemeanors. "This was done without regard for the consequences," Lackland wrote.
Lackland said he will ask U.S. District Court Judge Marvin Shoob, who presided over the jail case, to issue a "mandatory injunction" preventing police from bringing some of the accused criminals to the county jail.
Freeman declined to comment, referring a request to his lawyer.
In an interview, Lackland said, "It has become clear ... that without the active participation of all the municipalities ... we aren't going to get the jail population down to an acceptable number. The answer is to get all the parties in the same courtroom with the same judge and with those who are trying to deal with the problem."
The lawsuit, filed in June 2004, outlines many problems at the jail but the core issue is overcrowding, which taxes staff and accelerates the aging of systems at the 18-year-old lockup. To settle the lawsuit, the county agreed to spend tens of millions of dollars on renovations, increase the staff and keep the number of the inmates in the main jail below 2,250, as long as all areas of the jail are in use.
The county has not complied with the order since it was signed Feb. 3.
On Friday, 2,447 were in the jail. The conditions were worsened because the inmates were unable to use 200 beds in a cellblock that was uninhabitable because of plumbing problems.
"It is clear from an analysis of the current and past jail population statistics that your agency's misdemeanant arrestees have been brought to the jail without sworn testimony having been provided to a judicial officer," Lackland wrote in letters to the nine cities.
He wrote that the analysis of the jail's population showed that many of those arrested were charged with "petty or minor crimes for which pre-trial incarceration was not necessary. Their presences in the jail has been a material cause of the overcrowding that has been deemed by the federal court to have caused a constitutional crisis at the jail."
Atlanta, which accounts for 65 percent to 75 percent of the people in Fulton's jail, and East Point officials had no comment because they had not seen the letters. Sandy Springs Police chief Gene Wilson said people charged with misdemeanors are taken to Alpharetta's city jail. City Attorney Murray Weed said Hapeville police take their prisoners to East Point. Letters also went to Mountain Park, Union City, College Park and Palmetto. Fairburn's city attorney had surgery Friday and was unavailable for comment.
Alpharetta and Roswell were not sent letters because, Lackland said, they secure warrants before bringing inmates to the jail.
According to the letters, Freeman will soon release anyone who has been in the jail longer than 48 hours without a warrant. Georgia law says there must be a court appearance to determine probable cause for an arrest if a warrant was not issued.
Southern Center for Human Rights attorney Steven Bright was out of town Friday and unavailable for comment. But he said earlier in the week more dramatic steps were needed. "This is not going to solve all the problems but ... screening these cases will eliminate some trivial cases that are coming into the jail," Bright said.
All entities involved in the lawsuit so far, including Shoob, have become increasingly frustrated with problems at the jail. Shoob has written letters in a so far unsuccessful attempt to get space in Atlanta's Pre-Trial Detention Center for Fulton's inmates. Earlier this week, the Fulton County Commission hired a consulting firm to study options for the jail, including whether the Rice Street lockup should be expanded or whether a new facility should be built.
Staff writers Ty Tagami, Cynthia Daniels and Bill Montgomery contributed to this article.
CORRECTION-DATE: May 21, 2006
CORRECTION:
The city of Sandy Springs does not send those accused of misdemeanors to Alpharetta, as reported in a story about jail overcrowding in Saturday's Metro section. The city has a contract with the City of Roswell to house misdemeanor offenders.