Pubdate: Sat, 17 Jan 2004
Source: San Jose Mercury News (CA)
Copyright: 2004 San Jose Mercury News
Contact:  http://www.bayarea.com/mld/mercurynews
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/390
Author: Howard Mintz and Mark Gladstone

A Look At Prison Officials' Actions

REPORT: CHIEF MADE PELICAN BAY GUARDS PROBE `GO AWAY'

It was late in the afternoon of March 27, 2003, when then-California 
Department of Corrections Director Edward Alameida Jr. convened a meeting 
in his Sacramento office that his top advisers later agreed was 
``extraordinary.''

The agenda for these managers was what to do about an internal affairs 
probe into allegations that Pelican Bay State Prison guards had committed 
perjury to protect two fellow guards during a 2002 federal criminal 
civil-rights trial. Alameida was livid that he had to deal with the cases 
at all, according to other participants.

Pounding his fist, the state's top corrections official reportedly 
described the allegations as the type that just get ``thrown up in the 
air.'' Then he asked: ``How do they go away?''

As a special investigator appointed by a San Francisco federal judge has 
found, Alameida and his top aides did make the cases ``go away,'' allegedly 
cutting off the internal probe under immense pressure from California's 
powerful prison guards union. And the ``extraordinary'' meeting in 
Alameida's office has become Exhibit A in a scathing portrayal of how 
deeply a ``code of silence'' permeates even the upper echelons of the 
prison system and paralyzes the department's ability to police guards who 
break the rules or abuse inmates.

Critical Report

The account of the meeting is contained in a blistering, 80-page report 
released this week by John Hagar, a prison expert monitoring Pelican Bay 
for U.S. District Judge Thelton Henderson. Hagar's report suggests a 
criminal investigation is warranted into whether Alameida and others may 
have defied court orders and lied during an ongoing probe into problems at 
Pelican Bay, a prison on the rugged North Coast where the state sends its 
most violent inmates.

Alameida, who recently resigned as corrections department director, has 
denied silencing any investigations. The union denies a code of silence 
exists to protect guards. And the newly installed leadership in the prison 
system under Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger is offering assurances that flaws 
will be quickly addressed to reassure Henderson, who has the power to force 
changes in the corrections department.

But Hagar's report puts pressure on Schwarzenegger to seek fixes for a 
department that for years has been unable -- or unwilling -- to pierce the 
code of silence among officers sworn to uphold the law and is considered to 
have lost control of its internal discipline. Hagar has given 
Schwarzenegger an unspecified window of opportunity to restore the 
department's credibility -- a task that eluded his most recent 
predecessors, former Govs. Gray Davis and Pete Wilson, both of whom enjoyed 
close ties to the guards union.

Experts say the outcome will determine whether California's leaders can 
weed out rogue guards in its prisons.

Hearings Next Week

``The responsibility for changing the culture rests squarely on the 
shoulders of leadership,'' said Dennis Luther, a former federal prison 
warden and now a consultant. ``You can't discount it to bad policy or lack 
of resources or dysfunctional culture. It's up to the leader of the 
organization to change it by example.''

The prison system will remain under the microscope next week, when two 
Democratic state senators hold legislative hearings to examine problems in 
the way prison officials investigate rogue guards. The hearings will 
include testimony on the revelations arising out of Pelican Bay, as well as 
concerns about similar breakdowns at other prisons, notably Folsom, where a 
probe of a 2002 riot has been clouded in controversy leading to a 
management shake-up.

The hearings and Hagar's report all connect to a central theme: that the 
corrections department operates under a nearly unbreakable code of silence, 
enforced by the prison guards union with the tacit support of department 
leaders. According to the report, the union went out of its way for years 
to impede the federal criminal investigation into abuses by Pelican Bay 
guards accused of beating inmates, staging inmate fights and, in one 
instance, shooting an inmate.

``A minority of rogue officers can establish a code of silence . . . and 
create an overall atmosphere of deceit and corruption,'' Hagar wrote. ``If 
the minority are supported by a powerful labor organization, and the union 
as well as management condones the code of silence, the consequences are 
severe.''

Even the FBI had trouble with the code of silence. While the FBI was 
investigating Pelican Bay guards Edward Michael Powers and Jose Garcia, the 
union strongly discouraged guards from talking to agents, according to 
court documents. The stonewalling forced federal prosecutors to use grand 
jury subpoenas to haul reluctant guards into court.

``It was disturbing to me to see a law enforcement agency where that 
dynamic existed,'' said Melinda Haag, the federal prosecutor who obtained 
convictions for civil rights violations against Powers and Garcia.

Union officials say they vigorously defend the rights of the guards but 
don't silence whistle-blowers.

``There is a hesitance to judge your peers, but clearly there is a line . . 
. when a bad decision has been made and you have to report it,'' said Lance 
Corcoran, the union's executive president.

The code of silence is not a new dynamic for the corrections department. 
Nearly 10 years ago, Henderson, who has supervised Pelican Bay under a 
civil rights lawsuit, found major flaws in the department's internal 
mechanisms for investigating and disciplining guards for abusing inmates. 
The judge, who must review Hagar's findings, labeled department internal 
affairs probes ``counterfeit.''

Indeed, Robert Presley, secretary of the state's youth and adult 
correctional agency under Davis, said the department's handling of internal 
complaints always troubled him. The prison agency, now run by new secretary 
Rod Hickman, oversees the corrections department.

It ``was one of the things I complained about almost the entire time I was 
there,'' Presley said. ``I didn't think the quality was too good. That was 
a constant refrain of mine.''

Enforcing The Code

Now, Hagar has exposed the problem in an almost unprecedented fashion by 
directly accusing the department's top brass of enforcing the code of 
silence. According to his report, the department, after a briefing by Haag, 
the federal prosecutor, investigated allegations against three officers 
suspected of lying during Powers' and Garcia's 2002 trial.

The three officers, the report said, were suspected of lying about Powers 
beating two inmates and permitting the stabbing of another inmate. But at 
the March 2003 meeting, Alameida instructed his aides to end the perjury 
probe, according to testimony before Hagar.

Hagar has accused Alameida and at least one of his top aides, Thomas Moore, 
the former deputy director of the department's internal affairs unit, of 
lying during federal court hearings last fall about their handling of the 
matter. Moore, through the department, declined comment.

To Hagar, the actions of the managers known as the ``Directorate'' 
undermine the system and maintain the code of silence.

``The highest level of CDC officials must take decisive steps to control 
the code,'' Hagar concluded, but ``the Directorate did the very opposite.''
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MAP posted-by: Beth Wehrman