Tricking Teenagers into Breaking the Law, Inmate Allowed to Sue Baca Personally, TX Gov. Perry and PREA, and an ALADS Story Update

RIVERSIDE COUNTY’S PENCHANT FOR UNDERCOVER HIGH SCHOOL DRUG STINGS

In 2012, Jesse Snodgrass, an autistic high school student in Temecula, was pressured into buying $20 worth of marijuana for an undercover officer posing as a new classmate and friend. Jesse—a kid who had no idea how to obtain marijuana before he was ensnared by an undercover sting operation—was thrown into the juvenile justice system.

And Jesse is not the only kid who has been solicited and entrapped by undercover officers posing as high schoolers in Riverside County. Jesse is not even the only special-needs student caught up in one of Riverside Sheriffs’ high school stings.

In an op-ed for the LA Times, Theshia Naidoo and Lynne Lyman (senior staff attorney and California state director for the Drug Policy Alliance, respectively) call Riverside County Sheriff’s Department and school districts to task for the “ill-advised” and harmful use of undercover drug stings in high schools.

Here’s a clip:

…Should we really allow adults to dress up as kids, embed themselves in school classrooms and trick children into breaking the law?

The Riverside County Sheriff’s Department regularly targets high school students, sometimes, as in this case, inspiring crime where it otherwise would not have existed. In the last four years, the department has staged four undercover sting operations in which adult officers, masquerading as high school students, repeatedly pressured students to obtain illegal substances for them. Over the last four years, nearly 100 students, a number of whom were special-needs students, have been arrested.

It is unclear why the Riverside sheriff continues to use this ill-advised strategy, and why area school districts continue to allow it. Such stings have been abandoned by many law enforcement agencies and banned by school districts across the country. The Los Angeles Unified School District hasn’t allowed undercover stings in its schools since 2004, when it concluded that they had the potential to harm students but had not reduced the availability of drugs on campus. The National Assn. of School Safety and Law Enforcement Officials has concluded that undercover high school operations have a high potential for bad outcomes for kids without evidence of corresponding good results for communities.

For a more in-depth account of Jesse Snodgrass’ “entrapment,” Rolling Stone featured an excellent longform narrative by Sabrina Rubin Erdely in their March issue. Here’s how it opens:

Jesse Snodgrass plodded around yet another stucco corner, searching for Room 254 in time for the second-period bell, only to find he was lost yet again. Jesse felt a familiar surge of panic. He was new to Chaparral High School and still hadn’t figured out how to navigate the sprawling Southern California campus with its outdoor maze of identical courtyards studded with baby palm trees. Gripping his backpack straps, the 17-year-old took some deep breaths. Gliding all around him were his new peers, chatting as they walked in slouchy pairs and in packs. Many of their mouths were turned up, baring teeth, which Jesse recognized as smiles, a signal that they were happy. Once he regained his composure, he followed the spray-painted Chaparral Puma paw prints on the ground, his gait stiff and soldierly, and prayed that his classroom would materialize. He was already prepared to declare his third day of school a disaster.

At last, Jesse found his art class, where students were milling about in the final moments before the bell. He had resigned himself to maintaining a dignified silence when a slightly stocky kid with light-brown hair ambled over and said, “Hi.”

“Hi,” Jesse answered cautiously. Nearly six feet tall, Jesse glanced down to scan the kid’s heart-shaped face, and seeing the corners of his mouth were turned up, Jesse relaxed a bit. The kid introduced himself as Daniel Briggs. Daniel told Jesse that he, too, was new to Chaparral – he’d just moved from Redlands, an hour away, to the suburb of Temecula – and, like Jesse, who’d recently relocated from the other side of town, was starting his senior year.

Jesse squinted and took a long moment to mull over Daniel’s words. Meanwhile, Daniel sized up Jesse, taking in his muscular build and clenched jaw that topped off Jesse’s skater-tough look: Metal Mulisha T-shirt, calf-length Dickies, buzz-cut hair and a stiff-brimmed baseball hat. A classic suburban thug. Lowering his voice, Daniel asked if Jesse knew where he might be able to get some weed.

“Yeah, man, I can get you some,” Jesse answered in his slow monotone, every word stretched out and articulated with odd precision. Daniel asked for his phone number, and Jesse obliged, his insides roiling with both triumph and anxiety. On one hand, Jesse could hardly believe his good fortune: His conversation with Daniel would stand as the only meaningful interaction he’d have with another kid all day. On the other hand, Jesse had no idea where to get marijuana. All Jesse knew in August 2012 was that he had somehow made a friend.

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APPEALS COURT AFFIRMS THAT INMATE CAN SUE SHERIFF LEE BACA PERSONALLY

In 2006, Juan Roberto Albino was booked into Men’s Central Jail under suspicion of rape. LA County officers placed Albino in general population where fellow inmates beat and raped him under the alleged mistaken belief that he had sexually assaulted a minor. Albino was attacked two more times, and hospitalized.

He asked guards to put him under protective custody on multiple occasions. They refused. Albino is now blind is right eye, deaf in his left ear, and walks with a cane.

Normally, under the Prison Litigation Reform Act, Albino would have to go through the jail’s internal complaint process, but Albino says officers never told him of existing complaint forms or procedures.

In a 9-3 decision, California’s full 9th Court Circuit ruled in Albino’s favor, allowing him to move forward with a lawsuit against LA County and (former) Sheriff Lee Baca.

Courthouse News Service’s Tim Hull has the story. Here’s a clip:

Los Angeles County jail officials ignored an accused rapist’s pleas for protective custody after inmates mistook him for a child abuser and brutalized him, the full 9th Circuit ruled Thursday.

Jailers housed the 5-foot-3, 123-pound Juan Roberto Albino in the general population of a high-medium security housing unit after booking him into the county’s Central Jail on suspicion of rape in 2006.

He was soon beaten, cut and raped by fellow inmates under the allegedly mistaken belief that he had raped a 16-year-old girl. Though charged with rape, Albino had not been arrested for abusing a minor.

Albino allegedly requested protective custody before and after he was attacked, but he said the guards always told him to talk to his lawyer.

The detainee suffered two more attacks in general population after a stay in the hospital. He now has nerve damage on the right side of his face, uses a cane, and can’t hear with his right ear or see with his right eye.

A federal judge awarded the county summary judgment on Albino’s pro se complaint after finding that he had failed to exhaust his administrative options through the jail’s formal complaint process.

Though a three-judge appeals panel affirmed, the 9th Circuit agreed later to consider the issue en banc.

The court revived Albino’s civil rights claims against the county and its sheriff, 9-3, Thursday, finding that guards had neglected to inform him how to file an official complaint…

“Albino was beaten several times and repeatedly complained orally to deputies in the jail, asking repeatedly to be placed in protective custody,” Judge William Fletcher wrote for the majority. “The jail had a manual describing a procedure for handling inmate complaints, but this manual was for staff use only and was not made available to inmates…

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AND WHILE WE’RE ON THE SUBJECT OF PROTECTING INMATES FROM RAPE…

An NY Times editorial directs some righteous indignation at Texas Governor Rick Perry’s refusal to comply with the federal Prison Rape Elimination Act.

Here’s a clip:

Mr. Perry’s complaints about the rules are without merit, but the governor wants to show that he’s opposed to federal oversight of any sort. Unfortunately, his cynical stance could prompt state corrections officials to ignore policies that protect inmates from sexual predation. The consequences could be terrible since the Texas system is replete with the sexual violence that prompted Congress to pass this law.

Mr. Perry announced his intention to flout the law in a March 28 letter to Attorney General Eric Holder Jr. He implied that Texas had its own rape-prevention measures and did not need federal oversight. Federal data consistently tell a different story. A 2013 study by the Bureau of Justice Statistics found that Texas had more prison facilities with high rates of inmate-on-inmate sexual violence than any other state.

There are several rules that seem to particularly irk Mr. Perry. One requires states to periodically audit rape prevention programs. Another requires them to certify that their prisons are in compliance. Mr. Perry complains that he couldn’t possibly certify compliance because he can’t audit all of the facilities covered by the law at once. However, the rules make clear that only one-third of the covered facilities need to be audited each year.

Moreover, the Justice Department has explained that the compliance process is flexible — the governor does not have to rely solely on audit data but can take into account internal reports or any other information that could be used to gauge whether the system meets the requirements of the law.

Mr. Perry also takes issue with a provision that sets minimum staffing levels for juvenile facilities so that young people are adequately protected from predators, including those who might be part of the institution’s staff. The levels set in the rules are consistent with those used in a dozen states and are deemed necessary to keep young people safe. The states are not required to reach those levels until 2017.

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AN UPDATE ON THE ALADS BATTLE

Last week, we reported on the power struggle between two factions of the LASD deputies’ union, and the $2.5 million in sheriff campaign PAC money at stake.

Finally, last Wednesday, in a welcome moment of sanity, LA County Superior Court Judge James Chalfant has declared the union leaderless until a court hearing on April 17. In the meantime, a panel of three individuals—one from each faction and a neutral party—will make union decisions. (Thank you, Judge Chalfant!)

The LA Times’ Cindy Chang has the story.