Court ruling, court incident start safety debate

EPHRATA — Court decisions on the rights of prisoners and a Dec. 11 incident at a Grant County Superior Court hearing have prompted a debate on keeping control during pretrial hearings of defendants coming to the hearing from the Grant County Jail.

As an interim solution county officials are using ankle bracelets that carry a charge. Known as stun cuffs, the bracelet “goes around the ankle of the unshackled inmates going into (Grant County) Superior Court,” said Joe Kriete, chief deputy with the Grant County Sheriff’s Office.

Currently the cuffs are being used only in Superior Court. The court had changed its procedure so that only one in-custody defendant at a time is in the courtroom, and that will continue.

However, in the long run “it’s got to be a group solution,” said Alan White with the Grant County Prosecutor’s Office. The prosecutor’s office, the sheriff’s office, court staff and defense attorneys all are part of that discussion, but any solution will cost money. And that will require bringing in the Grant County Commissioners.

The rulings in question came from the state’s appellate court; the court ruled prisoners could not be shackled in a pretrial hearing, finding it a violation of the prisoner’s Sixth Amendment rights. The incident involved Alejandro Rodriguez, 26, Soap Lake.

Rodriguez was in the courtroom, not wearing shackles, when he attempted to assault a Grant County corrections deputy. Officers were forced to tase him.

Since the court rulings, the presumption is that the person appearing in court should not wear shackles, White said, although the presiding judge can approve their use. Both prosecution and defense will have the chance to present arguments why, or why not, a prisoner should be restrained.

The Rodriguez case shows the dilemma, White said. The criteria for restraining a prisoner mostly pertain to conduct in jail, such as fighting with other prisoners or jail personnel, or the possibility the defendant would try to make an escape. Hernandez hadn’t caused trouble at the jail, he said.

Kriete said that’s part of the problem. “You cannot predict when an inmate is going to behave or not going to behave.”

However, Rodriguez was in jail due to an incident in August where he allegedly fired at officers, and was shot in return. Circumstances in the underlying case can be taken into account by the judge, but that argument wasn’t made in this case, White said.

One possible solution would be an enclosed box in the courtroom. Another would be a closed-circuit television system. Closed-circuit TV already is in use in Grant County District Court, White said.

The Grant County Department of Public Defense objected to every prisoner wearing shackles, and the idea of an enclosed box, in a brief filed Dec. 12. It said the box violated the rights of the defendant. “As much as shackling reduces a human being to a presumed-dangerous being, appearing in a cage furthers the subhuman image even more completely,” the brief said. “Perhaps most important from a constitutional standpoint, the in-custody defendant is treated differently from the out-of-custody defendant based upon nothing more than his or her inability to pay bail.”

The public defense brief argued that the state is required to use the “least restrictive means available” during court appearances.

A brief filed by the prosecutor’s office said the question of restraints in pretrial hearings “may need to be an ongoing discussion. One thing is clear, however. Lesser restraint is not offensive when balanced with the overwhelming need to protect human life and safety and maintain the decorum necessary to the administration of justice,” it said.

“While each defendant has a right to the presumption of innocence, that presumption applies primarily at trial.” The brief disputed the idea the only criteria for being in or out of custody was the ability to make bail. “This court has already made an individualized determination each in-custody inmate poses a flight risk, is a danger to the community, or both.”

The sheriff’s office has had the stun cuffs for about two years, Kriete said; mostly they were used in cases where prisoners were being transported and couldn’t be restrained.