State liable for prison-related trials, court rules
A recent Pennsylvania Supreme Court ruling has made the state financially liable for the cost of trials that result from criminal acts committed by inmates in state-run institutions. That means that counties such as Fayette and Greene, which both have maximum-security prisons, won’t have to foot the bill when inmates commit crimes while incarcerated.
Fayette County District Attorney Nancy D. Vernon said that, on average, the county has held about one trial per month relating to inmate crimes within the State Correctional Institution at Fayette in Luzerne Township.
Those have ranged from aggravated assaults, to incidents of spitting, urinating or throwing feces on fellow inmates or guards. The inmates have disrupted court, and sometimes come in smelling because they refused to bathe.
She said the cases end in trial, and while prosecuting them isn’t especially taxing, they add to prosecutors’ time in handling appeals.
“They’re as equally adamant about appealing their cases as they are about trying them,” Vernon said.
She said that the one thing the state prison has done is have a prosecutor go to the prison to handle preliminary hearings. Doing that alleviates bringing the inmates to the nearby office of Magisterial District Judge Mike Defino Jr., Vernon said.
And while a Fayette County judge moved one inmate’s trial to the prison, Vernon said that has been the only instance that occurred.
Greene County District Attorney Marjorie Fox said she could not estimate how many cases resulting from actions at the State Correctional Institution at Greene have come through county court in recent years.
“It really depends on the year … and what’s resolved without charges,” Fox said.
In the Greene court system, Fox said cases involving criminal charges against state inmates go “in waves.”
When there are more cases, Fox said it is a strain on court’s resources, and while the state police are not affected by this ruling, they also feel the burden of investigating cases beyond their typical caseload.
Inmate cases that come through Greene County typically result in a trial instead of a plea, Fox said.
The suit that spurred the decision was initiated by Montgomery County, but included 20 other counties where the state has prisons. Among those are Fayette, Greene, Somerset, Westmoreland and Allegheny.
The ruling, issued on Tuesday, confirmed a July 2005 ruling by the Commonwealth Court that ordered the state to repay counties for the cost of prosecuting cases that arise from the criminal actions of inmates in the state institutions.
The state Department of Corrections (DOC) had countered that, under a 2000 change in state law, the only cases the state had to pay to prosecute were escape cases.
DOC spokeswoman Sue McNaughton told the Associated Press that state prison system officials were disappointed by the ruling, and could not calculate the potential cost.
“Because we’ve never paid for them in the past, we believe it’s impossible for us to estimate at this point in time the financial impact this ruling will have on the (DOC) and the commonwealth, because criminal activity is difficult to predict and would vary from prison in prison,” she told the AP.
In 2000, the General Assembly amended a state law to make the state pay for “crimes and offenses committed on the ground or within the buildings of any state penal or correctional institution.” Before that amendment, the county footed the bill for prosecutions.
Because the Fayette prison houses “the worst of the worst,” Sheriff Gary D. Brownfield said he is especially glad that the staff has been so helpful to his office. Because so many of the prisoners. Brownfield said the state guards sometimes transport inmates to Fayette for court appearances and sit through inmates’ trials.
“There are 40 (inmates) over there that can’t even be housed with another human being,” Brownfield said. “They bend over backwards to help us.”
Bringing often-dangerous state inmates to the county also poses a security problem, Brownfield said. The deputies in the sheriff’s office are trained with Taser guns, and Brownfield said he’s working to eliminate everyone from the department from taking handguns into the courtroom.
He said the Tasers are effective because they present no danger to the person they are used on.
“If they get hit, they live to talk about it,” Brownfield said.
Transporting the prisoners also makes for concern, Brownfield said.
“You’re moving people out of an institution and through the community. They don’t care how much more time they’ll get or what they do. To them, it’s a ride through the country to the courthouse,” he said.
“Our main goal is to protect society and the people. These aren’t nice guys or they wouldn’t be in jail,” Brownfield said. “They have nothing to lose. Some have one or two life sentences. What can (the court system) give him? Another two to five years? It doesn’t matter.”
According to the DOC’s Web site, SCI-Fayette is a 53-acre, 2,000-bed prison. SCI-Greene is a close-security prison that houses most of the state’s death-row inmates.