LOS ANGELES -- A federal judge has issued an order temporarily banning the Ventura County Jail from strapping inmates to a restraining chair.
U.S. District Judge Lourdes Baird issued the preliminary injunction Nov. 15 in response to a request from four men who claim their detainment in the chair violated their Eighth Amendment guarantees from cruel and unusual punishment.Jail documents showed that in an 18-month period nearly 400 people had been detained in the Pro-Straint chair, said Sonia Mercado, co-counsel for the four men.
"Persons were placed on it from two to 32 hours," Mercado said. "People were frequently placed on the chair naked and told to 'hold it' or defecate or urinate on themselves."
The jail has stopped using the restraining chair since the court order, said Sgt. Jeff Allaire, watch commander at the jail.
The chairs place inmates in a slightly reclining position. Officials in Utah halted use of the controversial chair after an inmate who had been strapped into one there died.
One of the plaintiffs, Kurt Von Colln, claimed that he was tortured and humiliated while strapped in the chair. Von Colln accused sheriff's deputies of breaking his ankle and forcing him to urinate and defecate on himself in May 1996, after his arrest for public drunkenness.
Von Colln claimed that he was forced to sit naked in the chair for five hours without using the bathroom.
Jail officials have denied the allegations and said Von Colln was placed in the chair after exposing himself to jail employees and fighting with deputies.
The civil rights lawsuit also seeks unspecified damages, Mercado said.