SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — Lawyers for a woman who tried to assassinate President Gerald Ford in 1975 persuaded a federal judge to block a prison warden from taking away inmates' cell keys.
The Federal Correctional Institution in Dublin, the low-level security prison where Sara Jane Moore is serving a life sentence, is the nation's only federal women's prison that allows inmates to lock their own cells.
Inmates are prevented from escaping by an outer perimeter, and officials have keys to enter the cells.
Attorneys for Moore, 72, who shot at but missed President Ford, said taking the keys away would leave her susceptible to theft and attacks from other inmates.
U.S. District Court Judge Charles Breyer issued a temporary restraining order Friday blocking a change in the key policy. The prison discontinued the self-locking program briefly in 1987 but reinstated it after a rape occurred in a cell.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Mary Beth Uitti argued that the Bureau of Prisons was enacting uniform policies nationwide and didn't want to use the key system anymore. She added that the 1,080-inmate prison had become crowded.
Uitti said the government will consider whether to take the case to trial.