SACRAMENTO — In a departure from the last administration's practice, Atty. Gen. Bill Lockyer will form a team to investigate and prosecute prison guards accused of using excessive force against inmates.
For the last decade, as California prisons became the deadliest in the nation, the attorney general's office took a hands-off approach to prisons and left oversight of brutality and shootings to local law enforcement agencies.
Lockyer, sworn into office last month, vowed Monday that under his administration, prison guards who fire at inmates to stop fights will come under heightened scrutiny.
"Wherever there are allegations of serious misconduct, this unit would have the authority to investigate and prosecute," he said Monday.
"It represents a more comprehensive effort to address the claims of correctional officer misconduct," Lockyer said. "In the past, it would vary from county to county."
Now, he said, prosecutions in the 17 counties with prisons will be more uniform.
Details of the plan are being hammered out. Lockyer said he will ask the Legislature to fund the investigative team.
In taking the post previously held by Republican Dan Lungren, Democrat Lockyer promised a new approach in responding to brutality by prison guards.
Three weeks ago, his office agreed to scrutinize two dozen serious and fatal shootings of inmates at Corcoran State Prison for possible criminal prosecution.
His office agreed to investigate the cases after a special state review panel concluded last fall that five fatal and 19 serious shootings of inmates by guards at the San Joaquin Valley prison were not justified.
Lockyer stepped in to investigate the Corcoran shootings because the Kings County district attorney said he lacked the resources to conduct a thorough probe.
Lockyer said there is a likelihood of additional cases being sent to him from other prisons, thus prompting the need for a special unit.
Over the last decade, guards in California prisons have killed 39 inmates engaged in fistfights and melees, a practice unheard of in other states.
At Corcoran, guards killed seven inmates engaged in fistfights with fellow prisoners. Not one of the deceased inmates was carrying a weapon or posed an imminent threat of great bodily harm to another combatant--the state's standard for using deadly force, a Times review found.
