DA: Orange County jail probe conducted after inmate death finds 'institutionalized laziness'

Results of a grand jury investigation released Monday show that an Orange County sheriff's deputy watched TV and sent text messages while jail inmates beat a fellow prisoner to death.

The findings were compiled in a report released by District Attorney Tony Rackauckas, who told reporters the jail probe found "institutionalized laziness." He has said, however, that the grand jury could not find criminal negligence among jail staff.

The report pointed to systemic problems and abuses by deputies at the Theo Lacy Jail and raised questions about whether the Sheriff's Department tried to block or divert the probe.

"As the district attorney of Orange County and as a citizen and a taxpayer, I absolutely can't tell you how distressed I am at some of the evidence we uncovered," Rackauckas said.

"The main goal of the deputies described in this case was to do the least amount of work possible while collecting their paychecks," he said.

The county Board of Supervisors is in the process of creating an office of independent review to oversee the scandal-plagued Sheriff's Department, fifth-largest in the nation. Rackauckas said he would also press for an independent, civilian monitor to oversee the county's jails, which house more than 7,000 inmates.

Acting Sheriff Jack Anderson pledged immediate reforms and said an internal investigation was under way and could result in some deputies losing their jobs.

According to the report, the deputy in the guard station who would have had the best view of the 20- to 50-minute attack on John Derek Chamberlain watched the TV show "Cops" and sent 22 personal text messages during the Oct. 5, 2006, beating. A stream of inmates came and went from the area where the attack was going on, bringing water from the bathrooms to clean up the crime scene, the report said.

Deputies only reacted when an inmate stood on a table in front of the guard station and alerted them to the problem by waving his arms and screaming there was a "man down."

Nine inmates have been charged with the 41-year-old man's murder. No deputies were charged, but several high-ranking officials left the sheriff's department this year after the jail investigation concluded.

"This report establishes that the murder of John Chamberlain need not have happened. It may have been prevented if existing policies and procedures had been followed and enforced," Rackauckas wrote.

The report was another blow to a department that has seen its leader at the time, former Sheriff Michael Carona, abruptly retire this year to defend himself against federal corruption charges.

Carona was called before the grand jury probing the jail but invoked his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination and didn't testify, Rackauckas said.

The report said jail personnel regularly failed to patrol the jail, sleeping, watching TV and playing video games at their guard stations and using inmates known as "shot callers" to maintain order.

One grand jury witness, a deputy, testified that deputies on the night shift regularly slept on mattresses on the floor of the guard station with the lights off and blankets draped over the station's control panels.

Deputies also routinely ignored inmates' requests for medical attention because they involved complex paperwork. They also used a code called "10-12" to warn other deputies when supervisors were walking the jail floor and lied in shift logs.

An attorney who represented Chamberlain's father in a civil suit against the county said he wasn't surprised by the report. The suit settled for $600,000 earlier this year.

"That jail is worse than Saddam Hussein's jail in Iraq," said attorney Jerry Steering.

Chamberlain's father did not immediately respond to an interview request sent through his attorney.

The report strongly criticized the department for refusing to allow the district attorney's office to investigate Chamberlain's death, despite all "existing county protocol and historical precedent."

Rackauckas said the decision by the Sheriff's Department to investigate the death on its own came from "the highest level." He said, however, that prosecutors were never able to determine who made that decision.