JUDGE REVERSES SIX CYA INMATES' TRANSFER.

Byline: Associated Press 

A Superior Court judge has ordered six transferred California Youth Authority inmates shipped back, raising questions about the transfer of hundreds of inmates to the state prison system.

``CYA had pulled the rug out from our clients,'' said Sacramento attorney John R. Duree Jr., who represented the six inmates who filed suit after they were moved from the CYA and its rehabilitation classes.

At the conclusion of a nonjury trial, Judge Darrel Lewis found that the CYA violated its own rules when the six inmates were moved to state prison in a mass transfer of nearly 800 inmates between August and December 1996. All of the transferred inmates were violent offenders.

The transfer began after the murder of a CYA counselor in Southern California and the passage of a new law lowering the upper age limit of CYA inmates from 25 to 18 as a way to alleviate overcrowding.

Lewis' decision applied only to Duree's six clients - minors from Ventura, Sacramento and Santa Clara counties who were tried as adults and convicted of murder. The attorney predicted that many other transferred inmates will file similar lawsuits.

CYA spokesman J.P. Tremblay declined to speculate on how the ruling may affect other transfers. He said CYA officials have not decided what to do about the decision.

``We are reviewing the ruling to determine what our response will be,'' Tremblay said.

The six transferred inmates remain in state prison pending a decision from CYA officials within the next week or two on whether to appeal.

As a condition of their life sentences, they were allowed to go to the CYA to take advantage of rehabilitation programs that are not as readily available in the state prison system.

Although each inmate would have been transferred to the state prison system by his 25th birthday, their stay at the CYA provided more opportunities for academic study and vocational training. One of the six was working on a college degree.

The legal battle focused on whether the transfers were justified under existing regulations, rather than the new law, said Deputy Attorney General Antonia Radillo.

``We felt a case-by-case consideration was given (each inmate) when the decision to transfer was made,'' Radillo said.

But Lewis said the case reviews were insufficient. CYA officials failed to follow their own regulations, which call for an ``analysis of the individual inmate'' before such a transfer can take place, the judge said.