ABUSE ACCOUNTS AREN'T PURSUED, INMATES TESTIFY

AUSTIN -- For the first time since 1986, U.S. District Judge William
Wayne Justice on Thursday heard testimony from Texas prison inmates
who recounted being raped, beaten, extorted and robbed by fellow
convicts -- and ridiculed or ignored when they complained to
corrections officers.

Justice instructed the inmates to "make a careful account" of any
retaliation against them when they get back to their prison units. He
said he would ask the FBI to investigate any recriminations as
obstruction of justice.

A half-dozen inmates told of being intimidated from the day they set
foot in prison, and they described a system that failed to prevent
their humiliating sexual assaults and rarely punished their violators.

"They believe I make the whole race look bad," said a white inmate,
who claimed he was ostracized by other whites after he was raped in
separate incidents by black and Hispanic prisoners.

The testimony came on the first day of a three-week hearing for
Justice to consider whether the 140,000-inmate Texas prison system
should be removed from the court-ordered supervision it has been under
since 1981, when Justice ruled that the system was unconstitutionally
crowded.

Based on a class-action lawsuit filed in 1972 by inmate David Ruiz,
Justice in the mid-1980s issued orders and approved settlement
agreements that still regulate the daily life of Texas' inmates.

But prompted by lawmakers and the state's newly sworn-in top lawyer,
Justice is pondering whether to terminate his role in the case, which
he largely relinquished in 1992.

Also, last year the 77-year-old judge went on senior status, leaving
his bench in Tyler for Austin, where he has taken a reduced schedule.

Attorney General John Cornyn, who took office three weeks ago, opened
the proceeding by declaring that the system "long ago achieved the
goals that this court set for us. After nearly 20 years of federal
court supervision, Texas should regain the right -- and responsibility
- -- to govern its own prison system."

Justice has indicated he will issue a ruling a few weeks after hearing
testimony from inmates, experts and state officials.

Greg Coleman, Cornyn's solicitor general, told the judge that the
state will show that dramatic improvements have been made since the
Ruiz case was tried. Crowding has been reduced through a
multibillion-dollar prison building program; inmates no longer sleep
on floors; inmate-to-staff ratios are close to national norms; guards
are better trained; use of force against inmates is more thoughtful
and less frequent; and medical care has improved radically.

As Coleman recited how health care had improved, Justice interjected
his own recollection that there was a time when inmates not only
served as nurses but were allowed to perform surgery.

Even with better conditions overall, Coleman conceded that "bad things
have happened" in some prisons, but he urged Justice to discount any
suggestions of a state-sponsored "conspiracy" to deny inmates their
constitutional rights.

"We have come a long ways," Coleman said.

Not far enough, countered inmates' attorney, Donna Brorby of San
Francisco, who said her clients are "the unseen and the unheard."

She said a policy of "deliberate indifference" toward inmates' needs
causes them "unconscionable suffering," and sometimes leads to
premature death, especially for those with AIDS, diabetes, cancer and
heart problems.

She estimated that 30 percent to 60 percent of the inmates get "poor"
or "very poor" health care, including inadequate assessments and
delays in treatment.

Brorby subpoenaed dozens of inmates. The first of them told of being
threatened by gang members upon his arrival in prison and of promptly
being raped, robbed and forced to pay for protection -- either with
commissary credits or sexual favors. One inmate described how he was
recruited by a corrections officer to deliver contraband tobacco to
inmates.

Some of the testifying inmates said they were moved from one prison or
wing to another after they filed complaints or pleaded for help. But
all agreed that they never were free from danger because complaining
got them branded "snitches" and their reputations followed them
wherever they went.

Two child molesters testified that guards offered them no help when
they asked for protection against predatory inmates who routinely
abused pedophiles.

A mentally impaired inmate said he was so distraught about being
sexually victimized that he threatened suicide -- and a guard offered
to provide him a razor blade to slash his wrists.

"Nothing has been done for me. They weren't going to get me help. They
don't care ... just don't give a damn," the inmate told Justice.

Ruiz, the inmate from Travis County who started the long-running case,
remains incarcerated near Huntsville at the Estelle Unit, where he is
serving a life term for aggravated robbery and aggravated perjury. He
is not expected to testify.