Opinion ID: 2469678
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: campbell & kenton counties v. corrections cabinet

Text: In both Campbell and Kenton counties a suit was filed on behalf of county fiscal court alleging the Corrections Cabinet and the components of the state penal system had violated the duty imposed by KRS 431.215 and RCr 11.22 by refusing to accept transfer of convicted felons, the local jail was full to capacity and impaired in performing its functions because of overcrowding, the claimants have suffered immediate and irreparable damage of a continuing nature, and they are entitled to injunctive relief and damages for expenses incurred from the Corrections Cabinet's failure to comply with its legal duties. After an evidentiary hearing, the Campbell Circuit Court granted the requested injunction on February 27, 1985, ordering that all prisoners sentenced to a state penal institution presently incarcerated in the Campbell county jail should be immediately accepted into state penal institutions, and further ordering that in the future these prisoners should be accepted within ten days of sentencing or, if the jail had a population of sixty or more (the jail inmate population was limited to sixty-six by federal court order), the prisoners were to be accepted immediately. The Kenton Circuit Court had granted a temporary injunction of similar import on the day the complaint was filed. Neither injunction had been appealed. Subsequently, both Campbell County and Kenton County filed motions requesting the defendants, along with Steve Berry, Classification Manager in the Corrections Cabinet, be held in contempt for failure to accept all such prisoners as required. The circuit judges from each County held a joint evidentiary hearing on December 6, 1985, and on December 13, 1985, both issued contempt orders against the defendants. The orders gave ten days to accept these prisoners and thereafter the appellees were to pay a fine of $100 per day for each inmate still remaining in either jail. Additionally, Campbell Circuit Court ordered payment of an additional fine of $3,360 for costs incurred by the County in housing and transportation of inmates who could not be kept in the local jail because of conditions of overcrowding resulting from the failure to accept state prisoners, as well as payment of any actual expenses resulting from the housing of state prisoners in its jail. The Corrections Cabinet and other defendants appealed. While not denying they were refusing to accept prisoners as required by the court's order, they maintained successfully in the Court of Appeals that they were simply unable to comply with these court orders. The Court of Appeals recognized that both Campbell and Kenton Counties are under federal court orders limiting the number of inmates in their jails. However, the Court noted the Corrections Cabinet and its officials also faced difficulties in managing the (state) prison population, citing to the federal court order issued pursuant to Kendrick v. Bland, 541 F.Supp. 21 (W.D.Ky. 1981) and the space standards of the American Correctional Association which requires sixty square feet of space per inmate. Apparently, the Court of Appeals was satisfied that through the controlled intake procedure developed by the Corrections Cabinet and the efforts made to expand the number of beds in the system, the Corrections Cabinet and its officials were doing all that could be reasonably expected to comply with court orders. The Court of Appeals reversed the Campbell and Kenton Circuit Courts' judgments of contempt. The Court of Appeals' Opinion is challenged on three grounds: 1) The judgments first entered pursuant to the Complaints, enjoining the Corrections Cabinet and its officials from refusing prisoners, were not appealed and were therefore the law of the case. 2) The Court of Appeals' finding that the Corrections Cabinet and its officials are not in contempt because they are unable to accept these prisoners in present circumstances is a substitution of fact-finding, not just a different conclusion of law. 3) Assuming the Court of Appeals' decision should be treated as correcting an erroneous legal conclusion, nevertheless it is internally defective because, although it states [t]he judgment is reversed, there was no majority supporting the inability to perform defense. Of the three judges on the panel, one categorically accepted as a fact the impossibility of complying fully with the orders, a second concluded it was not absolutely impossible for the appellants to accept each properly sentenced inmate, and the dissenter stated this inability has not been adequately demonstrated. We accepted discretionary review.