Pubdate: Thu, 23 Dec 1999 Source: San Luis Obispo County Tribune (CA) Copyright: 1999 The Tribune Contact: P.O. Box 112, San Luis Obispo, CA 93406-0112 Fax: 805.781.7905 Website: http://www.thetribunenews.com/ Author: Associated Press PAROLE BOARD ORDERED TO ACCOMMODATE DISABLED SAN FRANCISCO (AP) - The state parole board routinely violates disabled convicts' rights to equal access to their parole hearings and doesn't seem to care about federal anti-discrimination laws, says a federal judge. U.S. District Judge Claudia Wilken of Oakland condemned the Board of Prison Terms' practices Wednesday and issued a broad injunction requiring better facilities and treatment for the disabled. She said there was overwhelming evidence that the board "regularly, consistently and as a matter of routine practice fails to make its programs, services and activities available" to prisoners and parolees with physical and mental disabilities. The board, appointed by the governor, holds about 35,000 hearings a year. Most are to decide whether freed inmates have violated their parole and should be returned to prison. The other hearings are to determine whether inmates serving up to life in prison should be released on parole. Wilken cited testimony from a series of convicts at a 10-day trial last spring. "Some prisoners who use wheelchairs have had to crawl up stairs to get to their hearings," the judge wrote. "Mentally retarded prisoners who cannot even spell their names have waived their right to a hearing and spent years in prison without benefit of any assistance. "A blind witness was denied access to information at his hearings because he could not see the documents. ... Hearing-impaired prisoners who normally express themselves using sign language had their hands shackled at their hearings." She said she was "shocked to find that these things occurred with such frequency" and even more shocked by "the level of indifference to the basic rights of prisoners with these disabilities that the BPT exhibited." Board officials denied that any problems existed, blamed other agencies or the convicts. - --- MAP posted-by: Jo-D