10D /The Houston Post/Sat., May 30, 1981 Texas prison case handling key to trend, Clements says Post Austin Bureau AUSTIN — Gov. Bill Clements said Friday the way the Justice Department handles itself in future prosecution of the Texas prison case will be a clear showing of the direction federal officials will take on all suits involving stand- ards in state prisons. The governor said Justice Department law- yers will be "less enthusiastic" about pushing for stricter standards in prisons than they were under the Carter administration. U.S. Attorney General William French Smith said Wednesday the Justice Department will reverse the hard-line stand of the Carter administration's last days, which was affecting the outcome of the so-called "Ruiz case" chal- lenging the constitutionality of the Texas prison system. The Carter administration Justice Depart- ment strongly supported prisoners' complaints about overcrowding, inadequate medical treat- ment and other aspects of Texas prisons in that case. "I had a long conversation with . . . Smith and his staff, and as I told you there had been a change in attitude, and it was reflected in their handling of the Ruiz case in Judge (Wil- liam Wayne) Justice's court . . ." the gover- nor said at his weekly news conference. Justice Department lawyers supported the state's request that Judge Justice delay for 30 days the entering of an order in the Ruiz case. The judge denied the motion. "I think that our Texas case is, in a manner of speaking, setting a precedent for some of the other prison standards and some of the prison cases across the country," Clements said. He said it would be a "matter of enthusi- asm" with which Reagan administration Jus- tice Department attorneys push for the stricter standards in state prisons and with which they support priso.iers' suits. "It has to do with how the assigned U.S. attorneys address themselves to the issues and how they try to proceed with the so-called 'minimum standards,' " he said. "There will be a relaxation of the minimum standards." David Dean, Clements' general counsel, said he had talked with Justice Department offi- cials Friday morning, although neither he nor the governor would identify the official. Dean said the agency's future policy will be "to view the totality of the regulations and not to try to impose rigid minimum standards" on state prisons in a blanket manner. Clements said the agency's decision would not affect Texas' plans to relieve overcrowding in its prisons, one of the chief complaints in Judge Justice's order calling for sweeping re- forms beginning this year. The governor said the state would continue to house inmates in borrowed Army tents, would step up the early release of some in- mates on parole into halfway houses and would go ahead with plans to build new units on an emergency basis.