Metro news Friday, October 30, 1981 Houston Chronicle Section 4, Page .3 Federal judge lifts prison reforms deadline pending full appeal BY GLENN SMITH Chronicle Staff :HUNTSVILLE — A federal appeals judge has lifted a Nov. 1 •deadline given to the Texas Department of Corrections for ',"Accomplishing several reforms ordered by U.S. District Judge William Wayne Justice. Judge Robert A. Ainsworth Jr. of the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans on Thursday lifted the deadline pending full consideration by the appeals court of the depart- . snent's request for a stay of sections of Justice's order. Justice ruled after a trial in which inmates said conditions in the prisons were so harsh that convicts were being denied constitutional rights. Justice had given the prison system until Nov. 1 to provide at least 40 square feet to each inmate housed in a dormitory, to reach a guard-to-inmate ratio of 1:10, and to cease housing more than one prisoner in each administrative segregation cell. The prison system also was ordered to abolish the practice of using inmate turnkeys to open and close prison doors and to revise its inmate classification system by Nov. 1. This month Justice granted a correction's department re- quest that the Nov. 1 deadline for closing the Huntsville Unit Hospital be lifted, but refused to make other changes in his massive prison-reform order issued in December. In the temporary stay, Ainsworth ordered attorneys repre- senting inmates in the Ruiz vs. Estelle case to respond within 10 days to department's request for a stay. Prison officials have said it will be impossible for the depart- ment to comply with some of Justice's reforms. Bruce Green, TDC's attorney, declined to comment on the stay Thursday. Rick Hartley, administrative assistant to Director W.J. Es- telle Jr., has said the state Legislature appropriated enough funds to hire only one guard for every 10.5 inmates. He said the money is not available to hire enough guards to comply with Justice's ratio of one guard for every 10 inmates. Hartley also has said the prison system cannot meet lps- tice's order regarding its classification system. In the order, Justice ruled only minimum security inmates be housed. in dormitories. "We don't classify inmates as minimum or maximum Se- curity,' Hartley said. "That requirement presents us all kinds of problems. We just don't have the space to do it." Hartley said the prison system is forced to use inmate turnkeys to open some prison doors because of a lack of guards. The overcrowded condition of the prison also makes it impossible to provide more than 30 square feet for each inmate in a dormitory, Hartley said.