44 A ale 9alhoOliornittOie1u$ Thursday, November 19, 1981 U.S. agency angers White By Sam Kinch Jr. Austin Bureau of The News AUSTIN — Atty. Gen. Mark White, irritated that the U.S. Justice Department has continued to side with inmates in the Texas prison system lawsuit, said Wednesday he will still seek to ne- gotiate a compromise settlement. But he complained that the state's "good- faith effort" apparently didn't satisfy Justice De- partment lawyers, who he said have indicated "they will continue to persist in their demands for private rooms for prisoners." Texas made "a reasonable settlement . . . a reasonable offer" of a settlement to the Justice Department, White said, but it was rejected by the federal lawyers. "I am sure President Reagan doesn't know his administration is asking for private rooms for prisoners," the state's top law- yer said. The Justice Department had considered backing out of the 7-year-old prison suit, which it originally entered on the side of the plaintiffs, and Republican Gov. Bill Clements has asked the Reagan administration to do just that. But the federal government's lawyers moved Tuesday to keep pressing the inmates' case on all but one key point during the appeals process. White also said his staff will seek to repri- mand or remove "monitors" hired by Federal Judge Wayne Justice. Vincent Nathan and Wil- liam Babcock, who are officers of the "special master" overseeing implementation of Judge Justice's sweeping prison-reform orders, have become "advocates for the prisoners," White said. At a Friday meeting in Houston, the attorney general said, state lawyers will ask that Nathan and Babcock either quit leaking their reports to the news media or be relieved as "an unneces- sary adjunct to this (prison suit) litigation." White admitted that publication of the re- ports in the newspapers — before the state attor- neys see them — isn't likely to influence Judge Justice's handling of the case but can affect Tex- ans' attitudes. "They are being misled by these reports," he said. White said the most recent instance of a monitor's report being printed in the media, be- fore the judge or lawyers in the case saw it, was the worst because it is "an absolute falsehood." That report said prisoners held in a modified form of solitary confinement aren't allowed the judge-dictated hour's exercise period outside of their cells every day. But White said that at the current time, only 12 potentially violent offenders are denied that exercise period — strictly for security reasons. White said he isn't hopeful that the Justice Department will accept Texas' position that it's attempting to solve judicially condemned prob- lems at the prison system. But he noted that the state is investing $240 million in both temporary and permanent prison facilities to help solve overcrowding and is doing "everything within a practically and realistically attainable scope to accomplish our mutual (prison-reform) goals." White indicated that the state will stand firm, however, against Judge Justice's demand that the guards-to-prisoners ratio be increased dramatically. "I am sure President Reagan doesn't know his administration is asking for private rooms for prisoners." — Mark White