Protecting Developmentally Disabled Prisoners.

Judge rejects lifting disabled inmate decree.

Bob Egelko, San Francisco Chronicle Staff Writer

San Francisco Chronicle September 17, 2010 04:00 AM Copyright San Francisco Chronicle. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

Friday, September 17, 2010

Nearly nine years after a federal judge ordered California to protect mentally disabled inmates in state prisons, those inmates are still being beaten, robbed and deprived of food and sanitation, the judge said Thursday in refusing to lift the decree.

Developmentally disabled inmates are "verbally, physically and sexually assaulted, exploited and discriminated against," and are receiving little help from prison officials and staff, said U.S. District Judge Charles Breyer of San Francisco, who presided over a six-day trial in May...

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