OAKLAND, Calif. (CN) — You can’t sit back and wait for things to happen. That’s the advice offered by retired U.S. District Judge Thelton E. Henderson, who oversaw a series of pivotal cases that helped improve conditions in California state prisons and combat racial bias in the Oakland police force.
Appointed to the bench by Jimmy Carter in 1980, Henderson served as a federal judge until 2017 and oversaw high-profile cases including one that required California to reduce its prison population in 2009, a decision upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court, and another in which a federal monitor was appointed to oversee Pelican Bay State Prison in the 1990s after Henderson found prisoners were subject to excessive force and inhumane conditions there.
Henderson reflected on his 37 years on the bench during a one-hour talk with U.S. District Judge Haywood Gilliam on Thursday as part of two-day seminar on racial bias in federal court organized by the Northern District of California Federal Practice Program.
Born in Shreveport, Louisiana, and raised in South Central Los Angeles, Henderson was one of only two Black students to graduate from UC Berkeley law school in 1962 before he became the first Black lawyer to join a new civil rights division at the U.S. Justice Department enforcing voting rights in the south.
On Thursday, Henderson described the tactics he used as a federal judge to bring radical change to government institutions, including the health care system that serves more than 100,000 California state prisoners.
In 2001, lead plaintiff Marciano Plata filed a federal class action accusing California of violating prisoners’ constitutional rights by failing to provide adequate medical care. The case was assigned to Henderson, who was dismayed to learn that a prisoner was dying every six days on average due to the lack of proper medical care.
“My view of my job as a judge is not to sit and wait until there’s a motion and rule on it,” Henderson said.
The retired judge said he explored every option, including consulting with prominent experts and sociologists, but was told it would take eight to nine months to make changes that could save lives.
“I said, ‘Are you kidding? Do you know how many people will be dead by then?’” Henderson recalled.
That’s when he decided to appoint a receiver to oversee California’s health care system for state prisons in 2005. It was an unprecedented move.
“I didn’t know what would happen if they would appeal,” Henderson said. “Fortunately, they didn’t.”
Today, California’s state prison health care system is still being managed by court-appointed receiver in a case that U.S. District Judge Jon Tigar took over after Henderson retired.
Henderson also oversaw a case filed in 2001 over the “Riders” scandal, in which four Oakland police officers were accused of kidnapping, beating, robbing, and planting evidence on residents of an impoverished West Oakland neighborhood.
In a 2003 settlement, the city paid $10.5 million and agreed to undergo extensive reforms overseen by a court-appointed monitor. While supervising the reform efforts, Henderson heard about a Stanford professor’s study that found a glaring racial disparity in Oakland police traffic stops. Henderson immediately sought out that professor, Jennifer Eberhardt, and asked her to help reform the department. Eberhard joined the independent monitor’s team and started teaching OPD officers about implicit bias and related topics.
“I learned that when you do this, you’re by no means going to turn around the entire department, but you’re going to turn around those that want to do the right thing,” Henderson said.
Another problem Henderson identified in the OPD was a “code of silence” among officers — the idea that officers should never “rat on” their colleagues when they use excessive force or engage in other misconduct. Henderson found an attorney to teach classes on how this “code of silence” is bad for police and the communities they serve.
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