Sundance v. Municipal Court

Robert Sundance was a skid row drunk. By 1970, he had been arrested 300 times for public drunkenness in Los Angeles. During his periodic stays in the drunk tank, this son of a Sioux chief would read books from the jail library. He learned that the medical community regarded his condition as a disease. In another book, he learned that one judge regarded the court treatment of chronic alcoholics as a form of cruel and unusual punishment.

In a handwritten petition, Sundance asked for a trial to challenge his latest re-arrest. Federal Judge Warren Ferguson denied the petition but sent a copy to the Center. Center lawyers Tim Flynn and Carlyle Hall began to research the questions being raised by Sundance. They found that public intoxication was the highest volume crime in Los Angeles County, with approximately 50,000 arrests annually, mainly in the skid row area.

Up to 200 inebriates a day were jammed into dangerous "B-wagons" and transported to crowded drunk tanks without adequate medical treatment or supervision. When brought to court the next day, the "drunk court" judge would give them a choice—plead guilty and be released in one or two days or plead not guilty and remain in jail for 30 days awaiting trial. Almost 99% pleaded guilty. Some repeat inebriates were serving up to 325 days a year in jail.

Little use was being made of a Penal Code option to divert inebriates to civil detoxification facilities. Such diversion could be more beneficial for inebriates and cheaper for taxpayers—some $3 million a year compared to the $139 million a year spent to arrest and re-arrest public inebriates.

In 1975, the Center filed a lawsuit, with Sundance as lead plaintiff, that held the revolving door court treatment of inebriates was unconstitutional. After an eight-week trial, Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Harry Hupp ruled that the existing system was contrary to due process of law and that the drunk tanks and B-wagons did not meet constitutionally minimal standards. The judge agreed that the civil detox alternative could be a more effective approach.

With this ruling, police officials began utilizing the civil detox alternative. CLIPI lawyers took the lead in persuading local foundations, including the Weingart Foundation, to partner with the Community Redevelopment Agency to fund civil detox and rehab facilities in the downtown skid row area. Today, fewer than 300 public inebriates a year are being arrested by Los Angeles police. One rehab facility, the Weingart Center, has become a nationally famous leader in alcoholism treatment.

During the beginning of the litigation that bore his name, Sundance continued to drink. While in jail, he would try to deal with withdrawal symptoms like the DTs by reciting to himself the U.S. Constitution. After one re-arrest, he entered a detox facility and then enrolled in a rehabilitation program. After some 40 years of heavy drinking, he finally was able to go off the wagon. He was appointed head of the Los Angeles County Commission on Indian Alcoholism and continued to serve until he died of cancer.