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IN THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE FIFTH CIRCUIT
_____________________
No. 91-3559
_____________________
HAYES WILLIAMS ET AL.,
Plaintiffs-Appellees,
v.
JOHN J. MCKEITHEN, ET AL.,
Defendants,
WILLIAM BELT, Sheriff of
Avoyelles Parish,
Movant-Appellant.
_________________________________________________________________
Appeal from the United States District Court
for the Middle District of Louisiana
_________________________________________________________________
(June 4, 1992)
Before HILL,* KING and DAVIS, Circuit Judges.
PER CURIAM:
Appellant William Belt, Sheriff of Avoyelles Parish,
challenges the denial of his February 1991 motion to vacate the
district court's September 1990 order directing Ross Maggio, Jr.,
a court-appointed expert, to inspect certain conditions of
confinement in Louisiana parish jails, including the Avoyelles
* Senior Circuit Judge of the Eleventh Circuit, sitting by
designation.

Parish jails. Concluding that the district court did not abuse
its discretion in denying the motion, we affirm.
This appeal relates to Louisiana's ongoing prison
litigation. In Williams v. Edwards, 547 F.2d 1206 (5th Cir.
1977), we affirmed the district court's judgment that Louisiana's
prison system was constitutionally deficient. Following that
decision, the Louisiana Department of Corrections attempted,
pursuant to court order, to develop a comprehensive plan for
bringing the state prison system into compliance. Incident to
that plan, the Department of Corrections called upon many of the
Louisiana cities and parishes to house convicted state inmates to
help alleviate overcrowded conditions in the state facilities. As
state prisoners began to arrive in numbers at local jails,
federal court suits ensued complaining of overcrowding. In
response, this court, in Hamilton v. Morial, 644 F.2d 351 (5th
Cir. 1981), ordered that all federal litigation pending or to be
filed against state, parish or local prison facilities relating
directly or indirectly to inmate population issues be
consolidated in the United States District Court for the Middle
District of Louisiana. Id. at 354. Subsequently, all Louisiana
city and parish jails entered into stipulations and consent
decrees to adhere to specified population limits.
As this court recently noted, neither Sheriff Belt nor
Avoyelles Parish was a party to the Edwards litigation. Williams
v. McKeithen, 939 F.2d 1100, 1105 (5th Cir. 1991). We are
advised, and we accept, that there has never been an adjudication
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of unconstitutional conditions of confinement at the Avoyelles
Parish jails. Nevertheless, Avoyelles Parish is a party to a
Stipulation and Consent Decree ("Avoyelles Parish Consent
Decree") which sets inmate population limits in the various
Parish facilities, determines the number of guards required to be
on duty and agrees that the state fire marshal and health officer
may enforce in state court the rules and regulations of their
respective offices. That Decree is signed by the Sheriff, the
fire marshal and the health officer. Significantly for present
purposes, it is specifically approved as "the order of this
Court" by the United States District Court for the Middle
District of Louisiana, and it was entered on the docket of that
court on September 9, 1982. That Decree has been amended
periodically to update the population figures.
The order of the United States District Court for the Middle
District of Louisiana that is complained of here ("September 1990
Order") is, like the Avoyelles Parish Consent Decree, a model of
brevity. It provides that, in order to update the consent
decrees at the various parish jails, the Court's expert, Ross
Maggio, Jr., shall make an inspection of each parish jail to
determine the number of inmates which may be housed in the jail
on a permanent basis, the number of guards and support personnel
that may be required in the jail, whether any repairs or other
renovations are required to meet fire, health and constitutional
standards and any other information which would aid the court in
setting population limits at the jail.
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Sheriff Belt and Avoyelles Parish take issue with the
September 1990 Order on the grounds that the entry of the
Avoyelles Parish Consent Decree did not give to the district
court jurisdiction over Sheriff Belt and Avoyelles Parish. They
argue that the Avoyelles Parish Consent Decree does not enable
the district court to assert general supervisory authority over
the Parish jails or permit even more limited supervisory
authority over inmate population limits or guard-to-inmate ratios
in the absence of a finding of violations of the consent decree.
We disagree. Whatever may be the case about jurisdiction
over Sheriff Belt and Avoyelles Parish generally, a matter which
we need not address, the Avoyelles Parish Consent Decree does
permit the entry of the September 1990 Order which is designed
for the narrow purpose of monitoring compliance with the Decree.
The district court did not abuse its discretion in denying
the motion to vacate the September 1990 Order.
AFFIRMED; STAY VACATED. MANDATE ISSUED FORTHWITH.
4