In more than 30 cases, lawyers who were disbarred or suspended from practice had represented death-row inmates.

Lawyers representing inmates said the correction officers attacked the inmates, lining them up and clubbing them in a corridor of the jail.

To speed the cases, the California Legislature has created a new state agency to recruit and train lawyers to represent death-row inmates.

That memo existed as a result of an agreement negotiated by the Federal Public Defender's Office, which represents inmates held at the institution before trial.

Other information, including videotapes, confidential Department of Corrections reports and depositions from prison monitors, was obtained by lawyers representing inmates and provided to The Times.

However, lawyers and groups representing inmates say the Southport riot is a harbinger of future explosions.

Legal Aid lawyers representing inmates say as many as 400 prisoners sometimes have to wait for days in large rooms that typically have no beds or chairs.

Another proposal would eliminate state aid for Prisoners Legal Services, a group that represents inmates in legal cases, most of them filed against New York.

Congress and many states have also cut financing, in some cases to zero, for lawyers who represent convicted death-row inmates for their appeals.