Mule Creek State prison in Ione will be the first of 30 or so state penal facilities readying to carry out a federal court mediation agreement ending the use of race as the sole determining factor in making cell assignments. The ruling traces back to a 1995 lawsuit in which a black Californian prison inmate, Garrison Johnson, sued the California Department of Corrections, saying that the segregation of prisoners was a violation of their rights. The ruling was finalized in a 2005 Supreme Court decision that led to federal court mediation and an agreement that California’s double cells would be desegregated. The Sierra Conservation Center in Tuolumne County, or SCC, and Mule Creek will be the first to comply with the court order said SCC Correctional Lieutenant Kevin Wise. Both prisons are part of a pilot project planned for July 1st. While most inmates and correctional officials agree that it is a noble idea, many fear the worst. Traditionally, prison life dictates that people of different races avoid mixing with other populations. Gangs have traditionally formed along racial divisions. But according to Wise and other Correctional Officers, any tensions brought about by the integration will only be temporary. Additionally, the transition will happen through attrition. Incoming inmates will be placed in empty beds based on a "first available and appropriate" basis. "We don't anticipate any large-scale problems," he said. According to one officer at San Quentin State Prison, “The benefit is for inmates to live how they are supposed to live. It is rehabilitative. This is how we live in the world. It should be the same way in prison too.” The Texas prison system integrated its cells in the early 1990s and eventually saw a decline in racial tensions, said Professor Jim Marquart, chair of the criminology department at the University of Texas at Dallas, who studied the transition and is advising California during its process.