California says lower court's order would free thousands

Posted by Gordon on June 16, 2010 at 8:00am

Supreme Court to review prison-overcrowding ruling
California says lower court's order would free thousands
By Ben Conery

7:44 p.m., Monday, June 14, 2010

The Supreme Court on Monday agreed to reconsider a lower court's order that California release tens of thousands of inmates because of overcrowding issues in that state's prisons.

A panel of three federal judges had previously ruled that California's prison overcrowding was the "primary cause" of inmates being denied their constitutional rights to adequate medical and mental health care. The judges said releasing inmates was the only solution to stop what amounted to constitutionally prohibited cruel and unusual punishment faced by the state's 165,000 inmates, the most of any state.

The judges order in that case, which originally dates back to 2001, requires the state to release inmates so its prison population reaches 137.5 percent of capacity in the next two years. The state's 33 prisons are currently at roughly twice their designed capacity.

The ruling could mean between 38,000 and 46,000 inmates would have to be released.

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, Republican state lawmakers and other state officials appealed the ruling by the three-judge panel to the Supreme Court, arguing the panel "entered an unprecedented order that intrudes on the state's authority over its prison system and constrains the state's ability to respond to problems within its prison system and more broadly throughout California."

"The three-judge court has dictated to the state the single method it must use (prisoner release) to address alleged constitutional violations involving health care," wrote lawyers for the governor, who suggested less drastic legislative or administrative measures could correct the problems resulting from overcrowding.

But lawyers for the inmates argued the state's appeal has no merit and is cast "in the broadest terms possible, invoking grand principles of federalism and judicial activism."

"There are, in fact, no substantial legal disputes," the inmates' lawyers wrote." The three-judge court issued the order on appeal cautiously, after all other efforts employed by the lower courts to remedy the constitutional deficiencies had been failing for years, and after the governor, the head of California's prison system and the court-appointed receiver all agreed that the prison crowding crisis in California poses a serious and immediate threat to prisoners' lives."

The Supreme Court will hear arguments in the case during its October 2010 term.

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2010/jun/14/supreme-court-to-review-prison-overcrowding-ruling/