Eastern District of California Blog

Federal Court Overcrowding Ruling To End "Nontraditional Beds" In California Prisons

California prisons mark a milestone Friday, when officials announce they have removed the last of nearly 20,000 extra beds that had been jammed into gymnasiums and other common areas to house inmates who overflowed traditional prison cells.

Inmates in rows of double- and triple-stacked bunk beds became "the iconic symbol of California's prison overcrowding crisis," Corrections Secretary Matthew Cate said in announcing an end to what the Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation formally calls "nontraditional beds."

Crowding was so bad that it was hours before guards discovered that an inmate had been killed in his bunk in a makeshift dormitory at the California Rehabilitation Center in Riverside County in 2005, former state corrections secretary Jeanne Woodford told federal judges in 2008.

The judges have since forced California to radically change the way it punishes criminals. The prison population has dropped by nearly 19,000 inmates since a new law took effect in October that is sending less serious offenders to county jails instead of state prisons.

California currently has nearly 142,000 inmates but must shed another 17,000 inmates to reach the June 2103 court deadline to reduce crowding in its 33 adult prisons. The federal courts ordered the state to reduce its inmate population as a way to improve inmate medical care, which was so inadequate that judges ruled it violated prisoners' constitutional rights.

San Francisco Chronicle, 3/2/12

California Says It Will (Almost) Meet Federal Court Prison Reduction Order

According to the Mercury News, 8/16/11,

California prison officials said Tuesday they expect to meet a federal court's mandate to reduce the state's inmate population by 33,000, or 23 percent, over the next two years, a goal that could eventually end court challenges that have largely driven prison operations for years.

The state is relying primarily on a controversial new law that will shift responsibility for tens of thousands of lower-level offenders to local sheriffs and probation offices beginning Oct. 1.

California will fall just shy of meeting the court's first deadline at the end of the year, the officials said in a court filing Tuesday, but their long-range plan to transfer jurisdiction over many criminals to counties is on track.

The Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation projects the law will reduce the population of the state's 33 adult prisons by 9,200 inmates in time for the initial Dec. 27 deadline, about 800 inmates short of the court mandate. It expects to meet the second deadline by removing 20,000 inmates by next June.

Although the state's plan to transfer inmates to local jails may satisfy the federal court's prison overcrowding order, many locals think the plan just shifts the fiscal burdens from the state to the counties and increases problems:

Los Angeles County supervisors on Tuesday condemned Sacramento's cost-cutting decision to keep some state prisoners in local lockups and have parolees be supervised by county agencies, asserting that both would lead to an increase in crime.

While discussing a prisoner transition plan submitted by Sheriff Lee Baca, Supervisor Michael D. Antonovich said he expected county jails to quickly run out of space if they must continue to handle the 7,000 low-level felons that courts normally send to state prison each year. The already-strained county Probation Department will also see an increase in probationers it must oversee.

"It's a system that's meant to fail," Antonovich said, "and who is it going to fail? Every neighborhood, every community where these people are going to be running around....It's a Pandora's box. It's the bar scene — a violent bar scene that you saw in 'Star Wars' — except they're all crazy and nuts."

LA Times, 8/17/11.  LA County is even thinking of contracting with Central Valley jails to house some of their inmates.  LA Times, 8/8/11.

California Spending Billions To Build New Prisons

As Texas and other states are closing prisons while still experiencing drops in crime, Sent. Law & Policy, 8/9/11, and even though Californians would prefer to reduce incarceration rather than pay for new prisons, LA Times, 7/21/11, this SF Chronicle, 8/14/11 story reports that California is moving forward on 13 prison construction projects costing billions more:

When the $33.6 million project at the California Medical Facility is completed this fall, prison psychologists and psychiatrists will have private offices to treat their patients, and inmates requiring inpatient care will have individual cells near a nurse's station, as required by law.

The building, which will include 64 cells, is one of 13 prison construction projects being funded by a $7.4 billion bond approved by the Legislature in 2007. It is all part of an effort by the state to comply with a court order to reduce overcrowding and improve health care in its prisons.

Even as the construction continues, however - and as the state continues to face pressure to reduce its prison population - there is debate over whether Democratic Gov. Jerry Brown should move forward with the projects.

Thirteen other states have seen their inmate populations drop and are working to close prisons - including Texas, which began shutting down a century-old lockup last week.

Some people think California should follow suit.

California Unlikely To Meet Federal Prison Reduction Order

Gov. Jerry Brown's realignment plan to shift thousands of inmates from state prisons to county jails will have a significant effect on prison overcrowding, a new report finds, but will still fall short of the court-imposed deadline requiring the state to reduce its inmate population by 34,000 over the next two years.

As a result, the state should heed the U.S. Supreme Court's suggestion that it ask for an extension of the deadlines to reduce prison populations, a report from the state's nonpartisan Legislative Analyst's Office concludes.

Mercury News, 8/5/11

California Budget Provides For Prison Reductions

California's budget provides the framework for the state to comply with a federal court order to slice its prison population by more than 20 percent over the next two years but also acknowledges the state is not likely to meet its initial deadline.

Plans for the change gained urgency this spring after the U.S. Supreme Court, on a 5-4 decision, upheld the authority of a federal judicial panel to order the release of inmates to relieve overcrowding and improve conditions.

The centerpiece of the state's response was funded in the budget that Gov. Jerry Brown signed last week. It will redirect $5 billion from state sales and vehicle taxes to local governments so they can accommodate some 40,000 lower-level offenders who otherwise would serve their sentences in a state prison.

While they provided the money, lawmakers also delayed the program to give the state and counties time to coordinate. The change will begin Oct. 1 instead of in July, making it unlikely the state can meet the federal court's Dec. 27 deadline to reduce its prison population by about 10,000 inmates.

"We're of the opinion that, based on the information that we have right now, that even if they started tomorrow they can't meet the benchmark," said Don Specter, director of the nonprofit Berkeley-based Prison Law Office, which has been a plaintiff against the state in several prison-related cases.

Whether the delay matters will be up to the three-judge panel that has been overseeing the case.

Mercury News, 7/4/11

 

3-Judge Panel Orders California Prison Population Be Reduced By 37,000 Within 2 Years

Since the Supreme Court's opinion affirming the 3-judge panel's prison reduction order became final with the issuance of the Court's judgment last Friday, the panel, including EDCA Judge Karlton, yesterday ordered that that the California state prison population be reduced by a total of 37,000 by June 2013, with the following interim cuts:  14,400 by the end of the year, 9,600 more by next June, and another 6,400 cut by December 2012.  LA Times, 7/1/11.

Prison: The Secret's Out by Matt Bors.

 

California's Response To 3-Judge Prison Overcrowding Order

No commentary or spin today, just the raw, unvarnished California Response to 3-Judge Prison Overcrowding Order, which was filed yesterday.  See also my Brown v Plata posts.

Governor Brown Says California Needs More Time To Implement Supreme Court Prison Ruling

Gov. Jerry Brown said Thursday he would likely ask federal judges for more time to reduce the state's prison population by more than 30,000 inmates.

The U.S. Supreme Court ruled last week that California's overcrowded prisons violate the constitutional rights of state prisoners, and gave officials two years to slash the number of inmates.

The Brown administration has to submit a plan to a three-judge panel by next week, outlining how it intends to move those prisoners out of state facilities.

But Brown said Thursday the timelines offered by the high court were unrealistic.

"It's going to take more than two years," Brown told reporters Thursday.

When asked if he planned to ask federal judges for more time to comply with the Supreme Court ruling, he said, "I'm looking at that option."

LA Times, 6/3/11.  More commentary:

"Dealing With California's Overcrowded Prisons, NPR, 6/5

"Now, California decides:  Who stays, goes in prisons?" Daniel S. Nagin and Dick Thornburgh, Sacramento Bee, 6/5

"Prison edict backlash reveals race bias," Michelle Alexander and Ruth Wilson Gilmore, Sacramento Bee, 6/5

"Flawed prison ruling undoubtedly will set felons free," George Runner, Sacramento Bee, 6/5

"Too costly for prisons," LA Times, 5/31/11

 

If A Picture Is Worth A 1,000 Words

 

Among the overall commentary on the Supreme Court's Brown v Plata decision, see, e.g., Sent Law & Policy, Scotus Blog, 5/24, Scotus Blog, 5/25, and Scotus Blog, 5/26, there's been lots of chattering about Justice Kennedy's use of these three photos in his opinion.  See, e.g., Sent Law & Policy, 5/23, SDFL Blog, 5/23, Slate, 5/23, and NY Times, 5/23.  I don't see what the fuss is about.  The photos are part of the court record and provide graphic evidence demonstrating the conditions in California state prisons.  The photo above is not from the Plata opinion, but is among many in the record from the website of amicus counsel.  RBG-Law selected trial materials.  A NY Times, 5/25/11 piece includes more recent photos and this graph to show that California prisons are still vastly over-crowded and provide inadequate medical care and mental health treatment.

With the trend toward fully electronic briefs, it's only a matter of time before photos and digital recordings are routinely inserted in briefs and opinions.  My only question:  if a photo is worth a 1,000 words, does a photo count toward the word limit in a brief? 

Supreme Court Affirms, 5-4, California Prison Overcrowding Release Order In Brown v Plata

"The Degree of Civilization in a Society Can Be Judged By Entering Its Prisons," Fyodor Dostoevsky, 1821-1881

Here's the first few paragraphs of the summary of the Supreme Court's, 5-4, Brown v. Plata (formerly Schwarzenegger v. Plata) opinion affirming the 3-district judge prison overcrowding release order from the Scotus Blog, 5/23/11:

With starkly different visions of what the decision would bring about, a deeply divided Supreme Court ruled on Monday that California may have to start turning loose many state prison inmates to relieve serious overcrowding that leads to health woes, deaths from neglect, suicides, and violent uprisings.  As the five-Justice majority saw it, the release order is flexible, and may not actually mean a flood of releases.  But as the four dissenters complained, it would lead to a “staggering number” of releases of hardened criminals in a “gamble” with the safety of all Californians.

Which vision proves to be true over the next two years, and beyond, depends upon what state officials do from here on: how they select the inmates to let go, what arrangements they can make to send prisoners to other states or to county jails, how they can reduce the influx of new prisoners into California’s 33 prisons, whether they can get money from the legislature for hiring more doctors and staff, and whether new construction can be carried out.  The majority stressed how much flexibility it was leaving with the state’s officials, but the dissenters saw only chaos in trying to implement a “deliberately ambiguous set of suggestions” on how the release order could be pared down.

What is directly at issue in the decision, and is to be implemented beginning with this decision’s announcement, is a three-judge District Court’s January 2010 order requiring the state to reduce prison population statewide to 167 percent of capacity within six months, to 155 percent within 12 months, to 147 percent within 18 months, and to 137.5 percent within two years.   The prison population state wide is now about 143, 400 inmates.   The order has been on hold until the Supreme Court ruled.

At the time the District Court issued its order, this release requirement meant that, at the greatest level, somewhere around 46,000 inmates would have to go free to meet the two-year goal.  That figure has dropped somewhat, and current estimates are that perhaps 37,000 will have to be released, unless state officials come up with alternatives to outright release.

More summaries and articles on today's decision:

ABA Journal

Josh Blackman's Blog

LA Times

Mercury News

New York Times

Prison Law Office

Sacramento Bee

Slate

Talk Left

WSJ Law Blog