The LA Times reports on this order by the 3-judge federal panel (with EDCA judge Mueller) overseeing the California prisons overcrowding litigation that requires California officials to begin holding parole hearings for non-violent, 2nd-strike inmates who have served half their sentence by January.
But the panel held off making further rulings on other steps it had ordered California to take to reduce overcrowding, such as increasing custody credits minimum-security inmates receive for good behavior and participating in rehabilitation programs. Did the California Attorney General's office really argue that "if forced to release these inmates early, prisons would lose an important labor pool?" See LA Times