STATE GETS TWO YEARS TO CUT 43,000 FROM PRISONS

Federal Judges Call Conditions 'Appalling' and Unconstitutional. A
Reduction Plan Is Due by Mid-September.

California must shrink the population of its teeming prisons by
nearly 43,000 inmates over the next two years to meet constitutional
standards, a panel of three federal judges ruled Tuesday, ordering
the state to come up with a reduction plan by mid-September.

The order cited Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's own words when he
proclaimed a state of emergency in the corrections system in 2006 and
warned of substantial risk to prison staff, inmates and the general
public, saying "immediate action is necessary to prevent death and harm."

Tuesday's ruling heightens the stakes for a legislative debate over
prisons that will take place later this month. As part of the
agreement to close the state's $26-billion budget gap, the governor
and lawmakers agreed to cut $1.2 billion from the prisons budget, but
postponed decisions on how to hit that goal.

The governor and most legislative leaders back a plan that would
reduce prison populations by as many as 37,000 over the next two
years using a combination of early releases, changes in parole
policies and shifting of some prisoners to county jails.

Debate on that plan will be contentious, with many Republicans
opposed. But the judges' ruling means that defeating the plan would
not only unravel a major piece of the budget agreement but also
potentially cede decision-making over prison policies to the federal courts.

Lengthy Process

The 185-page opinion follows a trial last year and nearly 14 years of
deliberations over lawsuits brought by inmates alleging cruel and
unusual punishment, which moved the state case into federal
jurisdiction. The opinion accuses the state of fostering
"criminogenic" conditions that lead prisoners and parolees to commit
more crimes, feeding a cycle of recidivism.

"The constitutional deficiencies in the California prison system's
medical and mental health system cannot be resolved in the absence of
a prisoner release order," the judges concluded.

They stopped short of issuing a release edict, though, giving state
officials 45 days to come up with their own plan for reducing
overcrowding while observing that alternatives to release, such as
building new prisons, were "too distant" and unlikely to be funded.

Atty. Gen. Jerry Brown said the state would comply with the order to
produce a plan, but repeated criticism that the judges had ignored
significant improvements made in recent years.

He said he doubts the U.S. Supreme Court, to which state officials
could appeal any release order, would find that current prison
conditions violate the Constitution.

"The courts are ordering the state to come up with a plan to release
all these prisoners, but the question is: Which prisoners? Release to
what -- halfway houses, GPS monitoring? And what happens when they
commit another crime -- do they come back? There's a lot that is not
clear," Brown said.

Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation Secretary Matthew Cate
said he hoped the judges would back down if state officials and
lawmakers make progress in reducing the state's prison population
this month, as planned.

The administration's proposal to cut the inmate population by 37,000
over two years could be approved by the Legislature with a majority
vote -- meaning no support would be needed by conservative
Republicans who threatened to scuttle last month's budget deal if
prisoner releases were included.

The governor's plan would allow the state to place on home detention
prisoners with less than a year left on their sentences and those who
are elderly or infirm. It would also change sentencing and parole
rules to reward those who show evidence of rehabilitation.

But Schwarzenegger may be reluctant to use the courts as a hammer to
push his plan through. Administration officials have repeatedly said
that the court has overstepped its boundaries. The overcrowding
problem, Cate said, is a state problem that needs to be fixed by the
governor and lawmakers.

"It is not the job of the federal court to do this," he said.

Noting the legislative session that begins in two weeks, Prison Law
Office Director Donald Specter, who brought the prisoners' suits,
said lawmakers now face the choice of being "part of the solution or
continuing to be part of the problem."

Potential Win-Win

Specter emphasized, as did the judges, that the ruling "doesn't mean
that 40,000 prisoners are going to walk out of prison tomorrow."

"If done right, this could be a win-win situation for the entire
state, as the prisons will be safer for my clients and the staff who
work there, taxpayers will save hundreds of millions of dollars a
year and communities will be safer as a result," Specter said,
pointing to the judges' opinion that prison conditions contribute to
repeat offenses.

The judges capped the prison population at no more than 137% of the
designed capacity of 84,000. That would mean release of 42,920
inmates to meet the population ceiling of 115,080.

Some lawmakers welcomed the ruling while others vowed to fight it.

"It's frankly a day of reckoning for those who have pushed for
constant sentence enhancements, who would decimate rehabilitation
programs and who oppose revenues to support state services," said
Assembly Speaker Karen Bass (D-Los Angeles), alluding to Republican
lawmakers' conflicting efforts to be tough on crime while cutting spending.

"Today's decision by the three-judge panel is a nightmare come true
for California families," countered Assembly Minority Leader Sam
Blakeslee of San Luis Obispo. "Any fair-minded court will see there
is no way to reduce our prison population by nearly 43,000 without
letting out some very dangerous criminals onto our streets and into
our neighborhoods."

The judges pointedly rejected any notion that conditions have
improved. Citing testimony during last year's trial by some of the
nation's foremost prison administrators, the judges said the experts
reported "they have never previously witnessed such appalling prison
conditions."

Until overcrowding is reduced, the state will be unable to provide
"constitutionally compliant care," concluded the panel comprised of
U.S. District Judges Thelton Henderson and Lawrence Karlton, and U.S.
9th Circuit Judge Stephen Reinhardt.

The judges said overcrowding at prison reception centers approaches
three times designed capacity, frustrating prison intake officials'
ability to identify incoming prisoners with medical or mental health problems.

Overcrowding has led to conditions that contribute to the spread of
disease, require increased use of lockdowns to control inmates, and
impede authorities' ability to provide essential healthcare, the
judges said. It also "worsens many of the risk factors for suicide
among inmates and increases the prevalence and acuity of mental
illness," they added.

Conditions are "often dangerous, and on many occasions fatal," the
judges said, alluding to reports that California inmates die of
treatable or avoidable illnesses at the rate of one per week.

Henderson, a judge of the U.S. District Court for Northern
California, seized oversight of the prison healthcare network in 2006
and appointed a receiver to fix the deficiencies.

J. Clark Kelso, the receiver, said in a recent interview that his
staff was making progress on a daunting array of projects but that
significant improvements remain at least a year away. He plans to
computerize inmate medical records, replace a deficient pharmacy
operation, build at least $2 billion worth of hospitals and upgrade
existing ones.