CALIFORNIA MAY HAVE TOUGH BATTLE AHEAD IF IT APPEALS ORDER TO REDUCE
PRISON POPULATION

A federal court's sweeping order this week forcing California to cut
its prison population by 40,000 inmates may have been as predictable
as it was dramatic, a judicial thunderbolt state officials should
have seen coming for nearly two decades.

While putting Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's administration on the
clock to come up with a plan to cure prison overcrowding within 45
days, the decision by a unique three-judge panel was the product of
27 years of legal fights over California's ever-swelling prison
system. It also follows more than a dozen previous orders warning the
state that prison conditions had reached a bleak level of
unconstitutional conditions.

As a result of the prison system's checkered history responding to
court orders, state officials may have a tough time defending
themselves if, as expected, the state follows through with plans to
appeal the ruling to the U.S. Supreme Court. An appeal to the high
court would set up an unprecedented test of the power of the federal
courts to issue such a sweeping mandate under a 1995 law designed to
curb the federal judiciary's oversight of state prisons.

In the 184-page ruling, the three judges went to great lengths to
emphasize how much time California has had to solve its prison mess,
and why that warrants an order that would cut the inmate population
from about 150,000 to 110,000 in two years.

Appeal Likely

"Unfortunately," the judges wrote, "where the political process has
utterly failed to protect the constitutional rights of a minority,
the courts can, and must, vindicate those rights."

In separate interviews Wednesday, Matthew Cate, secretary of the
Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation, and Attorney General
Jerry Brown appeared to back an appeal to the Supreme Court.

Prompted by the state's staggering budget deficits, including a $1.2
billion hole in the corrections budget, the governor and corrections
officials already have a proposal on the table that could cut the
inmate population by about 37,000 inmates over the next several
years, a number not far from the court's target. But Cate and Brown
said that in addition to other differences with the court's order,
they dread allowing federal judges to dictate how the prison system is run.

"Federal courts coming in and putting a cap on the inmate population
is just too strong of a solution to the problem," Cate said.

Prisoner rights lawyers, as well as legal experts, say even the
conservative Supreme Court may be skeptical of the state's position,
given the lengthy legal battle over California's prisons. Tuesday's
ruling stemmed from two separate lawsuits, one a 1990 challenge to
mental health conditions in state prisons and the other a 2001 suit
over inmate medical care.

"These judges have been extremely careful to give the state more than
enough opportunity to demonstrate it had the ability on its own to
bring its medical and mental health system into compliance with the
constitution," said Kara Dansky, executive director of Stanford law
school's criminal justice center.

Lawyers for inmates say the state has essentially been on notice
since 1995, when a federal judge found after a trial that the state's
mental health care was constitutionally inadequate, just as a host of
new tough-on-crime measures were pushing the prison population well
over 100,000. Corrections officials have been scrambling to comply
with court orders ever since.

Deal Fell Through

In February, the three-judge panel warned after a trial that the
state had to devise a fix and cut its inmate population or risk a
court-ordered cap. State efforts to comply, including a near deal
this summer with lawyers for the inmates, went nowhere, triggering
this week's final ruling.

Many prison experts, including former Schwarzenegger prisons chief
Jeanne Woodford, testified that the system needed repair. Woodford
was traveling this week and could not be reached, but told the
judges: "I think it's unbelievable that in this state that we have
the kind of overcrowded conditions that we have."

This week's ruling, noting that by 2005 an inmate was dying
needlessly every six or seven days, suggested the state had a variety
of options that would not threaten public safety, including: using
good time credits for early release of inmates; diverting inmates who
violate parole out of the prison; shifting low risk offenders serving
short sentences to other programs; and adopting sentencing reforms.

Republican lawmakers and others have criticized the ruling, saying it
would jeopardize public safety. Cate and Brown are miffed the court
did not consider what they say are improvements in the last several
years in prison medical and mental health services, a point they plan
to make to the Supreme Court.

"It is hard to say how spending more on prisoner health care than
anywhere in the world is cruel and unusual," Brown said. "That's why
that appeal is probably necessary."

Legal experts, however, say the Supreme Court is likely to be less
focused on the factual findings of the judges and more on whether
they exceeded their authority under the 1995 Prison Litigation Reform
Act, which limited prison-related lawsuits but included exceptions
when overcrowding creates intolerable problems.

"If there ever was a case that fits under this law, this is it," said
Donald Specter, director of the Prison Law Office and a lead lawyer
for the inmates.

[sidebar]

PRISON TIMELINE

April 1990: Lawsuit filed in Sacramento federal court over inmate
mental health care.

September 1995: Federal judge finds that state"s mental health care
in prisons amounts to cruel and unusual punishment.

April 2001: Class action lawsuit filed over prison health care.

January 2002: State reaches settlement that requires widespread
improvements in inmate health care.

October 2005: Federal judge overseeing health care case finds system
"broken beyond repair," and appoints receiver to monitor prison system.

October 2006: California hits record prison population of more than
160,000 inmates, double capacity. Special three-judge court appointed
to oversee the two prison condition cases.

August 2009: Panel of federal judges orders state to devise plan to
reduce prison population by 40,000 inmates, finding overcrowded
prisons violate constitution.

Source: Mercury News reporting