Gov. Jerry Brown has once again gone to the U.S. Supreme Court in an attempt to end federal oversight of the state’s prison system. However, the three–judge panel that established the federal oversight stated he has little chance of success.
The state cannot “challenge the legal conclusions on which a prior judgment or order” was made, the judges’ April 11 decision stated.
The judges noted the state already had exercised its right to challenge the three-judge panel’s conclusion that overcrowding was the primary cause of California’s unconstitutional prison conditions. The conditions prompted the court to establish an inmate population cap of 137.5 percent of designed capacity.
The state “appealed the 137.5 percent figure to the (U.S.) Supreme Court, and the court affirmed our conclusion.” The state “already lost this argument and they should not be allowed to litigate it once again,” the court stated.
The judges also criticized the state for changing its argument to the three-judge panel.
In 2009, the state alleged the prison overcrowding at approximately 190 percent of designed capacity was not unconstitutional. In its latest filings to the three judges, the state claimed that because it had greatly reduced the prison population, overcrowding is no longer the primary barrier to providing constitutionally adequate medical and mental health care to the prisoners.
The three judges determined that changing the argument amounted to an attempt to “re-litigate the 137.5 percent population cap.”
Moreover, the court found the state failed to demonstrate a long-lasting solution to prison overcrowding by announcing a plan to bring back to California approximately 8,300 prisoners housed in Arizona, Mississippi, and Oklahoma.
Bringing the out-of-state prisoners back would further increase California’s institutional prison population beyond designed capacity, the court found.
The judges noted that the state continued to suffer severe staffing shortages, insufficient treatment space, and a lack of beds for mentally ill prisoners, and cited that the state’s high rate of suicides is related to current overcrowding.
A release of comparatively low-risk prisoners slightly earlier than they would otherwise have been released would have “no adverse effects on public safety,” the judges concluded.