[Ppnews] Judges tell state to free thousands of inmates

[Political Prisoner News]

Judges tell state to free thousands of inmates

Bob Egelko,Wyatt Buchanan, Chronicle Staff Writers

Tuesday, February 10, 2009

(02-09) 18:48 PST SAN FRANCISCO -- California needs to release tens 
of thousands of California inmates over the next two to three years 
to relieve overcrowding that has ravaged prison medical and mental 
health care, a panel of federal judges said Monday.

In what it labeled a tentative ruling, the three-judge panel said 
prison populations must be reduced so health care for inmates can be 
brought up to constitutional standards.

Crowding at prisons can be eased by measures that will not flood the 
streets with dangerous inmates, such as changing parole policies and 
sending some low-risk inmates to county custody, the panel said.

"The evidence is compelling that there is no relief other than a 
prisoner release order that will remedy the unconstitutional prison 
conditions," said the judges, who held a trial on prison overcrowding 
in San Francisco last fall.

California's 33 prisons hold nearly 160,000 inmates, about twice 
their designed capacity. The judges said they were prepared to impose 
a limit of between 120 and 145 percent of capacity, which would 
require 37,000 to 58,000 prisoners to be released.

The Schwarzenegger administration immediately announced plans to 
appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court once the ruling becomes final.

Matthew Cate, secretary of the Department of Corrections and 
Rehabilitation, said at a Sacramento news conference that the judges' 
order would put thousands of inmates back on the streets, posing "a 
significant threat to public safety."

Attorney General Jerry Brown, who represented the state, said the 
court "does not recognize the imperatives of public safety, nor the 
challenges of incarcerating criminals, many of whom are deeply disturbed."

But Donald Specter of the nonprofit Prison Law Office, a lawyer for 
inmates who sued the state, said the ruling validates the group's 
position that overcrowding is creating dangerous conditions that can 
be eased only by reducing the prison population.

"Much of the evidence showed that it's been done in other states 
without having any impact on public safety," Specter said. "It's 
safe, it's reasonable, it's necessary. It's too bad that it's taken a 
court to recognize this."

The case arose from past rulings by two of the panel members, U.S. 
District Judges Thelton Henderson of San Francisco and Lawrence 
Karlton of Sacramento, that concluded the quality of medical care and 
mental health treatment in California prisons violated the 
constitutional ban on cruel and unusual punishment.

Karlton first ordered improvements in mental health treatment in 
1995, and Henderson found that prison health care had been 
substandard since at least 2002.


Unnecessary deaths

In a 2006 ruling, Henderson said the $1.1 billion medical care system 
was causing the unnecessary death of one inmate per week. He said the 
state was incapable of repairing the system and appointed a manager 
to run it under his supervision.

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger called for a return to state control last 
month. He also has appealed Henderson's order that the state pay the 
first $250 million of the manager's $8 billion plan to rebuild prison 
hospitals.

In Monday's decision, the panel, which also includes Judge Stephen 
Reinhardt of the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San 
Francisco, agreed with lawyers for the inmates that "crowding is the 
primary cause" of the constitutional violations.

Because prisons are jammed beyond capacity, there aren't enough 
doctors and nurses to help all the inmates who need care, or enough 
staff to make sure they're taking medications, the panel said. 
Crowding at some prisons is so severe, with inmates being 
triple-bunked in gyms, that it has increased the risk of diseases 
spreading among prisoners and staff, the judges said.

They noted that Schwarzenegger declared a state of emergency for the 
prisons in 2006, citing overcrowding that endangered inmates and 
staff. That order remains in effect.

Prison crowding could be eased through a combination of increasing 
sentence reductions for good behavior, turning over low-risk 
prisoners to counties for incarceration or treatment, and changing 
parole policies that now return large numbers of inmates to prison 
for minor violations, the judges said.

They said the state would save nearly $1 billion a year, money that 
could be used for local prisoner housing and rehabilitation.


No help in sight

Although prison health conditions are improving under the direction 
of court appointees, the panel said, inmates are still suffering, 
with no immediate help in sight. Construction plans will take years 
to implement, even if the deficit-plagued state can find a way to pay 
for them, the panel said.

The judges ordered state officials to consult with the prisoners' 
lawyers and other parties in the case, including prison guards and 
county prosecutors, on any steps that might be taken to lower the 
prison population.

Specter, the inmates' lawyer, said he was prepared to resume 
negotiations, but added that "there's no point in talking" if 
Schwarzenegger maintains his refusal to consider any such measures.

E-mail the writers at 
<mailto:begelko at sfchronicle.com>begelko at sfchronicle.com and 
<mailto:wbuchanan at sfchronicle.com>wbuchanan at sfchronicle.com.

http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2009/02/10/MNGS15QM8V.DTL

This article appeared on page A - 1 of the San Francisco Chronicle




Freedom Archives
522 Valencia Street
San Francisco, CA 94110

415 863-9977

www.Freedomarchives.org  
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://freedomarchives.org/pipermail/ppnews_freedomarchives.org/attachments/20090210/61444b19/attachment.htm>