Posted on 07/27/2007 8:48:51 PM PDT by NormsRevenge
SACRAMENTO
Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger on Friday signaled his intention to appeal a federal court decision that orders a special judicial panel to examine severe overcrowding in California's prison system.
The governor's action comes a day after the chief judge of the U.S. Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals created the three-judge panel, following the recommendation of two federal judges.
The panel will be charged with examining how overcrowding is affecting inmate health care, mental health, services for the disabled and other prison operations. Among the possible remedies are a cap of California's inmate population and early release of some prisoners.
The three-judge panel could start meeting before the governor's appeal is being considered.
If it does, "We will show the panel the aggressive efforts being made by the administration to address prison overcrowding, explaining why a prison release order is not necessary," Schwarzenegger spokesman Bill Maile said. "We will continue to do all we can to ensure public safety."
The administration wants to avoid a federal takeover of the state prison system. It says it needs time to implement a $7.8 billion prison and jail building program approved by state lawmakers this spring.
The state also is transferring up to 8,000 inmates to private prisons in other states to ease crowding and adopting changes to its parole policies that are designed to keep more ex-convicts from quickly returning to prison.
In defending the state, Attorney General Jerry Brown said the Schwarzenegger administration has not had sufficient time to solve the overcrowding crisis but is taking significant steps to do so.
"The state is addressing the issue as evidenced by the landmark prison reform package, AB900, which was signed into law a mere two months ago, in May 2007," Brown wrote in the notice of appeal.
The potential of the three judges ordering the early release of inmates while the administration's appeal is pending "would pose a risk to public safety," the attorney general's office said in its filing.
The state also is seeking a stay of the federal judges' orders that would prevent the three-judge panel from meeting while the appeal is being heard.
"Their request for a stay is based on the same arguments that have already been rejected," said Don Specter, director of the San Francisco-based Prison Law Office, who favors the three-judge panel.
Last Monday, U.S. District Court judges Lawrence Karlton of Sacramento and Thelton Henderson of San Francisco ordered the panel to be created. In doing so, they ruled that the state's prison-building program is likely to make conditions worse because the corrections department already cannot handle the number of inmates it oversees.
The judges ruled that the crowding of 172,000 inmates into quarters designed for about half that number is contributing to unconstitutional conditions.
Karlton and Henderson were named to the special panel on Thursday by Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals Chief Judge Mary M. Schroeder. The third member is Appellate Judge Stephen Reinhardt of Los Angeles, a Yale Law School graduate who was appointed by former President Jimmy Carter in 1980.
"I don't think it particularly bodes well for the state's case," said state Sen. Gloria Romero, D-Los Angeles, an expert on prison issues who knows all three justices.
Reinhardt "is someone who values civil liberties, who values the U.S. Constitution," she said. He is likely to be sympathetic to the views of Karlton and Henderson, Romero said.
This week's legal maneuvering is the latest in a long series of court actions related to the state's prison system. Several class-action lawsuits have left federal and state courts in charge of employee discipline, inmate health care, mental health services, and the treatment of disabled inmates.
Hey, I have an idea. Build a fence and deport them. Works for me.
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