California wins two-year extension in fight over inmate releases

By Sam Stanton
sstanton@sacbee.com
Published: Monday, Feb. 10, 2014 - 11:10 am
Last Modified: Monday, Feb. 10, 2014 - 11:49 am

More than four years after a panel of federal judges ordered California to reduce its inmate population to 137.5 percent of capacity, the judges Monday granted the state two more years to get there, but said no further delays will be allowed.

The order issued by the three-judge court overseeing the prison overcrowding case gives California until Feb. 28, 2016, to get to the required level and mandates the appointment of a “compliance officer” to ensure that the state meets certain benchmarks along the way. The judges also ordered that the state not increase the number of out-of-state inmates – currently at 8,900 prisoners – to meet the order.

The extension is a major victory for Gov. Jerry Brown, who has been arguing that the state has done enough to relieve overcrowding and has insisted he will not allow a wholesale release of inmates to get to the levels ordered by the judicial panel.

The three judges, in an order issued Monday morning, acknowledged that they were “reluctant” to grant an extension of an order originally issued in August 2009.

But they added that promises from the state not to appeal the case further will help achieve the “durable solution” to overcrowding that has harmed the state’s ability to provide proper medical and mental health care to inmates.

“This should bring to an end defendants’ continual appeals and requests for modifications of this Court’s orders,” the judges wrote.

The three-judge court consists of Stephen Reinhardt of the 9th U.S. Circiut Court of Appeals, Thelton E. Henderson of the Northern District of California and Lawrence K. Karlton of the Sacramento-based Eastern District of California.

The state’s current inmate population for its 34 adult prisons is roughly 117,600 minmates, and the order requires the number to be reduced to 112,164.

The judges said the reductions to be achieved over the next two years can come from immediately increasing good time credits for non-violent, second-strike offenders and minimum custody inmates, expanding parole for medically incapacitated inmates, creating new rules to allow for parole hearings for inmates 60 and older who have served at least 25 years and other means.

http://www.sacbee.com/2014/02/10/614...extension.html